Why Apple’s Beats Acquisition May Be Its Smartest Move Yet

The most talked-about “secret” of 2014 was Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats. Although it wasn’t officially announced until May 28, rumors swirled around the Internet for weeks.

Apple now owns Beats Electronics (the makers of the headphones and speakers) and Beats Music, a streaming service similar to Pandora and Spotify. Apple has also added Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine to its executive roster, though their roles have not yet been clarified publicly.

This turn of events represents a dynamic new era in Apple’s relationship with the music industry and with music fans.

The Beats Deal Goes Way Back

This isn’t the first time Apple has redefined the music industry. According to Moses Avalon, a music business analyst, this is a move the company has wanted since the inception of iTunes.

“For over a decade, Apple and the major labels have hated one another,” Avalon writes on hiswebsite. “Labels hated Apple for forcing universal pricing — every song being the same price — and for being an enabler to the destruction of their main model: the album.”

Avalon says that at one point, Universal threatened not to renew Apple’s music licenses if Apple didn’t allow variable pricing. Steve Jobs gave in, but Apple has been trying to escape Universal’s hold ever since.

“Insiders should know that a perpetuity license for content is what Apple is really buying today for $3.5 billion,” says Avalon. “Not a bunch of code they could write themselves in a weekend.”

Under my watch at the dawn of Apple’s earliest music initiatives, we were industry-facing — primarily ensuring that Macs were sold to artists and creative teams across entertainment. We launched the home studio movement with the Mac and Pro Tools to enable artists to have greater creativity and flexibility. When iTunes launched — coupled with the iPod and subsequent Apple products — an ecosystem was created that enabled millions of music lovers to integrate music into their lifestyles. These developments also helped breathe new life into the record industry by creating new channels of distribution and monetization for artists.

Both of these were critical milestones for the music industry, and this is the third chapter. Here are a few reasons why it might just be Apple’s smartest move yet:

1. Apple Has Talent

Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre come with powerful industry pedigrees that will attract even more artists to Apple’s unique talent pool. This is a huge draw for artists trying to connect with their fan base, which includes 800 million iTunes users and 40 million iTunes radio listeners. With Jimmy and Dre, artists will want to engage with Apple even more actively than they have to this point.

Apple will have more influence on artists, labels, and other members of the music industry ecosystem to create dynamic new models of distribution and monetization. The combination of tech innovation, visionary leadership, relationships, and industry credibility can’t be underestimated.

2. Apple Has Taste

One of the most enticing aspects of the deal is that Beats Music focuses on music curation by using real humans instead of algorithmic music discovery. Beats supports the discovery of music through sharing playlists of experts in listeners’ favorite musical genres. It offers suggestions based on artists users like, music they’ve listened to, and mood-relevant discovery through The Sentence.

The addition of Beats enhances Apple’s music offerings that integrate free streaming with iTunes Radio by now incorporating a music subscription service via Beats Music. Combined with the iTunes Store, it’s a powerful triad of services offering the industry multiple channels of distribution and monetization. Apple can also extend the Beats Music curation offering to iTunes Radio, which could close the UX gap with competing services in the market. In addition, the marketing buzz generated by the Apple/Beats deal could lure more listeners to iTunes Radio.

3. Apple Has Diversity

Apple’s strength has always been its ability to seamlessly integrate software and gadgets. Beats may be part of Apple’s foray into wearables. Elias Roman, CEO of Songza, suggests that Beats could be Apple’s Google Glass.

Apple has the iTunes experience, retail stores, and hardware devices, which now include Beats headphones. If Apple links all these facets well, it will become a juggernaut that few will be able to compete with.

4. Apple Has Deep Pockets

Because Apple makes plenty of revenue through the sales of its devices, it can afford to operate Beats Music at a loss. By providing a comprehensive solution that competing streaming services can’t, Apple can more easily devalue services such as Pandora and Spotify.

This could quickly lead to smaller services that have fewer subscribers and less marketing muscle quickly disappearing. Apple will deliver powerful marketing and offer bundled product and service discounts to amplify their new suite of offerings.

5. Apple Has Experience

Apple is the ultimate disruptor of the music industry, and Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre are known as disruptors themselves. Steve Jobs was the first person to broker a workable deal with the music industry during the post-Napster era, when piracy nearly overtook the old music business model.

Apple practically reinvented the music industry as we know it today, and the Beats acquisition is the first step toward curating that industry. Anything is possible if the right set of creative strategies and market navigations are executed — and there is every reason to believe they will be.

