Apple
Steve Jobs had beef with Derek Sivers.
In 1998, Sivers founded CD Baby, a successful site still in operation today that offers independent musicians a platform to sell their music.
This made him an important enough figure in the music world that Steve Jobs wanted to talk to him about selling CD Baby artists’ songs through iTunes when it launched in 2003.
The circumstances that transpired afterward saw Sivers publicly called out during an Apple keynote and awkwardly forced into a position to return $200,000 to customers.
Here’s how he describes the circumstances immediately following the putdown:
Ever since I started my company in 1998, I had been offering an excellent service. I could make promises and keep them, because I was in full control.
Now, for the first time, I had made a promise for something that was out of my control.
So it was time to do the right thing, no matter how much it hurt.
Sivers has written a very detailed account of how it all shook out, so go to his site and check it out