Steve Jobs

Icaru lier to Cambridge, Massachusetts, t He had been dethroned from the co Jobs had said to Sculley in disgust, \" million and they took his company a flected, hewas taking Jobs's company As Sculley went over the organiza see as the new head of a combined M group. On the chart was a small box connecting to it, not to Sculley or to that in that role, Jobs would play the didn't acknowledge Jobs's presence. T ward applause. Jobs stayed home for the next few machine on, seeing only his girlfriend he sat there playing his Bob Dylan ta Are a-Changin.'\" He had recited the the Macintosh to the Apple sharehold verse ended nicely: \"Forthe loser now A rescue squad from his former M the gloom on Sunday night, led by A son.Jobs took a while to answer the to a room next to the kitchen that wa furniture. With Redse's help, he serv ordered. \"So what really happened?\" bad as it looks?\" \"No, it's worse.\" Jobs grimaced. imagine.\" He blamed Sculley for betr would not be able to manage withou complained, was completely ceremonia Bandley 3 office to a small and almos \"Siberia.\" Hertzfeld turned the topic to reminisce about the past. Earlier that week, Dylan had rele lesque, and Hertzfeld brought a copy tech turntable. The most notable tra

us 207 to visit Jobs's hero, Edwin Land. ompany he created, Polaroid, and \"All he did was blow a lousy few away from him.\" Now, Sculley re y away from him. ational chart, he introduced Gas Macintosh and Apple II product x labeled \"chairman\"with no lines anyone else. Sculley briefly noted part of\"global visionary.\" But he There was a smattering of awk days, blinds drawn, his answering d, Tina Redse. For hours on end apes, especially \"The Times They second verse the day he unveiled lders sixteen months earlier. That w/ Will be later to win \" Macintosh posse arrived to dispel Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkin eir knock, and then he led them as one ofthe few places with any ved some vegetarian food he had Hertzfeld asked. \"Is it really as \"It's much worse than you can raying him, and said that Apple ut him. His role as chairman, he al. Hewas being ejected* from his st empty building he nicknamed to happier days, and they began eased a new album, Empire Bur that they played on Jobs's high- rack, \"When the Night Comes

208 Walter Isaacson Falling from the Sky,\" withits apocalyptic message, seemed appropri ate for the evening, butJobs didn't like it.It sounded almost disco, and he gloomily argued that Dylan had been going downhill since Blood on the Tracks. So Hertzfeld moved the needle to the last song on the album, \"Dark Eyes,\" which was a simple acoustic number featuring Dylan alone onguitar and harmonica. It was slow and mournful and, Hertzfeld hoped, would remind Jobs ofthe earlier Dylan tracks he so loved. ButJobs didn't like that song either and had no desire to hear the rest ofthe album. Jobs's overwrought reaction was understandable. Sculley had once been a father figure to him. So had Mike Markkula. So had Arthur Rock. That week all three had abandoned him. \"It gets back to the deep feeling of being rejected at an early age,\" his friend and lawyer George Riley later said. \"It's a deep part ofhis own mythology, and it defines to himself who he is.\" Jobs recalled years later, \"I felt like I'd been punched, the air knocked out ofme and I couldn't breathe.\" Losing the support ofArthur Rock was especially painful. \"Arthur had been like a father to me,\" Jobs said. \"He took me under his wing.\" Rock had taught him about opera, and he and his wife,Toni, had been his hosts in San Francisco and Aspen. \"I remember driving into San Francisco one time, and I said to him, 'God, that Bank of America building is ugly,' and he said, 'No, it's the best,' andlie proceeded to lecture me, and he was right of course.\" Years later Jobs's eyes welled with tears as he recounted the story: \"He chose Sculley over me. That really t|irew me for aloop. I never thought he would abandon me.\" Making matters worse was that his beloved company was now in the hands of a man he considered a bozo. \"The board felt that I couldn't runa company, and thatwas their decision to make,\" he said. \"But they made one mistake. They should have separated the decision of what to do with me and what to do with Sculley. They should have fired Sculley, even ifthey didn't think I was ready to run Apple.\" Even as his personal gloom slowly lifted, his anger at Sculley, his feeling of betrayal, deepened. The situation worsened when Sculley told a group of analysts that he considered Jobs irrelevant to the company, despite his tide as chair man. \"From an operations standpoint, there is no role either today or

Icarus 209 in the future for Steve Jobs,\" he said. \"I don't know what he'll do.\" The blunt comment shocked the group, and a gasp went through the auditorium. Perhaps getting away to Europe would help, Jobs thought. So in June he went to Paris,where he spoke at an Apple event and went to a dinner honoring Vice President George H. W. Bush. From there he went to Italy, where he drove the hills of Tuscany with Redse and bought a bike so he could spend time riding by himself. In Florence he soaked in the architecture of the city and the texture of the build ing materials. Particularly memorable were the paving stones, which came from II Casone quarry nearthe Tuscan town of Firenzuola. They were a calmingbluishgray. Twentyyears later he would decide that the floors of most majorApple stores wouldbe made of this sandstone. The Apple II wasjust going on sale in Russia, so Jobs headed off to Moscow, where he met up with Al Eisenstat. Because there was a problem gettingWashington's approval forsome of the required export licenses, theyvisited the commercial attache at the American embassy in Moscow, Mike Merwin. He warned them that there were strict laws against sharing technology with the Soviets. Jobs was annoyed. At the Paris trade show, Vice President Bush had encouraged him to get computers into Russia in order to \"foment revolution from below.\" Over dinner at a Georgian restaurant that specialized in shish kebab, Jobs continued his rant. \"How could you suggest this violates Ameri can lawwhen it so obviously benefits our interests?\" he askedMerwin. \"By putting Macs in the hands of Russians, they could print all their newspapers.\" Jobs also showed his feisty side in Moscow by insisting on talk ing aboutTrotsky, the charismatic revolutionary who fell out of favor and was ordered assassinated by Stalin. At one point the KGB agent assigned to him suggested he tone down his fervor. \"You don't want to talk about Trotsky,\" he said.\"Our historians have studied the situa tion, and we don't believe he's a great man anymore.\" That didn't help. When theygot to the state university in Moscow to speak to computer students, Jobs began his speech by praising Trotsky. He was a revolu tionaryJobs could identifywith. Jobs and Eisenstat attended the July Fourth party at the American

