The complaints exposed the folly of Cook’s decision three years earlier to sharpen the company’s functional structure after firing Forstall. Ive had wanted a voice in software design, not necessarily oversight of a new division. A good corporate soldier, he had assumed that duty willingly, only to later regret it. Rather than protect Ive and provide him with space to be creative as Jobs once had, Cook, who lived to work, had asked Ive to do the same. He had squeezed more out of the artist than the artist had to give. Ive wanted to leave.
