Bill Clinton: Steve Jobs’ Go-Between
What do people do when they can’t talk to Steve Jobs? They talk to Bill Clinton.
Many years later, after Friedland had become a billionaire copper and gold mining executive—working out of Vancouver, Singapore, and Mongolia—I met him for drinks in New York. That evening I emailed Jobs and mentioned my encounter. He telephoned me from California within an hour and warned me against listening to Friedland. He said that when Friedland was in trouble because of environmental abuses committed by some of his mines, he had tried to contact Jobs to intervene with Bill Clinton, but Jobs had not responded. (p. 39)
What does Steve Jobs do when he can’t talk to someone? He goes to Bill Clinton.
In order to evoke the spirit of Dead Poets Society, Clow and Jobs wanted to get Robin Williams to read the narration. His agent said that Williams didn’t do ads, so Jobs tried to call him directly. He got through to Williams’s wife, who would not let him talk to the actor because she knew how persuasive he could be. They also considered Maya Angelou and Tom Hanks. At a fund-raising dinner featuring Bill Clinton that fall, Jobs pulled the president aside and asked him to telephone Hanks to talk him into it. (p. 330)
Though in both cases, Bill Clinton will shrug you off.
How many people do you think consider Bill Clinton to be the ace up their sleeve? I bet it would be easier to measure it as a percentage of everyone he knows.
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