∞ Report: Papermaster had a falling out with Steve Jobs

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The only thing worse at Apple than being involved in a product launch that doesn’t go as planned, is not getting along with Steve Jobs. When you do both, you know your days are numbered.

Apple confirmed on Saturday that Papermaster is leaving the company, but wouldn’t give any reason. Considering he headed the engineering teams for the iPod and iPhone, it is widely believed that the iPhone 4 antenna issues are a big reason for his departure.

However, a report in the Wall Street Journal adds another twist to Papermaster’s departure. The report suggests that a falling out with Steve Jobs may have added to the reasons for him leaving the company.

Speaking to people familiar with the situation, WSJ.com said “Mr. Papermaster had lost the confidence of Mr. Jobs months ago and hasn’t been part of the decision-making process for some time, these people said. They added that Mr. Papermaster didn’t appear to have the type of creative thinking expected at Apple and wasn’t used to Apple’s corporate culture, where even senior executives are expected to keep on top of the smallest details of their areas of responsibility and often have to handle many tasks directly, as opposed to delegating them.”

Papermaster’s duties will be handled by Bob Mansfield, senior vice president of Macintosh hardware engineering.


  • WooDz

    I was under the impression that the iP4 has been the most successful product launch Apple has ever had. It is a shame the antenna which is actually a brilliant idea, doesn’t quite come up to scratch. However; I find it harsh that Mr. Papermaster should loose his job over one small error. I’m not sure I’d like to work for a company who has a zero tolerance policy (or so this and other media sources seem to imply.)
    General Motors seem to have the same working ethics and actively have plants battle against each other for survival. Maybe having to work under continuous pressure that you may lose your job for any mistake you may make is a common occurrence in America but for me I’ll say no thanks.

    We are human we are not perfect and I believe statistically we have a 95% efficiency rate. I didn’t buy the Original iPhone because it didn’t have video. I didn’t buy the 3GS because it looked cheap and tacky. I have had 2 cases where I lost the signal during a call and I wasn’t moving at all. just standing still. That’s 2 phone calls in the apparently 23 hours and 56 minutes of call time I’ve conducted with the phone. It’s not worth calculating but I’d guess it’s less than 5% of all calls I’ve made.

    So a great designer looses his job over a ‘mole hill’ if you get the expression.
    That doesn’t sound right or fair.

  • Peter Cohen

    “So a great designer looses [sic] his job over a ‘mole hill’ if you get the expression. That doesn’t sound right or fair.”

    You’re assuming that Papermaster lost his job as a result of the antenna issue, but there’s no evidence to suggest that. We don’t know *why* Papermaster lost his job. He’s not saying, Apple’s certainly not saying, and anything other than that is, not to put too fine a point on it, a wild-ass guess at best.

    • WooDz

      The Loop
      “it is widely believed that the iPhone 4 antenna issues are a big reason for his departure.”

      So it’s ok for The Loop to speculate but if a commenter highlights the point it’s a wild-ass guess. Don’t jump down my neck because of what was quoted.

      • Peter Cohen

        There’s a difference between reporting what’s being said and pontificating on it as a statement of fact.

        • WooDz

          Well actually nothing has been said and ‘the loop’ are the ones speculating it as fact with the words “widely believed.”

          It seems your interpretation of those two words is different to mine. Maybe it’s a language barrier problem?

          Still… A good man leaves Apple for whatever differences he and Apple have.

          • http://mangochut.net mangochutney

            I don’t think you can interpret The Loop’s reporting on the conclusion that lesser media outlets jumped-to as speculation.
            But maybe my understanding of the language is flawed, since I’m not a native speaker.

            I don’t doubt Mr. Papermaster might be a good man, but maybe he’s not a good man for Apple,
            which is what counts here.

  • http://theuniversalsteve.com SSteve

    The antenna issue is more of a PR problem than an actual product issue. My money is on Papermaster not fitting in the culture (and thus winding up on Steve’s s**t list). At least he wasn’t publicly deleted from Steve’s Favorites list like his predecessor Tony Fadell. (At about 28:30 at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/mwsf07/)

    • http://mangochut.net mangochutney

      I agree with SSteve.
      It’s possible that Mr. Papermaster couldn’t get used to the rather flat management structures present at Apple and the responsibilities associated with it.
      He came to Apple from IBM, which is a textbook example for a vertical top-down-management approach.

      Because of that, I don’t think the antenna issue was the reason for Mr. Papermaster’s departure from Apple. The benefit of a flat management structure comes down to what Mr. Dalrymple wrote:

      “… where even senior executives are expected to keep on top of the smallest details of their areas of responsibility and often have to handle many tasks directly, as opposed to delegating them.”

      You can expect that Mr. Jobs knew about the positive and negative implications of this antenna design since the first prototype was built and tested.

  • Belius

    This is a monumental error on Apple’s part. I can see the industrial design guys not wanting to shield the antenna so it won’t ruin the looks and the marketing guys not wanting to delay the product for a redesign and the manufacturing guys not wanting to scrap all the case parts and the engineering guys not wanting to admit to a stupid design error all fighting with the quality and reliability assurance guys about what to do when the problem surfaced during the field test period before the product was released. With industrial design, marketing, engineering, and manufacturing minimizing the problem, you can see how the quality assurance guys were overruled. Jobs apparently had the last word and made an incredibly dumb decision to go ahead with product release.