Steve Jobs: "Please leave us alone."

I thought his response, though tactless and blunt, was refreshingly honest. He's running a business and the people in the PR department are not being paid to help students with their term papers. It could have been a learning experience for her but she apparently knows better. Perhaps she should count herself lucky that Steve didn't get to keep his ninja throwing stars when he left Japan the last time.

This girl was operating under the premise that her needs and desires are a valid claim on someone else's life. This premise is wrong, and the more anyone accepts it, the less successful they will be, not only in business, but generally in life. True success can only be achieved honestly, by trading value for value with others, voluntarily. This is something that can only be accomplished through focused effort, the maintenance of which is a painstaking task in itself!

Suppose that you were to get thousands of emails a day from strangers, all wanting a piece of you in some way. The only way to deal with this is to act on principle, which is exactly what Steve Jobs did.

I'm sure this is the yin/yang of Jobs personality. He has helped Apple to achieve a huge amount through his determination, but at the same time he can be direct (or more than direct) which naturally people take offence at. Previously I have read stories of how he can deal with employees, but now he's answering customers we are seeing some 'interesting' responses!

Wow. If this was really from Jobs, that is unbelievably bad for him and Apple.

I think everyone knew Jobs had this type of personality, but his recent screw-ups with this and the handling of the "antenna issue" (saying that people are holding the phone wrong) just show that, regardless of his health, this man should no longer front Apple.

Granted he is one of the personalities that makes the business. It's not hard to forget his history of (1) riding Woz's coattails to claim success for the original Apple computer, (2) jumping ship from the Lisa project he led to failure to the Mac and then taking credit for the Mac team's work, and (3) riding Jonathan Ive's coattails and those of Apple's impressive marketing for pretty much all recent Apple product successes.

I believe that he truly thinks he deserves what he has. I also believe that he has always thought of himself as above this customer base and his company. But, this is just nuts.

By replying even once, he gave her a gift far greater than some filler quote the PR group could have given her about iPads in education.

A good reporter would have run with that -- new headline: "Apple's messaging focus comes from the very top" -- rather than whine about the right way for a CEO to communicate. (A 22-year-old college senior's 'enraged' opinion about the right tone for Jobs to take, or what his PR staff should prioritize, just isn't very interesting.)

The girl has entitlement issues.

I have to defend jobs here. The PR department of Apple does not exist to assist students get their grades. Yes, a person can walk into a grocery store and ask to see the ledgers for a school project, when the clerk says "no" he can complain about not serving the customers, I've been coming here for years, etc. In the end of it all, the store is still dedicated to making money, their customer relations does not need or should not include their customer's school or personal wants from the company.

If, however, the customer walked in and said "please let me see your department of health inspection information," it would be a completely different issue, as that directly relates to the business.