Steve Jobs

prices and volume. How many readers would they have if the
Times
were free? They already knew the answer to that extreme on the chart, because they were giving it away for free on the web already and had about twenty million regular visitors. And if they made it really expensive? They had data on that too; they charged print subscribers more than $300 a year and had about a million of them. “You should go after the midpoint, which is about ten million digital subscribers,” he told them. “And that means your digital subs should be very cheap and simple, one click and $5 a month at most.”
    When one of the
Times
circulation executives insisted that the paper needed the email and credit card information for all of its subscribers, even if they subscribed through the App Store, Jobs said that Apple would not give it out. That angered the executive. It was unthinkable, he said, for the
Times
not to have that information. “Well, you can ask them for it, but if they won’t voluntarily give it to you, don’t blame me,” Jobs said. “If you don’t like it, don’t use us. I’m not the one who got you in this jam. You’re the ones who’ve spent the past five years giving away your paper online and not collecting anyone’s credit card information.”
    Jobs also met privately with Arthur Sulzberger Jr. “He’s a nice guy, and he’s really proud of his new building, as he should be,” Jobs said later. “I talked to him about what I thought he ought to do, but then nothing happened.” It took a year, but in April 2011 the
Times
started charging for its digital edition and selling some subscriptions through Apple, abiding by the policies that Jobs established. It did, however, decide to charge approximately four times the $5 monthly charge that Jobs had suggested.
    At the Time-Life Building,
Time
’s editor Rick Stengel played host. Jobs liked Stengel, who had assigned a talented team led by Josh Quittner to make a robust iPad version of the magazine each week. But he was upset to see Andy Serwer of
Fortune
there. Tearing up, he told Serwer how angry he still was about
Fortune
’s story two years earlier revealing details of his health and the stock options problems. “You kicked me when I was down,” he said.
    The bigger problem at Time Inc. was the same as the one at the
Times
: The magazine company did not want Apple to own its subscribers and prevent it from having a direct billing relationship. Time Inc. wanted to create apps that would direct readers to its own website in order to buy a subscription. Apple refused. When
Time
and other magazines submitted apps that did this, they were denied the right to be in the App Store.
    Jobs tried to negotiate personally with the CEO of Time Warner, Jeff Bewkes, a savvy pragmatist with a no-bullshit charm to him. They had dealt with each other a few years earlier over video rights for the iPod Touch; even though Jobs had not been able to convince him to do a deal involving HBO’s exclusive rights to show movies soon after their release, he admired Bewkes’s straight and decisive style. For his part, Bewkes respected Jobs’s ability to be both a strategic thinker and a master of the tiniest details. “Steve can go readily from the overarching principals into the details,” he said.
    When Jobs called Bewkes about making a deal for Time Inc. magazines on the iPad, he started off by warning that the print business “sucks,” that “nobody really wants your magazines,” and that Apple was offering a great opportunity to sell digital subscriptions, but “your guys don’t get it.” Bewkes didn’t agree with any of those premises. He said he was happy for Apple to sell digital subscriptions for Time Inc. Apple’s 30% take was not the problem. “I’m telling you right now, if you sell a sub for us, you can have 30%,” Bewkes told him.
    “Well, that’s more progress than I’ve made with anybody,” Jobs replied.
    “I have only one question,” Bewkes continued. “If you sell a subscription to my magazine, and I give you the 30%, who has the subscription—you or me?”
    “I can’t give away all the subscriber info because of Apple’s privacy policy,” Jobs replied.
    “Well, then, we have to figure something else out, because I don’t want my whole subscription base to become subscribers of yours, for you to then aggregate at the Apple store,” said Bewkes. “And the next thing you’ll do, once you have a monopoly, is come back and tell me