by Daniel Lyons
“It’s good we’re talking now,” he says, as we sit down across from each other in leather chairs. “Because as you can probably imagine, the sort of arrangement you’re looking for can take a bit of time to set up. It’s also expensive.”
“How much?”
“If you have to ask, don’t bother. This is last resort kind of stuff.”
“Just give me a number.”
“Five hundred million at the low end. Triple that is more likely in your case. More depending on how many family members are involved. Before you complain, remember what you’re asking for. Remember what happens to anyone who gets caught helping you.”
I suggest to him that it really would be much easier and much less expensive simply to have certain key people, for example Zack Johnson, terminated.
“Terminated?” He acts as if he doesn’t understand.
“Terminated,” I say, “with extreme prejudice.”
He sits for a moment. “We don’t do stuff like that,” he says, and gives me this look that lets me know I’m lower than whale shit for even mentioning it. “Anyway, from what I understand about your situation, terminating people isn’t going to solve your problem. There are records. Paper documents. Material on hard drives and tape backup systems.”
I suggest that we could start a fire. We could burn down the Apple campus. “We’ve got insurance.”
He tells me he’s sorry but this is not the conversation he came here to have. The conversation he is here to have involves the ins and outs of how I disappear without leaving a trace. Easiest thing is to go on vacation and stage my own death. Heart attack works best. Accidental drowning isn’t bad either, he says. Taking the family is an option, but it will cost me.
He goes on for a while, like a travel agent pitching destinations and package deals, explaining things about passports and paperwork, transportation and housing, front companies and private jets.
“So,” he says, wrapping up, “lots to think about, right?”
“You might say that.”
“You know how to reach me,” he says, and shows me to the door.
The whole meeting takes less than half an hour.
“What’d I tell you?” Larry says. “It’s a government shakedown, plain and simple. Either they make you pay a fine, or they charge you up the ass to get you out of the country. Either way, the fuckers in the government get paid. Bottom line is, you’ve got money, and the government wants it.”
Strictly speaking I’m not supposed to tell anyone about the meeting with Matt. But I need to talk to someone and Larry is the closest thing I’ve got to a friend. It’s two in the morning and I’m at his Zen palace. I knew he’d be awake. Larry’s like a vampire. He stays up all night and goes to bed at dawn. He sleeps in an oxygen-enriched room, which he claims gives him as much rest in four hours as a normal person gets in eight.
We’re sitting in his home theater. When I arrived he was watching 91⁄2 Weeks with his girlfriend. Now he’s sent her away but the movie is still playing, with the sound off. Kim Basinger is crawling around on her hands and knees.
Larry says he’s surprised that they won’t even consider killing Zack. He offers to make a few calls for me on this. I shake my head. He passes me the bong. He’s smoking this incredible red bud dipped in hash oil.
“Look,” he says, “before you go all weird and radical and start thinking about disappearing off the face of the earth, have you at least considered meeting with Doyle?”
“I’m having urinal cakes made up with Doyle’s face on them. Did I tell you that? I found a place in San Leandro that makes them.”
“Go talk to him. See what he’ll settle for.”
“The guy wants my head on a plate.”
“Correction. The guy wants to be governor. So give him what he wants. Let him win. Let him be the big hero who brought Steve Jobs to justice. Admit you’re a bad guy, take your punishment, pay your fine. Do some community service, pretend to be sorry. What do you care? If you’re smart you can turn it into a publicity stunt and end up coming out of it better than you went in. Plead guilty, pay a fine, go back to running your company. Fuckface can go run for governor and get his ass kicked by Arnold. I guarantee you the whole thing will cost a lot less than a billion dollars. I mean, what’s at stake here? How much are they saying you made on these options? Twenty million bucks? So pay triple damages, sixty million, and throw in forty more as a tip for Attorney Shithead, and you’re talking a hundred million. You can find that in the cushions of your couch.”
