Steve Jobs Scolds Greenpeace at Shareholder Meeting

May 10th, 2007 at 3:00 PM - News by John Martellaro

Steve Jobs made some blunt remarks to Greenpeace representatives at Appleis shareholder meeting Thursday, according to Computerworld UK.

Despite the fact that representatives from Greenpeace congratulated Apple on their commitment to the environment, Mr. Jobs had strong words for the group.

"I think your organization particularly depends too much on principle and not enough on fact," Jobs said. "You guys rate people based on what people say their plans are in the distant future, not what they are doing today. I think you put way too much weight on these glorified principles and way too little weight on science and engineering.

“It would be very helpful if your organization hired a few more engineers and actually entered into dialogue with companies to find out what they are really doing and not just listen to all the flowery language when in reality most of them arenit doing anything. Thatis my opinion."

Mr. Jobs offered to assist Greenpeace with their measurement technology and said that a genuine report card needs to be based more on science. "Something that simple could go so far in our opinion," said Jobs. "We are not going to set up a big infrastructure to engage environmental groups. We are real interested in getting the work done."

While Greenpeace has taken apart computers from Apple and competitors and made scientific measurements of various materials, a large part of Appleis scorecard was previously based on what Apple had not promised to do, in writing publicly and not on what they were actually doing.