When Steve Jobs Came Knocking

The offer Sony never saw coming

Not long ago, we explored How Sony Shaped Steve Jobs’ Vision. I recommend giving it a read if you haven’t. It helps explain just how deep Jobs’ admiration for Sony really went. That background makes this next chapter even more compelling. But it wasn’t just admiration from a distance. At one point, Jobs tried to take things even further. Far enough that it could’ve changed Sony’s entire trajectory.

By the early 2000s, Steve Jobs’ admiration for Sony had already shaped Apple’s design philosophy. But what few people knew was just how close the two companies came to merging more than just ideals. In a little-known meeting in 2001, Jobs made a proposal that could have changed everything.