Valleywag
Ryan Tate is reporting that a Wall Street Journal digital executive has left the paper, reportedly after arguing with Steve Jobs during a corporate retreat this summer.
Tate writes (without named sources) that Jobs was present at the retreat as a guest of News Corp Chair Rupert Murdoch, and the conversation focused on media-built iPad apps. Jobs has been outspoken about his dissatisfaction with some news apps, including the New York Times Editor’s Choice app. According to Tate, Jobs continued this line of thought, describing the Journal’s app as slow and “essentially calling it a clunky reading experience”:
“It was on this point that [Gordon] McLeod, who wouldn’t comment for this post, is said to have engaged with Jobs. As president of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network, McLeod was at least a player on the paper’s iPad strategy as well as a spokesman for it. It’s not clear whether the Time Inc veteran got into it with Jobs during the more public Q&A or in a more private meeting afterward, but there was definitely a back and forth between the two men in front of other News Corp. hands: Word of McLeod’s purportedly impertinent comments challenging Jobs ricocheted around the company almost instantly.”
Tate reports that McLeod gave his notice earlier this month, and left the company on Thursday.
