Eddy Cue Denies Steve Jobs Threw a Pen at His Forehead

Apple SVP Eddy Cue has denied a story from the book 'Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs' which alleges that Jobs threw a pen at his forehead when he wouldn't shut up.

Author Yukari Iwatani Kane tells the story like this:

In his first days as CEO, Cook took two immediate actions. First, he promoted Eddy Cue, Apple's enormously popular vice president for Internet services. Cue had started out as an intern. In one version of a story that he told everyone, he was plucked out of the IT department by Jobs during a meeting in which he had dared to voice an opinion about the topic at hand. When Jobs looked at him and told him to shut up, an undeterred Cue spoke up again, causing Jobs to throw a pen at his forehead. Cue, who by then figured he had nothing to lose, braced himself and offered up his opinion for a third time. This time, he won Jobs's approval.


9to5Mac writer Benjamin Mayo decided to write Cue and ask if the story was true.

I am slightly obsessed with the anecdote about Jobs throwing a pen in your face. Is the story true?

Cue actually replied saying:

No it’s not.


Notably, Tim Cook has issued a statement strongly dismissing the book as 'nonsense'.

This nonsense belongs with some of the other books I've read about Apple. It fails to capture Apple, Steve, or anyone else in the company. Apple has over 85,000 employees that come to work each day to do their best work, to create the world's best products, to put their mark in the universe and leave it better than they found it. This has been the heart of Apple from day one and will remain at the heart for decades to come. I am very confident about our future.

The book can be purchased from Amazon.

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