Apple’s acquisition of Beats has many guessing the next move of this tech giant. Adding well-known music industry veterans to the iTunes team shows that Apple is embracing artist-centric activities and contemplating even more creative ways to allow artists to monetize their relationships with fans by capitalizing on the growing artist-to-fan engagement trend.

This latest move may be the first of many steps toward the company reinforcing and extending its domination of music and entertainment. As a result, it will secure a greater market share, increase its revenues, and provide additional avenues for fans to discover and enjoy the music experience.

Driverless Cars On Britain Roads

• Technology is being developed in Britain to rival Google's driverless car
• Science minister David Willetts tells MailOnline new laws will be needed
• He's in talks with Department for Transport about rewriting rules of the road
• Google car will not have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal

New laws are to be drawn up to allow driverless cars to take to Britain’s roads.

Ministers admit the current Highway Code and rules of the road are inadequate for the new generation of vehicles which pilot themselves.

With technology being developed on both sides of the Atlantic, the government wants to ensure that Britain is not overtaken by Google’s drive to see its cars used legally on the streets of California.

Last month Google unveiled its computerised ‘hands-free’ self-driving bubble car, which has no steering wheel, brake or accelerator pedals, just buttons for start, pull over and emergency stop and a computer screen showing your route.

Google plans to have prototypes ready to test later this summer and says the goal is for the car to ‘shoulder the entire burden of driving’.

A prize fund of £10million will soon be launched in the UK for a whole town or city to develop as a test site for consumer testing of driverless cars.

Science minister David Willetts told MailOnline that he is already in talks with the Department for Transport about rewriting the law to allow cars on to UK highways without anyone in the driving seat.

’We are one of the world leaders in this,’ the Tory minister declared.

Science minister David Willetts said he wanted to make sure Britain is not left behind in the race to get driveless cars on the road

A British version of a driverless is being developed in Oxford, but Google have so far clocked up more road miles with their version.

’There is British technology, and it's a lot cheaper than the Google technology,’ Mr Willetts said.

’But whereas the Google car, they have notched up more miles, so we have got to ensure that the British has its own opportunity to get tested in a wider range of environments and that's what we are working on with the department for transport.

’But the technology is being developed at Oxford as we speak.’

Even in the US self-piloting cars are only allowed on the roads if someone sits in the ’driver’s seat’. 

The California Department of Motor Vehicles is expected to start granting licences to certain driverless cars and their human co-pilots as soon as September.

Mr Willetts said: ’You need a regulatory regime so that these are permitted.

’What America is going to have is a legal regime in California that permits you to travel in one without requiring someone in the so-called drivers seat.

’Certainly there are new regulations being drafted in California and obviously this is something I have discussed with the Department for Transport, we are aware of it.

’We need to work on these type of regulations so that as the technology develops in Oxford and elsewhere we can see them used.’

The government’s infrastructure plan commits to reviewing the law to ’ensure there is a clear and appropriate regime for the testing of driverless cars that supports the world’s car companies to come hand test them here.’

Britain will also benefit from recent changes to the United Nations Convention on Road Traffic, which dates back to 1968.

It used to state: 'Every driver shall at all times be able to control his vehicle or to guide his animals.'

An amendment agreed last month would allow a car to drive itself, as long as the system 'can be overridden or switched off by the driver'.

A driver must be present and able to take the wheel at any time.

The convention covers European countries, Mexico, Chile, Brazil and Russia, although not the United States, Japan or China.

Google says its prototype driverless car has been given a ‘friendly’ face to give a non-threatening appearance and help the public accept the new technology.

The front of the vehicle has a soft foam-like material where a traditional bumper would be and a more flexible windscreen, in a bid to be safer for pedestrians.

Speed is restricted to 25mph and the ability to self-drive will depend on specifically designed Google road maps tested on the company’s current fleet of vehicles.

This works by using GPS technology to locate the vehicle’s exact position on an electronic map. 

A combination of radar, lasers and cameras sitting on top of the roof give the car a 360-degree ‘view’, with sensors linked to computer software able to ‘see’ and identify people, cars, road signs and markings and traffic lights.

Schumacher out of coma, but will he recover?

MUMBAI: The week began on a happy note for fans of Formula One champion Michael Schumacher as his family announced that he was out of coma after a six months. 

