After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul

by Tripp Mickle

At the time, he reported to Rubinstein with a dotted line to Jobs. His insistence on specific design features provoked clashes over details ranging from the polish he wanted on a computer to the specially designed screws he insisted it include. Rubinstein, who brought together all aspects of a product from chips to firmware to design, rejected some of Ive’s ideas as too expensive. Ive bristled. He disliked conflict and disdained design compromises, so he went around Rubinstein to Jobs. Colleagues compared them to two little kids fighting for Jobs’s attention. Jobs’s advisers urged him to stop enabling Ive. Eventually, Rubinstein left and later became chief executive officer of a rival device maker, Palm. Afterward, Jobs streamlined Apple’s reporting structure so that Ive reported directly to him, ensuring that the designer was the second most powerful figure after the CEO.