Steve Jobs Defied Convention, and Perhaps the Law
Despite the strict language of the Sherman Act, the Justice Department tends to file criminal antitrust charges only in the most egregious cases, and by that standard, Mr. Jobs would probably never have been charged. Still, Mr. Jobs’s conduct is a reminder that the difference between genius and potentially criminal behavior can be a fine line. Mr. Jobs “always believed that the rules that applied to ordinary people didn’t apply to him,” Walter Isaacson, author of the best-selling biography “Steve Jobs,” told me this week. “That was Steve’s genius but also his oddness. He believed he could bend the laws of physics and distort reality. That allowed him to do some amazing things, but also led him to push the envelope.”
.. But why would Mr. Jobs even have tried to skirt the law, given how much was at stake? Mr. Isaacson said that he couldn’t comment on specific cases, but noted that “over and over, people referred to his reality distortion field.” Mr. Isaacson added, “The rules just didn’t apply to him, whether he was getting a license plate that let him use handicapped parking or building products that people said weren’t possible. Most of the time he was right, and he got away with it.”