{"id":50901,"date":"2026-02-03T14:05:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T19:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=50901"},"modified":"2026-02-04T17:32:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T22:32:16","slug":"sinofsky-on-cook-and-forstall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/03\/sinofsky-on-cook-and-forstall\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinofsky on Cook and Forstall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Lawler<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Emails released by the Justice Department on Friday appear to show that former Windows boss Steven Sinofsky not only consulted Jeffrey Epstein for help<\/a> in securing his $14 million “retirement” package in November of 2012<\/a>, but also in working on future career steps at other companies like Samsung or Apple. One document appears to show that a couple of weeks after Sinofsky’s departure was announced, Epstein wrote to him saying Apple CEO Tim Cook was “excited to meet.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Malcolm Owen<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

While apparently excited, Cook allegedly turned down the meeting. Epstein recounts that Cook declined because he was told that Sinofsky was starting a company with “farstall?(sp).”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Bob Burrough<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Tim Cook was actively thwarting Scott Forstall’s business prospects even after Scott was no longer employed by Apple.<\/p>\n

Scott played the most significant role in the development of iPhone and iPad save for maybe two or three other people. Did he deserve to be crushed by Tim?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Steven Sinofsky<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

forstall was the guy who led the iphone software - essentially my counterpart. he was actually fired for being mean to\npeople. I called him and we joked. he is from Seattle and his brother works at ms.<\/p>\n

was that tim brushing you off?<\/p>\n

I could send tim mail but don’t want him to forward to steve.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

This was sent more than a year after Steve Jobs died, so I’m not sure who he’s referring to. Was he worried about Ballmer?<\/p>\n\n

Steven Sinofsky, writing to Epstein<\/a> (via Edward<\/a>):<\/p>\n

The industry is going through a post-hp (post bill, post jobs,\npost chambers) world where leaders are being picked for being stewards and benign (hopefully).\nThe big tech compnies are all on a path to be mediocre because of that. That’s really driving the\nbearish views of apple--Tim isn’t the right guy and it started with forstall being fired.<\/p>\n

Microsoft going with tony bates. Hp going with meg. People with no views of the industry. Just\npeople who organize and speak about it.<\/p>\n

Personally I think apple and google need them, skills, most. Apple has no one. Google killing it\nnow but very fragile.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2026-02-04<\/a>): Carly Page<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Steven Sinofsky warned Microsoft that its flagship Surface was about to flop in public, then sought exit advice from Jeffrey Epstein as he negotiated his way out of Redmond.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

In an email to CEO Steve Ballmer and COO Kevin Turner, he said the device was “about to catastrophically fail<\/a> in a very public way,” with sales tracking at roughly one-tenth of even the lowest expectations. Once the numbers escaped, he added, there would be no hiding it. “Word will get out very soon. There is no long term without this.”<\/p>\n

Nine days later, Sinofsky was gone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The emails also detail Sinofsky’s unease about life after Microsoft. He floated the idea of working at Samsung, then immediately worried about being sued. Microsoft, he noted, had a long history of dragging former executives into court under the theory of “inevitable leakage of trade secrets,” filing public, bruising, and professionally disabling cases even when defendants eventually prevailed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Lawler: Emails released by the Justice Department on Friday appear to show that former Windows boss Steven Sinofsky not only consulted Jeffrey Epstein for help in securing his $14 million “retirement” package in November of 2012, but also in working on future career steps at other companies like Samsung or Apple. One document appears […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-02-03T19:05:27Z","apple_news_api_id":"19672a72-ae30-4bbf-b126-15e48c9721f7","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-02-04T22:07:04Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AGWcqcq4wS7-xJhXkjJch9w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[38,1870,1240,937,295,37,785,1465,60],"class_list":["post-50901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple","tag-department-of-justice-doj","tag-firing","tag-hiring","tag-history","tag-microsoft","tag-microsoft-surface","tag-scott-forstall","tag-timcook"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50901"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50909,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50901\/revisions\/50909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}