iParanoia at Sony HQ
(Hide the headphones.)
Before the March 6 announcement that their boss, Howard Stringer, was being promoted from head of Sony’s American operations to worldwide CEO, employees at the Madison Avenue headquarters didn’t think twice about bopping into work listening to their iPods. But since then, iPod sightings have gone into rapid decline. (Sony has its own MP3 player.) “Howard’s no longer just an entertainment executive,” noted one Sony exec. “Now that he’s going to, like, kill Apple, people are a lot more hesitant to get caught in the elevator with white headphones.” Of course, in the old days, Stringer wore an iPod to work, too.
—Kate Pickert

EDITED BY CARL SWANSON

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
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