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Comment by commandar | Hacker News Reader

Steve Jobs at D8:

“When this whole thing with Gizmodo happened, I got a lot of advice from people that said you’ve got to just let it slide. ‘You shouldn’t go after a journalist because they bought stolen property and tried to extort you.’ And I thought deeply about this, and I concluded the worst thing that could happen is if we change our core values and let it slide. I can’t do that. I’d rather quit.”

It's funny because my advice to Steve throughout this ordeal would be akin to "retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it."

Perhaps Steve should widen his perspective a bit and realize that it's much easier to accept something is "not worth it" when you don't feel like you're the one that's been wronged. He should know.

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Having something stolen from your company and having a product you just purchased, which is 100% refundable not work exactly as you had hoped, are hardly the same thing as far as I'm concerned.

Further, had Jobs decided to just let that incident go, it could encourage similar acts of espionage in the future as people would think they could get away with taking a device that's not theirs and selling it in the same manner.

On the other hand, had this customer decided to let it go and just return the iPhone and grab, for example, an Android device, there would be few consequences.

It's one thing to get frustrated about someone stealing/selling your items. It's very much another to feel a sense of entitlement for something you purchased which is returnable for a full refund and demand compensation or otherwise instead of just getting a refund.

The point is that if you read the public comments Steve's made about the Gizmodo affair, it's very clear that he took the entire thing very personally. For Steve, it became personal, whereas it was simply business for Gawker.

A customer angry about a flawed product isn't upset because it's a phone; they're upset because it's their phone. It's personal for them.

I'm not saying that the two situations are perfectly analogous (though, as a disclaimer, I do think Apple handled the Gizmodo thing poorly): what I am saying is that it's much easier to tell somebody else to not take things so seriously when you're not the one that's internalized the problem.

For Steve, it became personal, whereas it was simply business for Gawker.

In general, this is how it works for public figures and the press.

Well, and there you have Gawker's great miscalculation in the whole ordeal - they expected Apple to react as a business entity rather than as a proxy for Steve Jobs himself.

These are really not the same things at all

1) stealing business secrets (and paying for stolen goods)

2) being unhappy with a $199 purchase

In the first case, a single Apple employee was being careless. In the second case, the entire company was being careless.

Sounds like Apple is following Jobs' advice, actually...

You need to include the number of instances of harm in this sort of calculation. Is someone who steals $1000 from one person a worse criminal than someone who steals $1 from a million? Many people purchased defective goods, but only one corporation had its secrets stolen.

Not 100%, but rather 90% refundable. Link: http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/salespolicies.html

[search for restocking fee]

> Except where prohibited, a 10% restocking fee will apply to any non-defective item

If you can prove its defective, there is no restocking fee, alternatively, they'll likely replace the phone with an new one if it is just a problem with certain models.

What are you talking about? Look at this: http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/06/29/leaked-apples-inte...

Apple claims this is the best that they have ever had and have explicitly advised their support staff that this is not a problem. Their recommendation is to just hold differently. In other words, its the user who is defective, not the phone.

Just how do you propose anyone proves its defective given that, and avoid being charged the restocking fee?

In practice, you walk into the store, tell them its not working properly and they will either take back the item you have claimed to be defective or replace the item.

In general, Apple's retail stores are extremely straight forward, offer great customer service, and don't yank you around like other brick and mortar retailers.

It may be hard to "prove" it's defective when Apple's stated position is that it's not.

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