Posted on Friday, October 21 2011 @ 13:23 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
A new Steve Jobs biography written by Walter Isaacson reveals Apple's former head made a vow to destroy Google's Android because he saw the operating system as "grand theft" of iOS. The author of the book, who conducted more than 40 interviews over two years with Jobs, writes Jobs told former Google CEO Eric Schmidt that he wanted the stealing to stop, and that he
wasn't interested in any monetary settlement:
"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs said. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."
Jobs used an expletive to describe Android and Google Docs, Google's Internet-based word processing program. In a subsequent meeting with Schmidt at a Palo Alto, Calif., cafe, Jobs told Schmidt that he wasn't interested in settling the lawsuit, the book says.
"I don't want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want." The meeting, Isaacson wrote, resolved nothing.
The 630-page book also reveals formerly unknown facts about Jobs' personal life, including that Jobs initially refused surgery to treat his cancer. Jobs put off surgery for nine months, relying instead on non-conventional treatments including fruit juices, acupuncture, and herbal remedies. Later Jobs embraced medical science, he was one of the 20 people in the world to have all the genes of his cancer tumor and his normal DNA sequenced, enabling doctors to tailor drugs and target them to the defective molecular pathways.
His early decision to put off surgery and rely instead on fruit juices, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments — some of which he found on the Internet — infuriated and distressed his family, friends and physicians, the book says. From the time of his first diagnosis in October 2003, until he received surgery in July 2004, he kept his condition largely private — secret from Apple employees, executives and shareholders, who were misled.
Although the broad outlines of Mr. Jobs’s struggle with pancreatic cancer are known, the new biography, by Walter Isaacson, offers new insight and details. Friends, family members and physicians spoke to Mr. Isaacson openly about Mr. Jobs’s illness and his shifting strategy for managing it. According to Mr. Isaacson, Mr. Jobs was one of 20 people in the world to have all the genes of his cancer tumor and his normal DNA sequenced. The price tag at the time: $100,000.