210 Walter Isaacson embassy, and in his thank-you letter to Ambassador Arthur Hartman, Eisenstat noted that Jobs planned to pursue Apple's ventures in Rus sia more vigorously in the coming year. \"We are tentatively planning on returning to Moscow in September.\" For a moment it looked as if Sculley's hope that Jobs would turn into a \"global visionary\" for the companymight come to pass. But it was not to be. Something much differentwas in store for September.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN NeXT Prometheus Unbound The PiratesAbandon Ship Upon his return from Europe in August 1985, while he was casting about for what to do next, Jobs called the Stanford biochemist Paul Berg to discuss the advances thatwere being made in gene splicing and recombinant DNA. Berg described how difficult it was to do experi ments in a biology lab, where it could take weeks to nurture an experi ment and get a result. \"Whydon't you simulate them on a computer?\" Jobs asked. Berg replied that computers with such capacities were too expensive for university labs. \"Suddenly, he was excited about the pos sibilities,\" Berg recalled. \"Hehad it inhis mind to start a new company. 211

212 Walter Isaacson He wasyoung and rich, and had to find somethingto do with the rest of his life.\" Jobs had already been canvassing academics to askwhat their work station needs were. It was something he had been interested in since 1983,when he had visited the computer science department at Brown to show off the Macintosh, only to be told that it would take a far more powerful machine to do anything useful in a university lab. The dream ofacademic researchers was to have a workstation that was both powerful and personal. As head of the Macintosh division, Jobs had launched a project to build sucha machine, whichwasdubbed the Big Mac. It would have a UNIX operating system but with the friendly Macintosh interface. But after Jobs was ousted from the Macintosh division, his replacement, Jean-Louis Gassee, canceled the Big Mac. When that happened, Jobs got a distressed call from Rich Page, who had been engineering the Big Mac's chip set. It was the latest in a series of conversations that Jobs was having with disgrunded Apple employees urging him to start a newcompany and rescue them. Plans to do so began to jell over Labor Day weekend, when Jobs spoke to Bud Tribble, the original Macintosh software chief, and floated the idea of starting a company to build a powerful but personal worksta tion. He also enlisted two other Macintosh division employees who had been talking about leaving, the engineer George Crow and the controller Susan Barnes. That left one keyvacancy on the team: a person who could mar ket the new product to universities. The obvious candidate was Danl Lewin, who at Apple had organized a consortium of universities to buyMacintosh computers in bulk. Besides missing two letters in his first name, Lewin had the chiseled good looks of Clark Kent and a Princetonian's polish. He andJobs shared a bond: Lewin had written a Princeton thesis on Bob Dylan and charismatic leadership, andJobs knew somethingabout both of those topics. Lewin's university consortium had been a godsend to the Mac intosh group, but he had become frustrated after Jobs left and Bill Campbell had reorganized marketing in away that reduced the role of directsales to universities. He had been meaningto callJobs when, that

NeXT 213 Labor Day weekend, Jobs called first. He drove to Jobs's unfurnished mansion, and theywalked the grounds while discussing the possibility of creating a new company. Lewin was excited, but not ready to com mit. He was going to Austin with Campbell the following week, and he wanted to wait until then to decide. Upon his return, he gave his answer: He was in.The news came just in time for the September 13 Apple board meeting. AlthoughJobswas stillnominally the board's chairman, he had not been to any meetings since he lost power. He called Sculley, said he was going to attend, and askedthat an item be added to the end of the agenda for a \"chairman's report.\" He didn't say what it was about, and Sculley assumed it would be a criticism of the latest reorganization. Instead, when his turn came to speak, Jobs described to the board his plans to start a new company. \"I've been thinking a lot, and it's time for me to get on with my life,\" he began. \"It's obvious that I've got to do something. I'm thirtyyears old.\" Then he referred to some prepared notes to describe his plan to create a computer for the higher educa tion market. The new company would not be competitive with Apple, he promised, and he would take with him only a handful of non-key personnel. He offered to resign as chairman ofApple, but he expressed hope that they could work together. Perhaps Apple would want to buy the distribution rights to his product, he suggested, or license Macin tosh software to it. Mike Markkula rankled at thepossibility thatJobs would hire any one from Apple. \"Whywould you take anyone at all?\" he asked. \"Don't get upset,\"Jobs assured him and the rest of the board.\"These are very low-level people that you won't miss, andthey will be leaving anyway.\" The board initially seemed disposed to wish Jobs well in his ven ture. After a private discussion, thedirectors even proposed thatApple take a 10% stake in the new company and that Jobs remain on the board. That night Jobs and his five renegades met again at his house for dinner. He was in favor oftaking theApple investment, but the others convinced him it was unwise. They also agreed that it would be best

