At what turned out to be his last public appearance, here's Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple Computer, just months before his death in 2011, giving a presentation to the Cupertino City Council, about the plans for Apple's new campus in Cupertino --
The budget for Apple's new 'Campus 2' has reportedly grown by over $2 billion, to $5 billion, since conception. Here's how Jobs described Apple's ambitious goal to the Cupertino City Council —
"I think we do have a shot at building the best office building in the world. I really do think architecture students will come here to see it. I think it could be that good."
After Jobs described the plans for 'Campus 2' for about 10 minutes, including details about how improved the land that Apple purchased for the campus would be, the first question from one of the Cupertino City Council members was (the exchange begins at 11:00 in the clip):
"What the city residents can benefit from this new campus?"Steve elaborated on some of the points he made earlier in his presentation, to which the council member responded:
"To be more specific, do we get free wi-fi?"Steve responded:
"I'm a simpleton. I've always had this view that we pay taxes, and the city should do those things."
This exchange is a revealing display of the culture that we live in.
A highly successful entrepreneur presents a plan to build a state of the art, multi-billion dollar office building, to a group of government employees who could never conceive of such a project, never mind manage its construction to completion, and after being told of the project's benefits, one of the government employees can only think to ask the entrepreneur to give the city free wi-fi.
I'd like to believe that this was a joke — but it clearly wasn't.
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