12
January
2005
|
20:46 PM
America/Los_Angeles

The three most common words people use to describe Steve Jobs: “visionary, genius and ***hole,” says angry author after being ejected from the MacWorld show

by Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher.com


Fredric Alan Maxwell, the author of the book “Bad Boy Ballmer” and a journalist for Newsweek, The New Yorker and Harper’s, claimed Michael Sponseller, head of PR at IDG, the organiser of the MacWorld trade show, stopped him just as he was about to walk into the auditorium where Steve Jobs was to give the keynote speech.


Mr Maxwell said his conference badge was removed from his neck and he was refused access. He had registered for the show about a month ago and was issued a badge earlier that morning. Mr Maxwell was told that there had been a mistake and that there was a limit on the number of authors allowed into the event. Even though Mr Maxwell is working for Penguin Putnam, a major book publisher, it didn’t matter. In his 18 months of research for his forthcoming book on Jobs, Mr Maxwell noticed that three words were common in descriptions of Job’s by his former colleagues: It seems Mr Maxwell was able to verify at least one of those terms.


Did Steve Jobs put out an APB on Mr Maxwell? His book on Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer apparently pulled few punches, something that Mr Jobs might expect is coming his way too when the book is published. My mother always told me you can catch more bees with honey than vinegar, Mr Jobs obviously prefers a preemptive strike with lots of vinegar.

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