214 Walter Isaacson if they resigned all at once, right away. Then they could make a clean break. So Jobs wrote a formal letter telling Sculleythe names of the five who would be leaving, signed it in his spidery lowercase signature, and drove to Apple the next morningto hand it to him beforehis 7:30 staff meeting. \"Steve, these are not low-level people,\" Sculley said. \"Well, these people were going to resign anyway,\" Jobs replied. \"They are going to be handing in their resignations by nine this morning.\" FromJobs's perspective, he had been honest.The five were not di vision managers or members of Sculley's top team. They had all felt diminished, in fact, by the company's new organization. But from Sculley's perspective, these were importantplayers; Pagewas an Apple Fellow, and Lewin was a keyto the higher education market.In addi tion, they knew about the plans for BigMac; even though it had been shelved, this was still proprietary information. Nevertheless Sculley was sanguine. Instead of pushingthe point,he asked Jobs to remainon the board.Jobs replied that he would think about it. But when Sculley walked into his 7:30 staff meeting and told his top lieutenants whowas leaving, therewas an uproar. Most ofthem felt that Jobs had breached his duties as chairman and displayed stunning disloyalty to the company. \"We should expose him for the fraud that he is so that people here stop regarding him as a messiah,\" Campbell shouted, according to Sculley. Campbell admitted that, although he laterbecame a greatJobs de fender and supportive board member, he was ballistic that morning. \"I was fucking furious, especially about him taking Dan'l Lewin,\" he recalled. \"Dan'l had built the relationships with the universities. He was always muttering about howhard it was to workwith Steve, and then he left.\" Campbell was so angry that he walked out of the meet ing to call Lewin at home. When his wife said he was in the shower, Campbell said, \"I'll wait.\" A few minutes later, when she said he was still in the shower, Campbell again said, \"I'll wait.\" When Lewin fi nally came on the phone, Campbell asked him if it was true. Lewin acknowledged it was. Campbell hungup withoutsaying anotherword.

NeXT After hearing the fury of his se members of the board. They likewis with his pledge that he would not ra Rock was especially angry. Even th during the Memorial Day showdow paternal relationship with Jobs. Just Jobs to bring his girlfriend up to S wife could meet her, and the four ha Heights home. Jobs had not menti forming, so Rock felt betrayed when \"He came to the board and lied to u us he was thinking of forming a com formed it. He said he was going to t turned out to be five senior people.\" M also offended. \"He took some top ex before he left.That's not the way you Over the weekend both the board Sculley that Apple would have to dec kula issued a formal statement accus tradiction to his statements that he personnel for his company.\" He adde what possible actions should be take Wall Street Journal as saying he \"was behavior. Jobs had left his meeting with Sc proceed smoothly, sohe had kept qui pers, he feltthat he hadto respond. H and invited them to his home for pri he called Andy Cunningham, who h McKenna. \"I went over to his unfurn side,\" she recalled, \"and I found him five colleagues and a few reporters ha told her that he was going to do a f started spewing some of the deroga Cunningham was appalled. \"This isg told him. Finally he backed down. H

T 215 enior staff, Sculley surveyed the se felt that Jobs had misled them aid important employees. Arthur hough he had sided with Sculley wn, he had been able to repair his the week before, he had invited San Francisco so that he and his ad a nice dinner in Rock's Pacific ioned the new company he was n he heard about it from Sculley. us,\" Rock growled later. \"He told mpany when in fact he had already take a few middle-level people. It Markkula, in his subdued way, was xecutives he had secretly lined up do things. It was ungentlemanly.\" d and the executive staffconvinced clare war on its cofounder. Mark sing Jobs of acting \"in direct con e wouldn't recruit any key Apple ed ominously, \"We are evaluating en.\" Campbell was quoted in the s stunned and shocked\" by Jobs's culley thinking that things might iet. But after reading the newspa He phoned a few favored reporters ivate briefings the next day. Then had handled his publicity at Regis nished mansiony place in Wood- huddled in the kitchen with his anging outside on the lawn.\" Jobs full-fledged press conference and atory things he was going to say. going to reflect badly on you,\" she He decided that he would give the

216 Walter Isaacson reporters a copy of the resignation letter and limit any on-the-record comments to a few bland statements. Jobs had considered just mailing in his letter of resignation, but Susan Barnes convinced him that this would be too contemptuous. Instead he drove it to Markkula's house,where he also found Al Eisen stat. There was a tense conversation for about fifteen minutes; then Barnes, who had been waiting outside, came to the door to retrieve him before he said anything he would regret. He left behind the let ter, which he had composed on a Macintosh and printed on the new LaserWriter: September 17,1985 Dear Mike: This morning'spapers carried suggestions thatApple isconsid ering removing me as Chairman. Idont know the source ofthese reports but they are both misleading to thepublic andunfair tome. You will recall that at last Thursdays Board meeting I statedI haddecided tostart a new venture andI tendered my resignation as Chairman. The Board declined to accept my resignation and asked me to defer itfora week I agreed to do so inlight ofthe encouragement the Board offered with regard to theproposed new venture and the indications thatApple would invest init On Friday, after I toldJohn Sculley who would bejoining me, he confirmedApple's willingness to discuss areas ofpossible collaboration between Apple and my new venture. Subsequently the Company appears to be adopting a hostile posture toward me and the new venture. Accordingly, I must insist upon the immediate acceptance ofmy resignation Asyou know, the company's recent reorganization left me with no work todo andno access even to regular management reports. I am but 30 and want still to contribute and achieve. After what wehave accomplished together, I would wish our parting tobe both amicable anddignified. Yours sincerely, stevenp.jobs

