Rare photos show Steve Jobs having lunch with Google executives

A pair of rare images showing late Apple CEO and cofounder Steve Jobs having lunch with Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, circa 2007, have surfaced online.

Prior to Google's launch of Android, Jobs enjoyed a friendly relationship with Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. In fact, Brin and Page initially wanted to hire Jobs as Google's first CEO before tapping Eric Schmidt for the role.

On Monday, tech industry veteran Jason Shellan shared pictures taken during his last week at Google in 2007 on Twitter. Shellan worked as the company's Blogger team and eventually became a product and new business development manager at the Mountain View tech giant.

My last week of work at Google, I strolled into the cafe to find Steve Jobs having lunch with Larry Page and Eric Schmidt. https://t.co/lkUlU9kWLd pic.twitter.com/jrcDeIP943
— Jason Shellen (@shellen) May 14, 2020

Shellan notes that he "surreptitiously" snapped the photos on a Palm Treo 680 held up to his face.

The images, which show Jobs wearing his iconic black turtleneck and having lunch with Page and Schmidt at a Google cafe, were snapped in August 2007, shortly after the first-generation iPhone became available.

Google's executive team maintained a close relationship with Jobs throughout the aughts and often sought his advice. Just a few months prior to Shellan's images being taken, Schmidt stood onstage at the Jobs-spearheaded unveiling of the first iPhone to speak about Google Maps and YouTube.

The relationship between Apple and Google soured in 2008, when Google launched Android — a product that Jobs called "stolen" and vowed to "destroy."

9 Comments

red oak 1104 comments · 13 Years

About 4 years ago

Lying, stealing traitors

I don’t know how anyone at Google working on Android can look themselves in the mirror every morning

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

I had no idea Larry Page is a dwarf.

red oak said:

Lying, stealing traitors

I don’t know how anyone at Google working on Android can look themselves in the mirror every morning

Yep. Android fans like to croak that Android was around before iOS. Maybe it was but here’s money shot...

Chris DeSalvo’s reaction to the iPhone was immediate and visceral. “As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted one immediately. But as a Google engineer, I thought ‘We’re going to have to start over.’”

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-day-google-had-to-start-over-on-android/282479/

Beats 3073 comments · 4 Years

lkrupp said:

red oak said:

Lying, stealing traitors

I don’t know how anyone at Google working on Android can look themselves in the mirror every morning

Yep. Android fans like to croak that Android was around before iOS. Maybe it was but here’s money shot...

Chris DeSalvo’s reaction to the iPhone was immediate and visceral. “As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted one immediately. But as a Google engineer, I thought ‘We’re going to have to start over.’”

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-day-google-had-to-start-over-on-android/282479/

Which is also more goal-moving and BS from the iKnockoff crowd. Android "existed" but so did iPhone by that logic.

Unlike iPhone, original Android never released:

To those idiots who say "they look nothing alike!!" Even though they use identical gestures and technology.Here's the Palm Tree the Google employee used to take that pic:

Why didn't he have an Android? Oh that's right because it never released, their plan was to sell knockoff Blackberry devices that swipe your data. The only reason they invited Steve to lunch was to shift to knockoff iPhones that swipe your data.