“Uh huh.” I’m kind of distracted by the weed. Or maybe by watching Kim Basinger with no clothes on. I’d forgotten how hot Kim Basinger used to be. I’m trying to remember if I dated her. I think I might have.
“One thing I do know,” Larry says, “is that no way could you go live on an island and not do any work. You’d go nuts. Hey.” He snaps his fingers in front of my face. “You there? Can you hear me?”
It takes me a long time to formulate a response.
“Dude,” I say, “this stuff is amazing.”
This time when we visit the U.S. Attorney’s office we go straight to the conference room. This time it’s just Doyle and Poon versus Bobby and me. No assistants.
“So you wanted to talk,” Doyle says.
“No bagels this time?” I say. “No small talk?”
He gives me a tight smile. Bobby DiMarco has told me in advance to let him do all the talking, especially because last time I managed to antagonize Doyle and Poon so much that they almost refused to take this meeting. But then Bobby starts talking and he’s just blabbering on, going mwah mwah mwah about about certain inducements and opportunities and risk assessments and benefits versus costs, and then Doyle starts doing the same thing back, and it must be some kind of lawyer-speak because they both really seem to be getting off on it.
Finally I just can’t take it anymore and I go, “Look, can we please just speak English? This is very simple. All I want to do is work. It’s the only thing that makes me happy. I don’t care about money. This problem that I’m having with you idiots is a distraction. I just want to make it go away. I don’t want to have to see you again. Okay? Nothing personal. But I’m busy. All I want to know is how much it will cost to make that happen.”
Doyle says it’s really not as simple as just walking in here and buying my way out of trouble.
“It’s not like paying a traffic ticket,” Poon says.
“Sure it is, Poontang. And here’s an offer. Whatever profits you frigtards think I made that were inappropriate, I’ll give them back. Plus I’ll pay a fine of one hundred million dollars. I’ll admit wrongdoing. I’ll do community service.”
“Wait, wait!” Bobby’s in a panic. He turns to Doyle. “We’re off the record, right? That’s not an official offer.”
“It is official,” I say. “I’m sick of this shit.”
Doyle sits there smiling. I guess he’s amused to see DiMarco unable to control his client.
“So?” I say.
Doyle says he appreciates my candor, and he’s glad that I’ve admitted to doing something wrong, but as he said before, this isn’t a problem that I can make go away by paying a fine.
“We’ve been talking with Zack Johnson,” Poon says. “We believe there may be more to this case than we realized. We’re convening a grand jury.”
I ask them how much money they think I could have made that I shouldn’t have made. They both say they have no idea.
“If you have no idea,” I say, “then what are you hassling me for? It’s like arresting me for stealing a car, but saying you don’t know which car I stole. Like, you’ll figure that out later, after you’ve got me convicted.”
“We’re not going to get pushed into settling on a number,” Poon says.
“Well, let me help you. My team figures it’s about twenty million,” I say. “I’ve offered to pay a fine that’s five times that amount.”
“And as we told you,” Doyle says, “it’s not that
simple.”
“So how about this. How about I pay a fine of one billion dollars?”
Bobby gasps.
“You can’t just buy your way out of trouble,” Doyle says.
“He’s right,” Bobby says. “And there’s no way you’re giving away a billion dollars.”
I don’t even look at Bobby. I’m staring at Doyle.
“A billion dollars. The offer is on the table. Biggest settlement ever made by any government agency. I’ll do it right now. We shake hands and we bury this thing.”
Doyle takes a deep breath, and shifts in his chair. He looks at Bobby.
“I don’t think your client fully comprehends what’s going on here.” Then, to me, he says, “You can’t just come in here throwing out some big number.”
“I’m not just throwing it out. It’s a real offer. And it’s on the table.” I slide an imaginary box onto the center of the table, in front of him. “It’s right there in front of you. A billion dollars. Take it. You’re the big hero who nailed Steve Jobs.”
“There’s no point in you doing this.”