The 45-year-old German legend has been in coma - initially, induced by doctors using powerful drugs - since December 29, 2013 when he sustained severe brain injuries while skiing in the French Alps. The focus will now turn to the extent of his recovery, but doctors say the process could take months if not years. 

One thing is certain though: experts say the complete-recovery-in-a-jiffy scenes that Bollywood and Hollywood films are replete with, are impossible. 

"It is uncommon to recover from a long period of coma," said Dr Sangeeta Rawat, who heads the neurology department of KEM Hospital, Parel. In fact, in India, coma patients (who are invariably put on ventilator because their brains are too weak to give the command for breathing) succumb to secondary infections, said another doctor. 

Coma is a state of unconsciousness where the patient is unresponsive and cannot be woken. Head injuries and stroke are the most common cause for coma; other reasons include diabetes and alcohol. 

What possibly helped Schumacher 'come back' from coma is the superior, high-level neuro-intensive care that he got in the French hospital, said senior neurologist Dr Roop Gursahani. 

He added that it's impossible to predict the level of Schumacher's recovery. (The German is scheduled to undergo neuro-rehabilitation at Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland). 

Schumacher's family has released information in a minimalistic manner. On Monday, his manager Sabine Kehm said in a statement that "Michael has left the Grenoble Hospital (in south France) to continue his long phase of rehabilitation. He is not in a coma anymore." In April, she had said the racer was showing "moments of consciousness and awakening". 

Waking up from coma a few days after the accident is common. In India, where road traffic accidents result in 13 deaths every day, such patients make better recovery. More so, if they are younger than 40 years of age, said Dr Abhishek Srivastava, who is in charge of the neuro-rehab at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in Andheri. 

Consider two high-profile cases-Jodhpur prince Shivraj Singh, who sustained head injuries after falling from his horse during a polo match in 2005; and Priyanka Rai, the 24-year-old from Mumbai who was in a car that hit the divider and hit other vehicles in 2012. 

"The prince was in coma for 10 days or so and started showing signs of comeback. However, it took him years in rehabilitation to make the recovery he has made," said Dr Sunil Shah who operated on him in Bombay Hospital in 2005. 

Priyanka Rai was treated in various hospitals, including Kokilaben Ambnai Hospital in Andheri. "It was a slow recovery for Priyanka, but she is now able communicate, eat on her own and stands with help," said Dr Srivastava. 

He has treated over 500 road traffic accident patients who have slipped into coma for varying amounts of time. "Some are in coma for three days, others for two weeks," he said, adding that each coma patient is different. 

It is difficult to say what kind of recovery and what degree of functionality survivors will achieve. "Some deficits are bound to remain because these are brain injuries. Patients who have suffered brain damage will have a bad prognosis while those with comparatively superficial injuries may recover quicker and better," said Dr Rawat.

Samsung Galaxy S5 review

What is the Samsung Galaxy S5?

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is the most anticipated Android phone of the year. It has rivals, but no other Android has managed to summon quite as much excitement as this one. 

It offers plenty of upgrades over its predecessor the Galaxy S4, including a much-improved screen, redesigned software and a slightly better camera. However, there are some parts that aren’t quite perfect too. We’re not in love with the design, the new heart rate sensor will be a bit pointless for many and the fingerprint scanner is fiddly. 

Want to know the core specs before we dig deeper? The Galaxy S5 has a 5.1-inch 1080p Super AMOLED screen, up 0.1 inches from last year. It uses a 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor and has a 16-megapixel camera with an all-new Samsung-made sensor. 

These may sound like slight upgrades to some of you, but these small step-ups are what you'll also see in the Sony and HTC rivals. We think the Galaxy S5 is a great alternative to those phones, as long as you can live with the lesser styling and the foibles of the Samsung TouchWiz interface. 

Samsung Galaxy S5

Don't fancy reading our in-depth review? Watch our quick video review below to get a closer look at the phone. 

Samsung Galaxy S5: Design

Samsung has done its best to make the Galaxy S5 look quite different from the S4. It has a dimpled back, while the Galaxy S4 is smooth and glossy. There is one thing that brings the two phones together, though.

Where the Sony Xperia Z2 and HTC One M8 try to use expensive feeling, or looking, materials throughout, the Galaxy S5 is almost entirely plastic. And it is not plastic that's happy to look like what it is. The sides of the phone are trimmed with metallic plastic that an onlooker might mistake for metal. But the feel of plastic is unmistakeable in-hand. 