NeXT When a guyfrom the facilities team hisbelongings, he saw a picture frame tograph ofJobs and Sculley in warm from seven months earlier: \"Here's to and a Great Friendship! John/' The had hurled it across the room before spoke to Sculley again. Apples stock went up a full point, or tion was announced. \"East Coast sto California flakes running the compan stock newsletter. \"Nowwith both Wo holders are relieved.\" But Nolan Bush beenan amused mentorten years earl badly missed. \"Where is Apple s ins Apple going to have all the romance After a few days of failed efforts Sculley and the Apple board decided ciary obligations.\" The suit spelled ou Notwithstanding his fiduciary obligati as the Chairman ofApples Board ofD andpretending loyalty to the interests (a) secredy planned the formation Apple; (b) secretly schemed thathis compe take advantage ofandutilize Apple spl the Next Generation Product... (c) secredy lured away key employe At the time, Jobs owned 6.5 millio the company, worth more than $100 shares, and within five months had d one share so he could attend shareho was furious, and that was reflected ir no matter howhe spun it, a rival com

T 217 m went to Jobs s office to pack up e on the floor. It contained a pho conversation, with an inscription o Great Ideas, Great Experiences, e glass frame was shattered. Jobs e leaving. From that day, he never r almost 7%, when Jobs's resigna ockholders always worried about ny/' explained the editor of a tech ozniak and Jobs out, those share hnell, the Atari founder who had lier, told Time that Jobswould be spiration going to come from? Is ofa new brand ofPepsi?\" to reach a settlement withJobs, to suehim \"for breaches of fidu uthis alleged transgressions: ions to Apple, Jobs, while serving Directors and anofficer ofApple ofApple ... ofanenterprise to compete with eting enterprise would wrongfully lan to design, develop andmarket ees ofApple. on shares ofApple stock, 11% of 00 million. He began to sell his dumped them all, retaining only older meetings if he wanted. He ri his passion to start what was, mpany. \"He was angry at Apple,\"

218 Walter Isaacson saidJoanna Hoffman, who briefly went to work for the new company. \"Aiming at the educational market, where Applewas strong, was sim plySteve beingvengeful. He was doing it for revenge.\" Jobs, of course, didn't see it that way. \"I haven't got any sort of odd chip on my shoulder,\" he told Newsweek. Once again he invited his favorite reporters over to hisWoodside home, and this time he did not have Andy Cunningham there urging him to be circumspect. He dis missed the allegation that he had improperly lured the five colleagues from Apple. \"These people all called me,\" he told the gaggle of jour nalists who were milling around in his unfurnished living room. \"They were thinking of leaving the company. Apple has a way of neglecting people.\" He decided to cooperate with a Newsweek cover in order to get his version of the story out, and the interview he gave was revealing. \"What I'mbestat doing isfinding a group oftalented people andmak ing things with them,\" he told the magazine. He said that he would always harbor affection for Apple. \"I'll always remember Apple like any man remembers the first woman he's fallen in love with.\" But he was also willing to fight withitsmanagement if need be.\"When some one calls you a thiefin public, you have to respond.\" Apple's threat to sue him was outrageous. It was also sad. It showed that Apple was no longer a confident, rebellious company. \"It's hard to thinkthat a $2 bil lion company with 4,300 employees couldn't compete with six people in bluejeans.\" To try to counterJobs's spin, Sculley called Wozniak andurged him to speak out. \"Steve can be an insulting andhurtful guy,\" he told Time that week. He revealed that Jobs had asked him to join his newfirm— it would have been a sly way to landanother blow against Apple's cur rent management—but he wanted no part of such games and had not returned Jobs's phone call. To the San Francisco Chronicle, he recounted how Jobs had blocked frogdesign from working on his remote control under the pretense that it might compete with Apple products. \"I look forward to a great product and I wish him success, but his integrity I cannot trust,\" Wozniak said.

NeX To Be on Your Own \"The best thing ever to happen to S himto getlost,\" ArthurRock later sa that the tough love made him wisera simple. At the company he founded Jobs was able to indulge all of his in was unbound. The result was a series dazzling market flops. This was the prepared him for the great success he ouster from his Act I at Apple but hi The first instinct that he indulged name he chose for his new company In order to make it more distinctive class logo. So he courted the dean o seventy-one, the Brooklyn-born grap some of the best-known logos in bus IBM, Westinghouse, ABC, and UPS and his supervisors there said that it him to create a logo for another com up the phone and called IBM's CEO town, butJobs was so persistent thath Chairman Paul Rizzo. After two da futile to resist Jobs, and he gave perm Rand flew out to Palo Alto and s listening tohis vision. Thecomputer w He loved that shape. It was perfect an the logo should be a cube as well, on When Jobs asked for a number of op that he did not create different optio problem, and you will pay me,\" hetol duce, ornot, butI will notdo options, Jobs admired that kind of thinkin gamble. The company would pay an get one design. \"There was a clarity in

T 219 Steve is when we fired him, told aid. The theory, shared bymany, is and more mature. But it's not that d after being ousted from Apple, nstincts, both good and bad. He ofspectacular products thatwere e true learning experience. What wouldhave in Act III was not his is brilliant failures in Act II. d was his passion for design. The was rather straightforward: Next. e, he decided he needed a world- of corporate logos, Paul Rand. At phic designer had already created siness, including those ofEsquire, S. He was under contractto IBM, would obviously be a conflict for mputer company. So Jobs picked O, John Akers. Akers was out of hewas finally putthrough to Vice ays, Rizzo concluded that it was mission for Rand to do the work. spent time walking withJobs and would beacube,Jobs pronounced. and simple. So Rand decided that ne that was tilted at a 28° angle. ptions to consider, Rand declared ons for clients. \"I will solve your ld Jobs. \"You can use what I pro , and either way you will pay me.\" ng, so he made what was quite a n astonishing $100,000 flat fee to n ourrelationship,\" Jobs said. \"He