“Au contraire,” I say. “There is most definitely a point. You know what the point is? To find out what you’re after. And now I know. I’ve offered you a billion dollars to settle this, and you’ve said no. Obviously you’re not interested in settling this. You want a big trial. You want the free publicity. You want to launch a political career, and you’re drafting on my celebrity to get yourself some attention. That’s what I’m comprehending. And that’s what I’m going to say when the Wall Street analysts and the media start calling me and asking me what’s going on. I’m going to tell them I offered to pay a fine of one billion dollars, and you refused.”
“I can’t believe you’d come in here making threats,” Doyle says.
“Well, believe it,” I say. “Because I’ll roll right over you, you fuckwit.”
He starts sputtering. “You of all people,” he says. “Facing the kind of trouble you’re facing.”
“You’re jealous,” I say. “You’re jealous of me because I’m richer than you, and I’m smarter than you, and I’m better than you. That’s what this is all about, right? You’re jealous. How sad is that?”
“I don’t think you appreciate who I am, and what I can do,” he says.
“And I don’t think you realize what will happen if I’m prevented from developing new computers. Do you want a world where everyone uses Microsoft software? Do you want that on your head? Because that’s what’s going to happen.”
“I like Windows,” he says.
“You what?”
“I think Windows is great.”
I’m astounded. I could fall out of my chair. Maybe this is because I live in the Bay Area, but in all of my life I’ve never heard anyone actually say that they liked Windows.
“You like rebooting twenty times a day?” I say. “You like having apps interfering with each other and causing the system to hang? You like having to go look up drivers? You like spyware?”
“That doesn’t happen on our machines.” Poon says. “And by the way, my Zune kicks the crap out of the iPod.”
“Come on. Please.” But then something occurs to me. “Wait a minute. Is Microsoft putting you up to this? Is that what this is about? Are they paying you? Friggin Gates. I wouldn’t put it past him. Look, whatever they’re paying you, I’ll pay you double that.”
Doyle tells Bobby, “I’m warning you right now. You need to get control of your client.”
Bobby puts his hand on my arm and says we should go. At this point I shift into my pissed-off three-year-old routine: crying, shouting, pounding my fists on the table.
“You’re killing me!” I say. “You’re killing me! You’re trying to kill me!”
Doyle stands up. Poon does too. He’s smiling so hard it looks like his face is going to crack. He’s loving this.
“Thanks for your time,” Doyle says. “We’ll be in touch.”
Outside, Bobby and I stand on the steps watching traffic go by on Golden Gate. Bobby is being all weird and quiet. He hasn’t said a word since we left the conference room. It’s just past noon, and the plaza is filled with frigtards having their brown bag lunches and talking about last night’s American Idol, or whatever it is that frigtards discuss at lunch. For a moment I almost feel jealous of these morons. I wonder what it would be like to be fat and oblivious and blissful, munching away on a sandwich made of cancer-causing chemical-laden cold cuts and thinking how great life is.
“Steve,” Bobby says, “I’m sorry to say this, but we’re going to have to rethink our arrangement.”
“What, you’re raising your rates now, because I’m a difficult client?”
“Um, no. Not that. I’m resigning.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m dropping you as a client. I don’t handle Kevorkian cases.”
“Kevorkian cases?”
“Assisted suicide. It’s not my bag, baby. You need to find a different lawyer.”
“Look, Bobby. I’m sorry. Okay? I’ll behave better.”
“No you won’t. You can’t. It’s not in your nature. I told Tom this from the start. There’s only one kind of person that I won’t represent. You know what that is? Sociopaths. You know why? Not because they’re evil. Because they don’t take direction. They don’t listen. You know what else? Every CEO I’ve ever met is a sociopath.”
He takes a pair of Oakley sunglasses from the breast pocket of his suit jacket and slides them onto his face. He gives me a big
smile, and shakes my hand. “Good luck to you,” he says, and takes off down the steps, his gelled hair glistening in the sun. No great loss. Frankly I didn’t think he was doing such a hot job anyway.
