Via MacApper:

“In Fortune’s story, Lashinsky says Steve Jobs summoned the entire MobileMe team for a meeting at the company’s on-campus Town Hall, accusing everyone of “tarnishing Apple’s reputation.” He told the members of the team they “should hate each other for having let each other down”, and went on to name new executives on the spot to run the MobileMe team. A few excerpts from the article.

“Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?” Having received a satisfactory answer, he continues, “So why the f*** doesn’t it do that?”

The question that follows naturally: after replacing MobileMe executives in retaliation for launch time SNAFUs, did Jobs find that the service attracted more customers or net greater love from existing users? I do not have the data, but I suspect not. If I am correct, this might be a rare case where Apple and Steve Jobs serve as a negative example: it’s easy to play the tough guy (ask Steve Ballmer) than try to identify the root causes of failure.