220 Walter Isaacson had a purity as an artist, but he was astute at solving business prob lems. He had a tough exterior, and had perfected the image of a cur mudgeon, but he was a teddy bearinside.\" It was one ofJobs's highest praises: purity as an artist. It took Rand just two weeks. He flew back to deliver the result to Jobs at his Woodside house. First they had dinner, then Rand handed him an elegant andvibrant booklet that described his thoughtprocess. On the final spread, Rand presented the logo he had chosen. \"In its design, color arrangement, and orientation, the logo is a study in con trasts,\" hisbooklet proclaimed. \"Tipped at ajauntyangle, it brims with the informality, friendliness, and spontaneity of a Christmas seal and the authority of a rubber stamp.\" The word \"next\" was split into two lines to fill the square face of the cube, with only the \"e\" in lowercase. That letterstoodout, Rand's booklet explained, to connote \"education, excellence ... e = mc2.\" It was often hard to predict howJobs would react to a presenta tion. He could label it shitty or brilliant; one never knew which way he might go. Butwith a legendary designer such as Rand, the chances were that Jobs would embrace the proposal. He stared at the final spread, looked up at Rand, andthenhugged him. Theyhadoneminor disagreement: Rand hadused a dark yellow for the\"e\" in the logo, and Jobs wanted him to change it to a brighter and more traditional yellow. Rand banged hisfist on the table anddeclared, \"I've been doing thisfor fifty years, and I know whatI'm doing.\" Jobs relented. The company had not only a new logo, but a newname. No longer was it Next. It was NeXT. Others mightnot have understood the need to obsess over a logo, much less pay$100,000 for one. But forJobs it meant that NeXT was startinglifewith a world-class feeland identity, even if it hadn't yetdesigned itsfirst product. As Markkula had taught him, a great company must be able to impute its values from the first impression it makes. As a bonus, Rand agreed to design a personal calling cardforJobs. He came up with a colorful type treatment, which Jobs liked, but they ended up having a lengthy and heated disagreement about the place mentofthe period after the\"P\"in Steven P. Jobs. Rand hadplaced the period to the right of the \"P.\", as it would appear if set in lead type.

NeXT Steve preferred the period to be nud of the \"R\", as is possible with digital t argument about something relatively this oneJobs prevailed. In order to translate the NeXT log Jobs needed anindustrial designer het bilities, but none of them impressed h he had imported to Apple: Hartmut set up shop in Silicon Valley and who contract with Apple. Getting IBM to for NeXT was a small miracle willed in reality can bedistorted. Butthatwas a that he could convince Apple to perm This did notkeep Jobs from trying 1985, just five weeks after Apple filed Eisenstat and asked for a dispensatio linger this weekend and he suggested why I wish to work with him and frog NeXT,\" he said. Astonishingly, Jobs's know what Apple hadin theworks, b knowledge as to the current orfuture d signs, nordoother design firms we mi inadvertendy design similar looking pr NeXT's best interest to rely onHartmu this does not occur.\" Eisenstat recalle audacity, and hereplied curtly. \"Ihave p op behalfofApple that you are engage volves your utilization ofApple's confid wrote. \"Your letter does not alleviate m heightens my concern because it states to the current or future directions ofA ment which is not true.\" What made th ingto Eisenstat was that it was Jobs wh frogdesign to abandon its work on Wo Jobs realized that in order to work ety of otherreasons), it would be nece

T 221 dged to the left, under the curve typography. \"It was a fairly large small,\" Susan Kare recalled. On go into the look of real products, trusted. He talked to a few possi him as much asthe wildBavarian Esslinger, whose frogdesign had o, thanks to Jobs, had a lucrative o permit Paul Rand to do work into existence byJobs's beliefthat a snap compared to thelikelihood mit Esslinger to work for NeXT. g. At the beginning ofNovember d suit against him, Jobs wrote to on. \"I spoke with Hartmut Ess d I write you a note expressing gdesign on the new products for s argument was that he did not but Esslinger did. \"NeXT has no directions ofApple's product de ight deal with, so it ispossible to roducts. It is in both Apple's and ut's professionalism to make sure ed being flabbergasted by Jobs's previously expressed my concern ed in a business course which in dential business information,\" he my concern in any way. In fact it s that you have no knowledge as Apple's product designs,' a state herequest all the more astonish who, justa year earlier, hadforced ozniak's remote control device. k with Esslinger (and for a vari essary to resolve the lawsuit that

