What do you mean for the sake of Apple? This didn't benefit Apple. He screwed with this guy for months because of a mistaken idea that the guy should have somehow known Apple's attitude towards secrecy without being told, and after months of messing him about sent him back the signed contract the second he had given up. There was no benefit to Apple here. In fact he harmed Apple by limiting their music collection in the initial stages. It's also not on the limits of ethics. It's unethical.

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sublinear 5 hours ago | parent [-]

> should have somehow known Apple's attitude towards secrecy

I have to assume you and the author (at that time) aren't familiar enough with the corporate world to realize all discussions containing privileged information (contract details that would never get a press release) are confidential by default.

Of course Apple would never think they'd have to explain this. It's a reasonable expectation for them to have.

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SilverBirch 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I work in the corporate world, I have detailed confidential discussions about technical details of upcoming products and contract details. The first thing we do in those situations is we all sign NDAs. The idea that you'd do a presentation to a hundred people and expect that information to stay confidential without specifically informing them is just absurd. Which is part of the reason Jobs just screwed him around rather than doing what you're meant to do - get the person to sign an NDA and then sue them if they break it.

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sublinear 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Pricing details in contracts are trade secrets. You don't even need an NDA to sue someone for leaking that.

They're lucky Apple found a quick remediation. They delayed signing the contract because they had to wait and see if any damage was caused. Next steps would have been renegotiating or lawsuit.

	▲	ghusto an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		For anybody else reading, please disregard. Nothing is expected to be kept secret without a signature.
	▲	4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		[deleted]
	▲	lazide 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		lol, if you don’t put an NDA (or otherwise make it clear it’s a trade secret and try to protect it), you lose the protection the moment you start sending that out. Including in contracts.

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ghusto an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I have to assume you aren't familar with the corporate world in the slightest. This is absolutely not how it works.

Anything that is supposed to be confidential has a signature. This is because without it, the person "leaking" information can always claim ignorance.