When Steve Jobs Refused To Wear a Suit
It's no wonder Apple and AT&T can't cooperate to complete iPhone calls: The two companies can't even sync up over what to wear to their meetings. No one asks Steve Jobs to remove his black turtleneck. No one.
From the middle of a new Wired article on Apple's fractious relationship with its unreliable telco partner:
When an AT&T representative suggested to one of Jobs' deputies that the Apple CEO wear a suit to meet with AT&T's board of directors, he was told, "We're Apple. We don't wear suits. We don't even own suits."
Once AT&T had firmly established itself as a clueless bumbler, to both Apple execs and the public, Jobs ruthlessly let the company take the fall for calls dropped by Apple's bug-riddled "baseband" software, and for the European radio chips Apple had foolishly selected. Less time at the dry cleaner means more time to hone the PR strategy, after all. That's probably why, when he was knee-deep in saving Apple, Jobs wasn't even wearing pants: Reports from Time and others had him screaming at underlings in shorts, sandals and t-shirts. AT&T got off easy.