222 Walter Isaacson Apple had filed. Fortunately Sculley was willing. In January1986they reached an out-of-court agreement involving no financial damages. In return for Apple's dropping its suit, NeXT agreed to a variety of re strictions: Its product would be marketed as a high-end workstation, it would be sold directly to colleges and universities, and it would not ship before March 1987. Apple also insisted that the NeXT machine \"notuse an operating system compatible with the Macintosh,\" though it could be argued that Apple would have beenbetter served by insist ing on just the opposite. After the settlement Jobs continued to court Esslinger until the designer decided to wind down his contract withApple. That allowed frogdesign to work with NeXT at the end of 1986. Esslinger insisted on having free rein, just as Paul Randhad. \"Sometimes youhave to use a big stickwith Steve,\" he said. Like Rand, Esslinger was an artist, so Jobs was willing to granthim indulgences he denied other mortals. Jobs decreed that the computer should be an absolutely perfect cube, with each side exacdy a foot long and every angle precisely 90 degrees. He liked cubes. They had gravitas but also the slight whifif of a toy. But the NeXT cube was a Jobsian example of design desires trumping engineering considerations. The circuit boards, which fitted nicely intothe traditional pizza-box shape, hadto be reconfigured and stacked in order to nestle into a cube. Even worse, the perfection ofthe cube made it hardto manufacture. Most parts that are cast in molds have angles that are slightly greater than pure 90 degrees, so that it's easier to get them out of the mold (just as it is easier to get a cake out of a pan that has angles slightly greater than 90 degrees). But Esslinger dictated, andJobs enthusiasti cally agreed, that there would beno such \"draft angles\" that would ruin the purity and perfection ofthe cube. So the sides hadto be produced separately, using molds that cost $650,000, at a specialty machine shop in Chicago. Jobs's passion for perfection was out of control. When he noticed a tinyline in the chassis caused by the molds, something that any other computer maker would accept as unavoidable, he flew to Chicago and convinced the die caster to start over and do it perfecdy. \"Not a lot of die casters expect a celebrity to fly in,\" noted one of the engineers. Jobs also hadthe company buy a $150,000 sanding machine

NeXT to remove all lines where the mold magnesium case be a matte black, wh showing blemishes. Jobs had always indulged his obse product should be crafted as beautifu had taught him when theywere build extremes when he found himself unf that the screws inside the machine ha sisted that the matte black finish be co case, even though onlyrepairmen wou Joe Nocera, thenwriting for Esqu NeXT staffmeeting: It's not quite right to say that he is si because Jobs doesn't sit through much dominates is through sheer movemen his chair; thenext minute he's slouchin of his chair entirely and is scribbling o him. He is full ofmannerisms. He bites ing earnestness at whoever is speakin and inexplicably yellow, are in constan What particularly struckNocera was J It was more than just an inability to said something he thought dumb; it w perverse eagerness, to put people dow smarter. When Dan'l Lewin handed o ample, Jobs rolled his eyes. \"These ch Yet his moods still swung wildly, as a into themeeting andJobs lavished prai job onthis\"; the previous dayJobs had One of NeXT's first ten employe the company's first headquarters, in P leased a building that was new and n pletely gutted and rebuilt. Walls wer were replaced by light hardwood floo

T 223 faces met and insisted that the which made it more susceptible to session that the unseen parts of a ully as its fa9ade, just as his father ding a fence. This too he took to fettered at NeXT. He made sure adexpensive plating. He even in oated onto the inside ofthe cube's ould see it. uire, captured Jobs's intensity at a itting through this staff meeting, h of anything; one of the ways he nt. One moment hes kneeling in ng init;thenext hehas leaped out on the blackboard direcdy behind s his nails. He stares with unnerv ng. His hands, which are slighdy nt motion. Jobs's \"almost willful lack of tact.\" o hide his opinions when others was a conscious readiness, even a wn, humiliate them, show he was out an organization chart, for ex harts are bullshit,\" he interjected. at Apple. A finance person came ise onhim for a\"really, really great d told him, \"This deal iscrap.\" ees was an interior designer for Palo Alto. Even though Jobs had nicely designed, he had it com re replaced by glass, the carpets oring. The process was repeated

224 Walter Isaacson when NeXT moved to a bigger space in Redwood City in 1989. Even thoughthe building was brand-new, Jobs insisted that the elevators be moved so that the entrance lobby would be more dramatic. As a cen terpiece, Jobs commissioned I. M. Pei to design a grand staircase that seemed to float in the air.The contractor said it couldn't be built. Jobs said it could, and it was. Years later Jobs would make such staircases a feature at Apple's signature stores. The Computer During the early months of NeXT, Jobs and Dan'l Lewin went on the road, often accompanied by a few colleagues, to visit campuses and solicit opinions. At Harvard they met with Mitch Kapor, the chairman of Lotus software, over dinner at Harvest restaurant. When Kapor began slathering butteron hisbread,Jobs asked him,\"Have you ever heard of serum cholesterol?\" Kapor responded, \"I'll make you a deal. You stay away from commenting on mydietary habits, and I will stay away from the subject of your personality.\" It was meant humor ously, but as Kapor later commented, \"Human relationships were not his strong suit.\" Lotus agreed to write a spreadsheet program for the NeXT operatingsystem. Jobs wanted to bundle useful content with the machine, so Mi chael Hawley, one of the engineers, developed a digital dictionary. He learned that a friend of his at Oxford University Press had been in volved in the typesetting ofa new edition of Shakespeare's works. That meant that there was probably a computer tape he could get his hands on and, if so, incorporate it into the NeXT's memory. \"So I called up Steve,and he said that would be awesome, and we flew over to Oxford together.\" On a beautiful spring day in 1986, they metin the publish inghouse's grand building in the heart of Oxford, where Jobs made an offer of $2,000 plus 74 cents for every computer sold in order to have the rights to Oxford's edition of Shakespeare. \"It will be all gravy to you,\" he argued. \"You will be ahead oftheparade. It's never been done before.\" They agreed in principle and then went out to play skittles over beerat a nearby pubwhere Lord Byron used to drink. Bythe time