The new-design sides are ribbed too, which looks worse than the flat style of the S4. The look is not a wholesale improvement.



The in-hand feel is better, though. It has a rather unusual, slightly soft-touch textured and pitted finish. This ensures you won't mistake the Galaxy S5 for any other phone one the market (unless another phone maker nicks this style), but the phone is nowhere near as good-looking as the HTC One M8. 

Functionally this back cover style is perfectly fine, though. It won't leave your purring at the expensive feel of the expensive phone you just bought, but it is grippy and has a soft-touch finish that feels a bit better than Samsung's old glossy plastic mobiles. The finish is not consistent across the phone's colours, though - the white Galaxy S5 feels a lot cheaper and less 'soft' than the black version, for example. 


Samsung is likely to offer the Galaxy S5 in a whole rainbow of colours before the phone slips into obsolescence in 2015-2016, but at launch there are four shades to choose from. We're looking at the black version, which is actually a very dark grey, and the other options are blue, gold and white. 

Picking a colour is naturally a personal preference, but having seen them all close-up, gold seems to be the dud. Where Apple and HTC have successfully judged their recent gold models, using a fairly muted 'Champagne' shade, Samsung's has the bling'y vibrance of a £10 plastic handbag. 

The dimensions of the Galaxy S5 are, as is common for Samsung flagships, impressive. It's just 8.1mm thick and despite having a slightly larger screen and a load more tech inside, it's just a couple of millimeters wider than the Galaxy S4. The screen bezel isn't quite as skinny as the LG G2's, but Samsung has put some effort into making such a large screen reasonably easy to use. 

To see quite how much bigger the S5 is, check out our Galaxy S5 vs S4 comparison

The Galaxy S5's power button sits on its right side, in reach of your thumb, and the combo of thin body and reasonable phone width play their part in making the phone easy to deal with. However, as with every 5-inch screen phone, reaching from one end of the screen to the other with a thumb just isn't going to happen. If you're thinking of upgrading from an iPhone, you must have a feel first-hand before buying.

There's also an unfortunate knock-on effect of Samsung's dedication to making slim phones. The camera lens housing sticks out from the rest of the back by around 0.5-1mm, making it more prone to scratches than a flush one. The Galaxy S4 has this kind of lens arrangement roo. In this case it's a practical issue caused by having to fit in a 6-element lens camera system into a 8.1mm body, and that's behind a screen and top glass layer too. 



Like the previous Galaxy S phones, the Galaxy S5 uses an ultra-thin removable plastic back cover that hides a microSD memory card slot supporting cards up to 128GB. There are 16GB and 32GB versions of the phone, and the 16GB edition will be by far the most common in the UK. 

Samsung has also packed a bunch of new hardware features into the Galaxy S5. The ones we'll deal with in this section of the review are the water resistance, the fingerprint scanner and the heart rate sensor. 

Samsung Galaxy S5: Water Resistance

The Galaxy S5's water resistance works just as it does on other recent water resistant phones. There are rubber seals on the plastic cover and on the flap that sits over the USB port on the bottom. This is one of the few phones to use an oversized micro USB 3.0 socket, also seen in a few other Samsung phones including the Galaxy Note 3, and it makes the bottom flap fairly large.



Crucial to the convenience of the water resistant design, the headphone jack doesn't need a flap as it's coated internally to avoid letting any water in,

Samsung has managed to add water resistance without any obvious increase in the bulk of phone, and after charging the phone throws up a reminder to close the flap – which is handy (but not dismissable as far as we can tell, and therefore sure to become annoying). 

However, there are some slight concerns about the longevity of these ultra-slimline waterproofing systems. The waterproof rubber border is less than a millimeter thick, and feels very slight. It may not last for ever. We like to think of these phones' waterpoofing as a form of insurance, not an excuse to drop your phone in your pint at every opportunity.

The actual specification of the Galaxy S5's water resistance is IP67. This means the phone is impervious to dust and can be submerged in water for up to half an hour. This is not quite as good as the IP55 and IP58 ratings of the waterproof Xperia Z2. That phone is certified to stay underwater for longer and withstand water jets. The difference won't matter for most people, but the key point is that the Galaxy S5 is 'water resistant' while the Z2 is genuinely waterproof. Our feature, 'Waterproof Phones: IP Ratings Explained', goes into a great deal more detail on the topic.

