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Minutes from Apple's shareholder meeting
Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog has some unofficial minutes from this week's Apple shareholder meeting -- while press weren't actually allowed inside the event (which featured Apple's board, including Al Gore, Steve Jobs, and new co-lead director Andrea Jung), that didn't stop an anonymous shareholder from revealing the goings-on. Not that it mattered much -- the whole affair sounds pretty boring, with Apple running down what they've done in public over the past year, along with lots of formalities and shareholder votes. One highlight is that Steve Jobs sounds like he's got the magic back -- apparently he was "feisty" during the Q&A session, and he sounds like he's back to work, saying that Apple is holding onto their piles of cash for some "big, bold moves." There was news that Apple is planning to expand their retail presence in China, opening up 25 Apple Stores over there over the next two years. Both a stock split and a sustainability proposal were brought up, discussed, and turned down by the shareholders (more on the stock split here on TUAW in just a bit). In short, Apple is a company, just like any other. It's actually fun to see behind the doors on this one, and get a look at the mechanics that drive this historic company. You almost get a sense of what Jobs is like in actual meetings -- fairly demanding, always pushing for answers (or questions), and while opinionated, always fair (Eric Schmidt was brought up, and Jobs said that the Google VIP "conducted himself appropriately" while at Apple). Despite the fact that those two proposals were declined, it sounds like a productive meeting.
