I am so sick of Jon Rubinstein stealing credit for inventing the iPod

See the Wall Street Journal story here. They refer to Ruby as the "Podfather." Now look. I suppose it's natural in the aftermath of a big hit product that everyone who worked on it, no matter how remotely, likes to claim all the credit. It's not something I would do but I'm not as insecure as some other people. Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan, as Creedence Clearwater Revival once sang. Anyway I think it's pretty clear that I invented the friggin iPod. I mean it's on Wikipedia. Still, Ruby needs to puff himself up on behalf of Palm, where he's now working on a doomed phone platform that he thinks will compete against iPhone. He's even been poaching some of our engineers. I told them, Guys, this is amazing, I mean it's the first time I've seen rats swimming toward a sinking ship. But whatever. They all think they're going to get rich by snapping up big chunks of Palm's stock now and hanging on until Elevation flips Palm to Nokia or Motorola. I've bet each one of them a signed hundred dollar bill that no matter how much money they make at Palm it won't be as much as if they'd stayed at Apple. We'll see.

Meanwhile, Ruby, let me send you a personal message. Don't even think about taking any ideas from iPhone or Apple and putting them into your big new Palm phone. Because trust me, I'm watching you. I'm watching you like a hawk. I've got eyes in the back of my friggin head, pal. I've got Moshe and his team going through your trash, breaking into your prototype labs, bribing your component suppliers. We're flying spy planes over your campus and using X-ray cameras to see into your building. You assholes step over the line by a friggin millionth of an inch and I will haul every single one of you into court and I make your life a living hell. I will tie you up in court for years and drain your goddamn bank accounts dry. I mean I will friggin ruin you. See if your big pal Roger wants to bail you out of that jam. Heck, you know what? I might just do it anyway, just for entertainment. Meanwhile, happy holidays to all of you folks and your families. I wish you all the best. Peace out.