One of my great strengths—maybe my greatest strength— is that I never listen to anything that anyone else says. But somehow that comment from Bobby D. about me being a sociopath gets stuck in my head. And it’s bugging me. I keep asking myself, “Am I really a sociopath?” Certainly there is evidence to support this thesis. Zack Johnson hates me. My wife almost hates me. My board hates me. My management team hates me, so much that they’ve leased a building for me in a different city and stuck me out there by myself. Even Ja’Red refuses to work with me. He’s staying at headquarters and sends me my mail by courier.
So maybe I am a sociopath. Certainly my soul has gone down a dark path. For this I blame the corrosive, karma-destroying people with whom I now must associate. In the old days my job involved hanging out with geeks and engineers, throwing parties in the parking lot on Friday night and going out for pineapple pizza and talking about microprocessors and memory caches. I loved that life. I loved making products. I loved the moment when you put together a prototype and you flip the switch and the electrons begin coursing through the circuits and suddenly, as if by magic, your machine comes to life.
But that’s not my job anymore. Now my job involves flying back and forth to Los Angeles and having meaningless meetings with shitbags from the music and movie business.
Consider that the day after Bobby tells me I’m Charles Man-son Junior, I’m all by myself in the Jobs Jet, zipping down to Los Angeles, where I’ll ride by myself in a limousine and stay by myself in the penthouse at the Chateau. The only interactions I’ll have are with people I absolutely despise. They make my skin crawl, every single one of them.
I swear they are the darkest souls on the planet. I feel nauseated just being in a room with them, having to breathe the same air as they do. I need to wash in holy water after I spend time in their presence. These aren’t engineers or inventors. They don’t create anything. They don’t build anything. All they do is make deals. They’re criminals, basically.
Worse yet, there is no point to any of these meetings. It’s all a form of Kabuki theater. All of the actual work gets done by lawyers. Nevertheless, every record label boss and movie studio chief insists on having a million meet-and-greets with El Jobso, where we both have to tell each
other how important the other guy is and how much we value this relationship and how important it is to build personal connections and to have respect for one another.
Of course as soon as I turn my back they lie and cheat and go back on their word. These are people who will look you in the eye and tell you something, then turn around later and swear they never said any such thing. You can spend years negotiating a deal with these sons of whores, fighting over every sentence, every word, and finally you come to an agreement and you think, “Okay, we’re done.” But you’re not done. Signing a piece of paper means nothing. It might as well have never happened. They just keep at you, every day, pushing, cheating, pushing some more, changing the terms, trying to raise the price of songs above ninety-nine cents or to find a way to get a bigger slice for themselves. It’s like being attacked by bees. You’ve got this swarm of crooks feeding on you.
That’s how I feel every time I’m in Los Angeles. These guys are like a cross between Tony Soprano, Bill Gates, and the monster from Alien. Even when you catch them cheating they don’t apologize. They just move on to the next swindle. And they’re really good at it, because they’ve been doing it for so long. They’ve spent decades practicing on recording artists and actors and screenwriters. But their biggest skill doesn’t involve being extremely sly or clever—it’s simply having the balls to be brazen and shameless and just plain awful. They’re like guys who steal purses from old ladies. It’s not that it’s hard to do, but what kind of person does it? This is the movie business. This is the music business. They’ve been operating this way for so long that they don’t know any other way to behave.
This trip to Los Angeles begins with a meeting at Disney. First Iger has to spend thirty minutes giving me grief about the Pixar options stuff. Then we have a meeting with Michael Jackson, who is shopping around a superhero movie called Holy Man. Disney has no intentions of ever making this movie, but Iger and his guys thought it would be hilarious to hear Michael make his pitch. Twenty top Disney execs are sitting around a table, and Michael’s Fruit of Islam bodyguards are assembled all around the edges of the room. Then Tito comes in and does a big introduction and goes, “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you . . . Holy Man!”