In his interview with Ad Age, McKenna says that people “want attention, but it often hurts startup companies because it sets high expectations.” He also says that getting a good ad doesn’t ensure the future success of a business. Indeed, he “learned in the 70s that the ads won all the awards, but the company went bankrupt.”

And that’s almost what happened to Apple. The “1984″ ad got all sorts of attention and it turned the gaze toward the Mac, but Apple “went into 10 years of decline after that.” McKenna goes on to say that the “ad was more successful than the Mac itself. The Mac was expensive to build, and Apple’s margins went negative in 1986. That conflict led to Steve’s ouster from Apple.” McKenna also says that Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs “was very negative on Steve” and that we shouldn’t believe everything that we read in it.

Here is the original commercial, in case you want a quick refresher.

The post Regis McKenna: 1984 Apple Ad “More Successful Than the Mac Itself.” appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

These are just snippets, but they give you an idea of what to expect from the fuller book. For example, Jobs said that he was willing to “go thermonuclear war on” Android and its OEM partners. He said that he “will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product.”

He said that Hewlett and Packard “built a great company… but now it’s being dismembered and destroyed.” Reflecting back to his side, he continued by saying that he hopes “I’ve left a stronger legacy so that will never happen at Apple.” Similarly, in reflecting on his departure from Apple in the mid-1980s, he said the replacement execs were “corrupt people” with “corrupt values” and they only cared about making money “for themselves… rather than making great products.”

Jobs even comments on his meetings with President Obama, telling him that he’s “headed for a one-term presidency” and that he needed to be more business-friendly. He said that the “regulations and unnecessary costs” make it too difficult to build a factory in the United States, in stark contrast to the relative ease of doing the same in China.

The Steve Jobs biography is available for pre-order now with delivery expected on October 24.

The post Steve Jobs On Android Lawsuits, Dismantling HP, Obama’s Presidency appeared first on Mobile Magazine.