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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Monday, January 01, 2007

We call it "The Hurd Defense"

I'm not sure what's funnier, what Apple actually did this week or the way Mac-friendly bloggers and Web sites lapped it up and declared that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had been "cleared" of wrongdoing. I'm pretty sure that Apple actually announced that Jobs knew about and participated in wrong-doing, but it's fun to spin things in a completely new direction. Anywho, here's the best write-up I've seen about this contradiction. I'm pretty sure this was meant to be funny, too, though I find it kind of sad:

Did illegal activities occur? Yes. Was the current CEO in charge at the time of the illegal activities? Yes. Did the current CEO authorize said activities? Yes. And benefit from them? Yes. Therefore, the CEO is not responsible. And we think it's best that he stick around and clean house. Makes sense, right? This is what we are working with the SEC and other government authorities on right now. Our position is, Look, we've already done the investigation for you, we got to the bottom of it, and at this point we're really not in the mood to authorize you folks to do your own investigations since you'll just be duplicating efforts. So here's our report, make as many copies as you'd like, read it over the holiday break, and let's move on with a fresh start in the new year and get back to making beautiful products that restore a sense of childlike wonder to people's lives.

So this is exactly what happened. But hey, we're too concerned about whether Stevie will introduce the iPhone at Macworld to worry about trivials matters such as this or the numerous lawsuits now facing the company, including a federal monopoly suit that was just upheld by the by the courts. So I understand why someone might ignore the stock options misconduct, as it's not exactly a fun technology issue. But please don't pretend that Jobs was just exonerated. That's simply not true.

[ Posted at 12:57 PM | Permalink ]