NeXT it launched, the NeXT would also in and the OxfordDictionary ofQuotatio of the concept of searchable electronic Instead of using off-the-shelf ch engineers design custom ones that i on one chip. That would have been almost impossible by continually re it to do. After a year it became clear t of delay. He also insisted on building his ow factory, justas he hadfor theMacintos that experience. This time too he mad excessively. Machines and robots we compulsively revised his color scheme as they had been at the Macintosh f black leather chairs and a custom-mad rate headquarters. He insisted that th sembly line be configured to move the as theygot built, so that the process w watched from the viewing gallery. Em one end and twenty minutes later, u the other end as completed boards. Th principle known as kanban, in which only when the next machine is ready t Jobs had not tempered his way ofd plied charm or public humiliation in to be pretty effective,\" Tribble recalled engineer, David Paulsen, put in nine months at NeXT. He quit when \"Ste noon andtold us how unimpressed he When Business Week asked him why h Jobs said it made the company better. be a yardstick of quality. Some people where excellence is expected.\" Buthe There were plenty of field trips, visits retreats. And he still exuded the pirat

T 225 include a dictionary, a thesaurus, ons, making it one of the pioneers c books. hips for the NeXT, Jobs had his integrated a variety of functions hard enough, but Jobs made it evising the functions he wanted that this would be a major source wn fully automated and futuristic osh; hehad notbeen chastened by de the same mistakes, only more ere painted and repainted as he e. The walls were museum white, factory, and there were $20,000 ade staircase, just as in the corpo he machinery on the 165-foot as e circuit boards from right to left would lookbetter to visitors who mptycircuit boards were fed in at untouched by humans, came out he process followed theJapanese each machine performs its task to receive another part. dealing with employees. \"Heap a way that in most cases proved d. But sometimes it wasn't. One ety-hour weeks for the first ten eve walked in one Friday after ewas with what we were doing.\" he treated employees so harshly, . \"Part of my responsibiUty is to le aren't used to an environment still had his spirit andcharisma. s by akido masters, and off-site te flag spunkiness. When Apple

226 Walter Isaacson fired Chiat/Day, the ad firm that had done the \"1984\" ad and taken out the newspaper ad saying \"Welcome IBM—seriously,\" Jobs took out a full-page ad in the Wall StreetJournal proclaiming, \"Congratula tions Chiat/Day—Seriously... Because I can guarantee you: there is life after Apple.\" Perhaps the greatest similarity to his days at Apple was that Jobs brought with him his reality distortion field. It was on display at the company's first retreat at Pebble Beach in late 1985. ThereJobs pro nounced that the first NeXT computer wouldbe shippedin just eigh teen months. It was already clear that this date was impossible, but he blew offa suggestion from one engineer that theybe realistic and plan on shipping in 1988. \"Ifwe do that, the world isn't standing still, the technology window passes us by, and allthe work we've done we have to throw down the toilet,\" he argued. Joanna Hoffman, the veteran of the Macintosh team who was among those willing to challenge Jobs, did so. \"Reality distortion has motivational value, and I think that's fine,\" she said as Jobs stood at a whiteboard. \"However, when it comes to setting a date in a way that affects the design of the product, thenweget into real deep shit.\" Jobs didn't agree: \"I thinkwe have to drive a stake in theground somewhere, and I think ifwe miss this window, then our credibility startsto erode.\" What he did not say, even though it was suspected by all, was that if their targets slipped they might run out of money. Jobs had pledged $7 million of his own funds, but at their current burn rate that would run out in eighteen months if they didn't start getting some revenue from shippedproducts. Three months later, when theyreturned to Pebble Beach for their next retreat, Jobs began his list of maxims with \"The honeymoon is over.\" Bythe time of the third retreat, in Sonoma in September 1986, the timetable was gone, and it looked as though the company would hit a financial wall.

NeXT Perot to the Rescue In late 1986 Jobs sent out aproposal t 10% stake in NeXT for $3 million. Th company of $30 million, a number tha Less than $7 million had gone into t was little to show for it other than a ne It had no revenue or products, nor an ingly, the venture capitalists all passed Therewas, however, one cowboy w bantam Texan who had founded Elec it to General Motors for $2.4 billion, mentary, The Entrepreneurs, which ha in November 1986. He instandy iden much so that, as he watched them on ing their sentences for them.\" It was a had often used. Perot called Jobs the n need an investor, call me.\" Jobs did indeed need one, badly. B Hewaited a week before calling back. to size up NeXT, butJobs took care t ofhis great regrets inlife, Perot later s Microsoft, or a large stake in it, whe come to visit him in Dallas in 1979. Microsoft had just gone public with a missed outon the opportunity to mak adventure. Hewas eager not to make t Jobs made an offer to Perot that w had quietly been offered to venture c For $20 million, Perot would get 16% after Jobs put in another $5 million. T be valued at about $126 million. But m ation for Perot. After a meeting withJ \"I pick thejockeys, and thejockeys pic told Jobs. \"You guys are the ones I'm b

T 227 toventure capital firms offering a hat put a valuation on the entire atJobs hadpulled out of thin air. the company thus far, and there eat logo and some snazzy offices. ny on the horizon. Not surpris d on the offer to invest. who was dazzled. Ross Perot, the ctronic Data Systems, then sold happened to watch a PBS docu ad a segment on Jobs and NeXT ntified with Jobs and his gang, so television, he said, \"I was finish aline eerily similar to one Sculley next day and offered, \"Ifyou ever But he was careful not to show it. . Perot sent some ofhis analysts to deal directly with Perot. One said, was that he had not bought en a very young Bill Gates had . By the time Perot called Jobs, a $1 billion valuation. Perot had ke a lot ofmoney and have a fun that mistake again. was three times more costly than capitalists a few months earlier. % ofthe equity in the company, That meant the company would money was nota major consider Jobs, he declared that he was in. ck the horses and ride them,\" he betting on, so you figure it out.\"

