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How Square survived by getting Steve Jobs to bail them out

How I Built ThisHow I Built This · Square: Jim McKelvey. He Lost a $2,000 Sale, Then Built a...

“So the headphone jack could be the way into the iPhone, but you didn't need permission from Apple to use that?”

48:19 / 48:52

So the headphone jack could be the way into the iPhone, but you didn't need permission from Apple to use that? Well,

you did and you didn't. They could have easily blocked us from the App Store. Apple could have stopped us. And if we had offended them or made them felt threatened in any way, they they would have shut us down. Alright. So what was your process to,

like, walk through those raindrops?

Oh, get Steve Jobs to bail us out.

Sounds really easy. Yeah. So,

About this clip

Square's Jim McKelvey explains how the company navigated Apple's power over their iPhone app and hardware integration. He reveals that Apple could have easily shut them down at any time, and teases how Steve Jobs himself became their unlikely savior in a critical moment.

Why this clip

The dramatic tension of depending on a powerful platform partner and the intriguing tease about Steve Jobs personally intervening makes this a compelling startup survival story.

48:19 - 48:5233sfounder story
platform-riskapple-partnershipshardware-integration

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What they said next

Square's founder reveals why they built hardware when everyone said go software-only

38:59 - 40s · founder story

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