Steve Jobs says no to run for U.S. Presidency in 2004

“A grassroots campaign to persuade Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs to run for President of the United States was launched on the Web last week, but it was over almost as soon as it began. The Steve Jobs for U.S. President campaign didn’t fail because of a lack of interest. In fact, so many people rushed to the campaign website, it melted down minutes after it was put up. ‘We had 10,000 hits in 10 minutes,’ said William Foster, who dreamed up the idea. ‘It brought the server down. It was only up for 10 minutes.’ However, in that time Foster said he received numerous e-mails of support and encouragement and a couple of dozen donations of cash — he wouldn’t reveal how much, but they were all under $10. The other big problem was that Jobs wasn’t interested. Thanks to the response, Foster considered re-launching the site. He decided against it after phoning Jobs’ office. Jobs’ personal assistant told him Jobs had seen the site, but was too committed to his family to run a grueling political campaign. ‘He was flattered,’ Foster said, ‘but it was a job he wasn’t interested in having. He wanted to concentrate on his family and his two companies,” reports Leander Kahney for Wired News. Read the full article here.