Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs Read Online Free

ten months and you dickheads refused to replace it under warranty.”
    “Our iPod batteries last longer on average than batteries in any other music player,” I say.
    “I’m just saying,” Tom says. “The kid is tough. Don’t underestimate him. And whatever you do, don’t make fun of his name, unless you really want to piss him off. Apparently he goes nuts.
    Took a lot of shit for it at Harvard. Okay. Here, meanwhile, are the other bad guys.”
    He clicks through a series of photos of some dweebs in drab gray suits. These are lawyers from the SEC. From what Tom says they’re basically mindless, nameless, interchangeable bureaucrats, like the agents in The Matrix. They’re going to go through our books and look for mistakes, and most likely they’ll find something, because they always do, and we’ll have to pay a fine, and we’ll get hit with shareholder suits. The usual stuff. No big deal. The problem, Tom says, is Doyle. Doyle can do more than charge you a fine. He can put you in jail. And this is something he wants very much to do.
    “He wants to run for governor,” Tom says. “He figures he can make a name for himself by putting a few big names behind bars.”
    Tom’s idea is that we should conduct our own investigation. This makes us look like we’re taking this seriously and doing our best to get to the bottom of it. But it also lets us control the pace.
    “We need to get out ahead of this thing,” he says.
    Tom has retained a team of lawyers to do the job. He brings them in and introduces them. The one in charge is about sixty years old, with gray hair and very scary Paul Newman–style steel blue eyes. His name is Charlie Sampson, and according to Tom he’s an expert in securities law and also a former federal prosecutor.
    “Best of all, he’s a Yalie,” Tom says. “After Harvard Law School, he clerked at the Supreme Court, and then spent fifteen years as a prosecutor, during which time he put a Congressman in jail. In other words, Charlie knows how guys like Doyle think. He’s a valuable quarterback to have on our team.”
    Sampson gets up and thanks Tom for the kind words and then makes his presentation, introducing himself and the three guys who work for him and telling us about some past cases where they’ve helped companies deal with similar situations. His assistants are clean-cut Ivy League types with expensive haircuts and button-down shirts. Sampson tells us their names, but I’m unable to pay attention, because as Sampson is speaking, to my absolute horror, one of the young guys takes out a Windows laptop, which, at Apple, is about on the same level of etiquette as leaping up on a table at lunch and taking a crap in the veggie dip.
    I’m staring at him, aghast. The guy stares back at me, as if to say, “So, what are you gonna do about it?” I believe he is doing this intentionally to provoke me. There’s a twinkle in his eyes. I want to walk down there and rip his head off. But I don’t. I don’t even say anything. I look away and take deep breaths through my nose and silently chant my mantra until I can regain my composure.
    When I’m finally able to speak I say, “Tom, dude, I appreciate you going to all the trouble to line up these fine lawyers and everything, but it really seems to me that having these guys around could become a significant distraction, and seriously, dude, I don’t see that some letter from the SEC actually merits such a big response.”
    “First of all,” Tom says, “this is serious. Second, don’t call me dude. I’ve told you before. Don’t make me tell you again.”
    “Whatever, dude. But just because you woke up with sand in your crack I don’t think you need to fly in here and hassle us. But whatever. You go ahead. I need to get my harmony back.”
    Then I lean back in my chair and close my eyes and pretend I’m meditating, as if to say, Hey, asshole, wake me up when you’re done having your tantrum. It’s what I always do when people