How Apple and Google Became Rivals
If you’ve shopped for a smartphone recently you probably had the choice between buying an iPhone or an Android device like the Google Pixel. And you could probably guess that the companies behind those devices, Apple and Google, are fierce competitors in a number of areas. But that hasn’t always been the case. Because before the smartphone wars, Apple and Google were very close business partners. Actually, the book In The Plex, written by Steven Levy, claimed there was so much overlap that it was almost as if Apple and Google were a single company. Because in 2001, when Google was still a three-year-old startup, its cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin approached Steve Jobs and actually asked him to become Google’s CEO. But of course Jobs already had his hands full with Apple and PIXAR, so Page and Brin decided to appoint Eric Schmidt, one of Google’s directors, to the position of CEO instead. But Steve Jobs did offer to serve as a mentor to Larry Page and Sergey Brin. And this began a very close relationship between Apple and Google. Jobs even persuaded Bill Campbell, who served on Apple’s board of directors, to coach the leadership team at Google, including Eric Schmidt, in order to help them succeed.
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