Jobs' scratched prototype forced Corning to ship never-before-made Gorilla Glass in under six months
SumitGup · x · 2026-10-28
A thread retells the origin of the original iPhone's screen: Jobs kept a plastic-screen prototype in the same pocket as his keys, saw the scratches, and went berserk. Per Brian Merchant's The One Device, the glass prototype failed the one-meter drop test 100 out of 100 times, and Jobs pressed a mid-level exec: "I just want to know if you are going to make the fing thing work." When Jobs tried explaining glassmaking to Corning CEO Wendell Weeks, Weeks shot back: "Can you shut up and let me teach you some science?" Corning had no production line for such glass and said scaling in months was impossible; Jobs replied "Don't be afraid. Get your mind around it. You can do it." Per Isaacson's biography, Corning delivered glass that had never been made before — in under six months. The thread caps it with a modern jab: "Did any of you actually try folding the folding phone before we shipped it?"
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