book Becoming Steve Jobs reveals a multitude of interesting information about the life behind the facade created by the former CEO of the American company, and today we are talking about the episode of Jon Rubinstein's departure from Cupertino. Steve Jobs and Jon Rubinstein, an important Apple manager, were good friends for many years, but in 2006 he made the decision to leave his friend and the company that "raised" him to join Palm and create products competitors with those developed in Cupertino.
Rubinstein has been employed by NeXT since the 90s and he came together with Steve Jobs at Apple after the purchase of the company, he being one of the important people who participated in the development projects of the iPhone and other innovative products launched in the following years. Almost a year after leaving Apple, Rubinstein sent an email to Steve Jobs announcing his intention to take over the position of CEO of Palm, the former Apple CEO needing only 4 seconds to nervously call the former or employee and friend.
He couldn't understand. He said, 'You've got plenty of money, why are you going to Palm?' I'm like, 'Steve, what are you talking about? I mean, you've got orders of magnitude more money than I have and you're asking me? Are you joking?
The phone conversation between the two would be the last they ever had, Steve Jobs feeling betrayed by his former friend's decision to leave the company that created him to join a competitor that would launch products from the same categories like Apple. Despite the fact that Steve Jobs saw Rubinstein as a competitor, Palm helped Apple to grow and develop important products through the competition created on the market, Palm's products failing to have the success that was attributed to them.
