When China Mobile met Steve Jobs

It took six years for China Mobile to strike a deal with Apple over the iPhone. In all that time China Mobile’s then-boss Wang Jianzhou met with Steve Jobs just once, though he had often held teleconferences with him.

Wang, who retired as executive chairman in 2012, dealt frequently with Tim Cook, who he described as Apple’s majordomo, responsible for sales and the critical deals with AT&T and Foxconn manufacturing - all a big part of the company’s success.

Speaking to the Southern Weekend newspaper, Wang lets us know that in addition to the well-known issues - like the lack of a TD-SCDMA iPhone – the relationship between two of the world’s biggest companies sometimes got lost in translation. 

During one telephone hook-up Wang had asked Jobs why the TD-LTE phone wasn’t yet ready. “The chipset,” said Jobs. Wang said he believed that a vendor had already released one.

Jobs replied: “Who? Who? Who? Who? Who?”

In Wang’s telling:

“Immediately everyone in the room fell silent. Later we found some people who spoke English well and asked what five 'whos' meant. One replied it was some kind of sigh[!!!]  Later we asked a true American, who said, ‘very simple, he’s just asking you who... has done the chipsets.’”

Wang says he didn't say anything else because “my information was not accurate," but observed to the interviewer that "in a cross-ocean phone conversation, most people wouldn't be so direct, only Steve Jobs.”

You have to appreciate Wang's own candour in telling this story against himself. You also have to wonder about executives at a $100 billion company being so poorly-briefed on a critical topic and at both firms not bothering to find a decent translator. This also reminds us of the gulf between east and west, even on the smallest things.