But alas, we don't live in a world of simple logic.
It's important to remember that Schmidt was on Apple's Board of Directors at the time this occurred (he joined in the fall of 2006.) The Board was hand-picked in its entirety by Jobs.
These are power guys, and if Schmidt doesn't do something strongly, he will be perceived as weak. The implicitness in this email was a basic alpha-male locker-room challenge for Schmidt to show if he had any balls.
To me, this looks like a survivalist-move on the part of Schmidt to show Jobs he is "in charge" at Google. It's obvious Jobs knew how to push his buttons; otherwise, why would he (Schmidt) jump when the CEO of another company (Jobs) said "jump"?
Such locker room / schoolyard pissing contests show lack of leadership, creativity, compassion and humility. Very Wall Street.
Without a source of what was in the policy manual it's really hard to armchair quarterback, but such 1 strike and you're toast really sends the wrong message to everyone.
The message back to Jobs should have been, It's taken care of. Won't happen again.
Internally, IF the policy said violate A,B or C and termination applies, I can't quibble.
Otherwise, people make mistakes and should be handled as such. That what makes companies "Great Places to Work" and not the next job to pull a paycheck before the next one.
It's important to remember that Schmidt was on Apple's Board of Directors at the time this occurred (he joined in the fall of 2006.) The Board was hand-picked in its entirety by Jobs.
These are power guys, and if Schmidt doesn't do something strongly, he will be perceived as weak. The implicitness in this email was a basic alpha-male locker-room challenge for Schmidt to show if he had any balls.
To me, this looks like a survivalist-move on the part of Schmidt to show Jobs he is "in charge" at Google. It's obvious Jobs knew how to push his buttons; otherwise, why would he (Schmidt) jump when the CEO of another company (Jobs) said "jump"?