Samsung Galaxy S5: Fingerprint Scanner

Samsung's new fingerprint scanner is more interesting. We've seen a few different fingerprint scanners in mobiles over the last 12 months. The iPhone 5S's TouchID is a great success, the HTC One Max's rear scanner a flop.

The Galaxy S5 sits in a similar position to the iPhone scanner, but in use feels a little more like the HTC One Max one. 

Rather than resting your finger over the button, as with an iPhone 5S, you swipe a finger over it.  The sensor sits under the central select button, but you need to swipe over the very bottom of the touchscreen too as there's an element under the screen that activates the scanner.

You can teach the Galaxy S5 up to three fingers, letting multiple people get on-board.

 

The Trusted team has had mixed experiences with the fingerprint sensor, but I didn't find it particularly easy to use. A swipe-based mechanism like this requires quite an exact, smooth movement, and this is at odds with the casual, care-free way most of us use our phones. Compared with the iPhone 5S TouchID sensor, it's a bit of a pain. 

To call upon a metaphor, where the TouchID sensor asks you to stand still, the S5 scanner demands you walk in a dead straight line. And that's fine at times, but not when you're in a rush, have just woken up or are inebriated and desperate to find out when the last train home leaves.

After the Galaxy S5 has failed to recognise your fingerprint three times, you're booted out to a more traditional password. And I had to use this password more often than not for the first few days. The performance boosted a little after the scanner was recalibrated a few times, but at best the hit rate was about 50 per cent. 

If you want to do more research on the fingerprint sensor, it's based on Synaptics Natural ID technology. For more detail, read our Galaxy S5 Fingerprint Scanner vs iPhone 5S Touch ID comparison.

Samsung Galaxy S5: Heart Rate Sensor

Perhaps the most conspicuous of the new hardware elements is the dedicated heart rate sensor, because it adds new sensors to the LED flash area on the back of the phone. The camera area on the pack looks positively gadget-packed now.

 

This is the first phone to use a dedicated heart rate sensor, but it uses fairly familiar technology. It lights-up your finger with a red/IR light, and monitors the visual changes caused by the circulation of your blood. 

It works well, and takes about eight seconds, but there are two obvious questions – is it actually useful, and can you get this functionality elsewhere? At present, you can only use the Galaxy S5's heart rate sensor in the S Health app (although it appears to be part of the Samsung Bluetooth LE SDK, so should be able to be used in third-party apps), where it makes a graph of your previous results. 

It will come in handy for measuring your resting heart rate, which is a reasonable indicator of general fitness levels. But it's not much cop for mid-exercise readings, where it would be of more use. Quite simply, holding your finger on the back of the Galaxy S5 while running is not a good idea. For that you really want a wrist-worm device like the Galaxy Fit. 

In truth, you can already get a very similar experience with most other Android phones (and iPhones) too. Apps like Runtastic Heart Rate use your phone's LED flash and camera sensor in much the same way. And with the HTC One M8, our tests showed they provide similar results in a similar time frame. 

The Galaxy S5 heart rate sensor is less interesting than it initially appears. 

Samsung Galaxy S5: Why all the extras?

We're not huge fans of the heart rate sensor or the fingerprint scanner. The waterproofing deserves a nod, but why has Samsung put such a focus on these hardware 'extras' this year?

It becomes obvious when you look at the phone's other specs. Smartphones have plateau'd technologically – it might be temporary, but it affects all the early 2014 flagships. Samsung can't fit in a much larger screen without affecting how it feels to use, the screen is still at 1080p resolution and the Snapdragon 801 processor used here isn't that much more powerful or advanced than the Snapdragon 800 used in some of last year's phones. 

Samsung clearly felt the need to put conspicuously 'new' hardware in the Galaxy S5. And some of it is not that good. Yet. This need to separate the Galaxy S5 from the Galaxy S4 in obvious ways also helps to explain slightly odd pitted finish.
 

Samsung Galaxy S5: Internal Speaker

We would gladly trade away most of these supposed hardware innovations for a better internal speaker. But this is something that – once more – has been relatively neglected by Samsung. 

Sound pipes out of a single grille under the backplate, and uses the limited internal area between the outer parts of the cover and the zone blocked off by the rubber seals to somewhat reinforce the sound (to act as a speaker enclosure of sorts).


