14 DAY TRIAL // Yesterday we conveyed to you a feature piece from Bloomberg Businessweek which said that Apple was looking at $5 billion / €3.9 billion in expenses to erect its much-hyped spaceship Campus 2 in Cupertino.
In case you haven’t read through the whole story, today we’re going to tell you why “the budget for Apple’s Campus 2 has ballooned from less than $3 billion to nearly $5 billion,” according to five people who are close to the project, cited by Bloomberg.
The gist of it is that Steve Jobs, famous for his demanding nature, reportedly wanted a building so perfect in every aspect that it simply couldn't be done with traditional methods and, implicitly, traditional money-spending.
From the feature story:
“The true expense of the campus lies not in green tech, though, as much as the materials—as well as what product designers call “fit and finish.” As with Apple’s products, Jobs wanted no seam, gap, or paintbrush stroke showing; every wall, floor, and even ceiling is to be polished to a supernatural smoothness. All of the interior wood was to be harvested from a specific species of maple, and only the finer-quality ‘heartwood’ at the center of the trees would be used, says one person briefed on the plan last year.”