Jony Ive describes the moment he stopped fearing Steve Jobs

Getty Images/Michael Kovac

Apple’s industrial design chief Jony Ive was extremely close to Steve Jobs, but in his earliest days he wasn’t sure if Jobs liked him very much.

In fact, he was so convinced he might get fired that he carried a resignation letter in his pocket to his first meeting with Steve.

That clearly changed — Jobs said he knew Ive was a “keeper” right away, according to Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli’s book “Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart Into a Visionary Leader.”

Schlender and Tetzeli’s book also reveals the first time Ive felt comfortable around Jobs.

Here’s an excerpt from the book in which Ive describes the moment he and Jobs first clicked:

Nevertheless, Jony had remained intimidated during that first year, fearful that if he did a single thing wrong he’d have to pack his bags. Such was Steve’s reputation. While Jony thoroughly enjoyed the process of working with the boss on that very first iMac, he always felt self-concious when trying to describe some of his design decisions to Steve. But a visit to Pixar helped him realize that he and his boss were on the same wavelength.

“When we visited Pixar with the first model of the iMac, it was a revelation, because I didn’t know Steve very well, even then,” says Jony. “But to hear his introduction of me to the whole of Pixar, I realized that he really understood what I was try to achieve at an emotional level. At some level, he know what I was trying to articulate.”  

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