Meeting Steve Jobs
June 25th, 2008 by admin
Despite the tease offered by the title of this post, I wasn’t the one who met him.
The Audion creators were.
This story is an excellent retrospective on building a business from the co-founder of Panic Inc:
http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/
Like the earlier post on Geosign, it offers a cautionary tale of what happens when relying on a single company for success. In this case, it involved negotations with AOL, and later the possibility of an acquisition by Apple. The Audion retrospective also includes a couple of passages when the founders meet Steve Jobs, which give some good insight’s into Jobs’ strategic thinking and the company’s attitude towards acquisitions.
I’m glad this story has a happy ending too. From the conclusion:
If we could do it all over again, would we change anything?
You know what? No, we don’t think so. Panic is still here — almost quadrupled in size! (Okay, so that’s from two people to eight as of this writing, but next stop: NASDAQ!) And while we may not be rich, we consider ourselves incredibly fortunate — we’re doing what we love, making enough money to at least pay the bills, and enjoying every minute of it. Not everyone on this Earth is in such a lucky position. And while we may not have made iTunes, or the iPod, or retired to Antigua, we continue to follow our hearts, learning new things daily, and we consider ourselves seriously lucky bastards.
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