Woolard picked up the phone and called Jobs, whom he’d never met. The pretext was to invite him to Delaware to speak to DuPont executives. Jobs declined, but as Woolard recalled, “the request was a ruse in order to talk to him about Gil.” He steered the phone call in that direction and asked Jobs point-blank what his impression of Amelio was. Woolard remembers Jobs being somewhat circumspect, saying that Amelio was not in the right job. Jobs recalled being more blunt:

　　 伍拉德拿起電話打給喬布斯，他們還從未見過面。他借口說想邀請他去特拉華州給杜邦公司的髙管演講。喬布斯婉拒了，但是伍拉德回憶，“那次邀請是個小伎倆，是為了能跟他討論吉爾的問題。”他把談話引向那個方向，然后直截了當地問喬布斯對阿梅里奧是什么印象。伍拉德記得喬布斯當時比較謹慎，只是說阿梅里奧不適合現在的工作。而據喬布斯自己回憶，他當時更是直言不諱：

　　I thought to myself, I either tell him the truth, that Gil is a bozo, or I lie by omission. He’s on the board of Apple, I have a duty to tell him what I think; on the other hand, if I tell him, he will tell Gil, in which case Gil will never listen to me again, and he’ll fuck the people I brought into Apple. All of this took place in my head in less than thirty seconds. I finally decided that I owed this guy the truth. I cared deeply about Apple. So I just let him have it. I said this guy is the worst CEO I’ve ever seen, I think if you needed a license to be a CEO he wouldn’t get one. When I hung up the phone, I thought, I probably just did a really stupid thing.

我對自己說，我要不就告訴他實話，吉爾是個笨蛋，要不就避而不談。他是董事會成員，我有義務告訴他我的看法；另一方面，如果我告訴他，他會告訴吉爾，那樣吉爾就再也不會聽我的了，而且還會把我帶進蘋果的那些人都滅掉。所有這些想法在30秒鐘之內在我腦子里閃過。我最后覺得我應該告訴他真相。我非常在乎蘋果，所以我就給他真相。于是我說，這個家伙是我見過的最差勁兒的CEO,我想如果你需要拿個執照才能做CEO,那他都拿不到。等我掛上電話，我想，我可能剛剛做了件非常愚蠢的事。

That spring Larry Ellison saw Amelio at a party and introduced him to the technology journalist Gina Smith, who asked how Apple was doing. “You know, Gina, Apple is like a ship,” Amelio answered. “That ship is loaded with treasure, but there’s a hole in the ship. And my job is to get everyone to row in the same direction.” Smith looked perplexed and asked, “Yeah, but what about the hole?” From then on, Ellison and Jobs joked about the parable of the ship. “When Larry relayed this story to me, we were in this sushi place, and I literally fell off my chair laughing,” Jobs recalled. “He was just such a buffoon, and he took himself so seriously. He insisted that everyone call him Dr. Amelio. That’s always a warning sign.”

那年春天，甲骨文的拉里·埃利森在一次聚會上見到阿梅里奧，把他介紹給了科技記者吉娜·史密斯（GinaSmith）。她問蘋果情況如何。“你知道，吉娜，蘋果就像一條船，”阿梅里奧回答，“那條船滿載著寶藏，但是船上有個洞。我的工作就是讓所有人都朝同一個方向劃船。”史密斯看起來很迷惑地問，“是的，但是，那個洞怎么辦？”從那時起，埃利森和喬布斯就一直拿這個關于船的比喩開玩笑。“當拉里給我講這個故事的時候，我們正在吃壽司，我真是笑得都直不起腰來了。”喬布斯回憶說，“他就是那樣一個小丑，還特別把自己當回事兒。他堅持讓所有人稱呼他為阿梅里奧博士，以此提醒別人尊重他。”