We have heard worse speakers, and the Galaxy S5 can handle its own top volume without distorting significantly. But the sound is pretty tinny and bass-free. Coming from reviewing the HTC One M8 – which has relatively chunky-sounding stereo speakers – it's a depressing step down. And we'd wager only those with health-themed OCD would prefer a very limited-use heart rate sensor to a decent set of speakers. 

The speaker also causes fairly severe vibration in the lower part of the phone's rear. It's the result of essentially using the outer casing as a speaker enclosure, and it is a bit annoying.

Quit Trying to Be Like Steve Jobs

The opening question the venture capitalist asked after I sat down to be interviewed was, “How did a marketing guy end up being considered for a CEO job?”

After a 20-year career in high-tech that included managing development, running worldwide sales, and heading up marketing for a few moderately sized public companies, that’s the question the guy led with.

I won’t lie and say it wasn’t off-putting, but I was used to it. It’s a relatively common theme among the Silicon Valley geek crowd. There are exceptions, but in general, they just don’t get marketing.

That was nearly 15 years ago and things have changed. Entrepreneurs and VCs have a greater respect for marketing and communications these days. One of the reasons for that is a little company called Apple.Steve Jobs was a positioning genius, but he wasn’t the only Apple executive with marketing in his DNA.

I just watched an interview (video below) with the company’s former VP of marketing communications, Allison Johnson, and let me tell you, this woman gets marketing. Some of what she had to say could have come out of my own mouth, plus there were some great lessons from her years working with Jobs.

Here’s my interpretation of some of the major points that I think are relevant for entrepreneurs and business leaders.

You can learn a lot from a hands-on boss. Jobs was famously hands-on about certain things, namely product design and communications. Johnson described how he once got hold of an email meant to train AT&T salespeople on how to sell the iPhone, and he edited it to make sure the product was positioned accurately.

Funny, when I ran marketing, I used to do the same thing. Drove people crazy. And, yes, I admit to being a control freak. Like it or not, I’m afraid it comes with the territory.

In any case, I’ve noticed how nervous marketers and agencies get around CEOs and I don’t know why. Sometimes, they’re better at positioning and marketing their products than the supposed experts are. And it certainly doesn’t seem like Johnson got to where she is by being proprietary about her domain.

Product development and marketing should be tied at the hip. Most people think of marketing communications as the place where products go after they’re developed and ready to be launched. Granted, that’s the way it happens in most companies, but that’s not the way it is at Apple, that’s not how it worked at my companies, and it’s not how I recommend anyone do it.

The role of marketing in planning a product rollout is to get the product positioning right. And the best way to do that is to be intimately involved with the development folks relatively early on in the process. More than anything else, your product is your brand. Likewise, it informs how you communicate everything about it to the world.

The only way to get it right and come up with the best communication strategy and content is to really connect with the product, its capabilities, its value, and what it does for customers that use it.

Quit trying to be like Steve Jobs … or Apple. For years now, executives and entrepreneurs have been trying to be and manage like Jobs. They’ve even been trying to remake their management teams and their companies in his and Apple’s image. Truth is, it doesn’t work that way.

Johnson said, “The thing that Steve did better than anyone else is, he was his authentic self.”

Most of us don’t know ourselves very well. The better you know who you are – your purpose, what you stand for, what you believe in, your strengths and weaknesses – the more genuine you’ll be. Strive to be the best version of you, not someone else. And that’s what you should communicate to the world.

Besides, Apple is a unique company. Its culture is cult-like. Its iconic products create categories. If your products are that good, then maybe you can manage and market the way Apple does. But few companies can truly live up to that claim.

To the audience of entrepreneurs, Johnson added, “We don’t need more Apples. We need more you.”

Don’t get hung up on labels. Apparently Steve Jobs hated labels, especially words like marketing and branding. He didn’t like what they represented in some people’s minds. He wanted Apple’s marketing to add value by teaching customers about the company’s products. By showing them how they could be used and what they could do. He didn’t want them in selling mode.

I feel exactly the same way. We often fall into the labels trap, especially these days in our distracted, attention-deficit, sound-bite culture.

Truth is, just because you wear a black mock turtleneck, blue jeans and sneakers, that doesn’t make you Steve Jobs. Just because you call yourself an entrepreneur or a CEO, it doesn’t make you one. They’re nothing but labels. And they’re really no different than the way that VC judged me in the interview.

In case you’re wondering how that turned out, not only did I not let the VC rattle me, I must have had a pretty good comeback because I did get the job. Go figure.