McAdam, who was CEO of the Verizon Wireless joint venture at the time, went for the kill. (For more on McAdam, who becomes Verizon CEO next year, see box above.) He called Jobs in December 2007 and told him, "We really ought to talk about how we do business together. We weren't able to [reach an agreement] a couple of years before, but it's probably worth having another discussion to make sure we're not missing something." Jobs, according to McAdam, replied, "Yeah, you're probably right. We have missed something."
The first fruits of those conversations? Flash-forward to this October: Verizon has started selling iPads that run on Verizon's network.