228 Walter Isaacson Perot brought to NeXT something that was almost as valuable as his $20 million lifeline: He was a quotable, spirited cheerleader for the company, who could lend it anair ofcredibility among grown-ups. \"In terms ofa startup company, it's one thatcarries theleast risk ofany I've seen in 25years in the computer industry,\" he toldtheNew York Times. \"We've had some sophisticated people see the hardware—it blew them away. Steve and his whole NeXT team are the darnedest bunch ofper fectionists I've ever seen.\" Perot also traveled in rarefied social and business circles that com plemented Jobs's own. He tookJobs to ablack-tie dinner dance in San Francisco that Gordon and Ann Getty gave for King Juan Carlos I of Spain. When the king asked Perot whom he should meet, Perot immediately produced Jobs. They were soon engaged in what Perot later described as\"electric conversation,\" withJobs animatedly describ ing the next wave in computing. At the end the king scribbled a note and handed it to Jobs. \"What happened?\" Perot asked. Jobs answered, \"I sold him a computer.\" These and other stories were incorporated into the mythologized story ofJobs that Perot told wherever he went. At a briefing at the National Press Club in Washington, he spun Jobs's life story into a Texas-size yarn about a young man so poor he couldn't afford to go to college, working in his garage at night, playing with computer chips, which was his hobby, and his dad— who looks like a character out of a Norman Rockwellpainting—comes in one day and said, \"Steve, either make something you can sell orgoget ajob.\" Sixty days iater, inawooden box that his dad made for him, the first Apple computer was created. And this high school graduate liter ally changed the world. The one phrase thatwas true was the one about Paul Jobs's look ing like someone in a Rockwell painting. And perhaps the last phrase, the one about Jobs changing theworld. Certainly Perot believed that. Like Sculley, he saw himself in Jobs. \"Steve's like me,\" Perot told the Washington Posh David Remnick. \"We're weird inthe same way. We're soul mates.\"

NeXT Gates andNeXT Bill Gates was not a soul mate. Jobs software applications for the Macint hugely profitable for Microsoft. But resistant to Jobs's reality distortion f not to create software tailored for th California togetperiodic demonstrat unimpressed. \"TheMacintosh was tru understand what is so unique about Fortune. Partof the problem was that the able to be deferential to each other. to NeXT's Palo Alto headquarters, in himwaiting for a halfhour in the lob through the glass walls that Jobs wa conversations. \"I'd gone down to Ne most expensive carrot juice, and I'd n Gates recalled, shaking his head with comes a half hour late to the meeting Jobs's sales pitch, according to Gat together,\"Jobs said. \"How did thatwo going to do this together andthis isg But Gates was brutal to Jobs, just machine is crap,\" he said. \"The optic fucking case is too expensive. This t then, andreaffirmed on each subseque Microsoft to divert resources from ot tions for NeXT. Worse yet, he repeate others less likely to spend time develo I'll piss on it,\"he toldInfo World When they happened to meet in t started berating Gates for his refusal t you get a market, I will consider it,\" G was a screaming battle, right in fron

T 229 s had convinced him to produce tosh, which had turned out to be t Gates was one person who was field, and as a result he decided he NeXT platform. Gates went to tions, buteach time hecame away ruly unique, but I personally don't t Steve's new computer,\" he told rival titans were congenitally un When Gates made his first visit n the summer of 1987, Jobs kept bby, even though Gates could see as walking around having casual eXT and I had the Odwalla, the never seen tech offices so lavish,\" hjusta hint of a smile. \"And Steve g.\" tes, was simple. \"We did the Mac ork for you? Very well. Now, we're going to begreat.\" t as Jobs could be to others. \"This cal disk has too low latency, the thing is ridiculous.\" He decided ent visit, that it made no sense for other projects to develop applica edly said so publicly, which made oping for NeXT. \"Develop for it? the hallway at a conference, Jobs to do software for NeXT. \"When Gates replied. Jobs got angry. \"It nt of everybody,\" recalled Adele

230 Walter Isaacson Goldberg, theXerox PARC engineer. Jobs insisted that NeXT was the next wave of computing. Gates, as he often did, got more expression less as Jobs gotmore heated. He finally justshook his head andwalked away. Beneaththeir personal rivalry—and occasional grudgingrespect— was their basic philosophical difference. Jobs believed in an end- to-end integration ofhardware and software, which led him to build a machine that was not compatible with others. Gates believed in, and profited from, a world in which different companies made machines that were compatible withone another; theirhardware ran a standard operating system (Microsoft's Windows) and could all use the same software apps (such as Microsoft's Word and Excel). \"His product comes with an interesting feature called incompatibility,\" Gates told the Washington Post. \"It doesn't run any of the existing software. It's a super-nice computer. I don't thinkifI went outto design anincompat ible computer I would have done as well as he did/' At a forum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1989, Jobs and Gates appeared sequentially, laying out their competing worldviews. Jobs spoke about how new waves come along inthecomputer industry every few years. Macintosh had launched arevolutionary new approach with the graphical interface; now NeXT was doing it with object-oriented programming tied toapowerful new machine based onan optical disk. Every major software vendor realized they had to be part of this new wave, he said, \"except Microsoft.\" When Gates came up, he reiterated his beliefthat Jobs's end-to-end control of the software and the hard ware was destined for failure, just as Apple had failed in competing against the Microsoft Windows standard. \"The hardware market and the software market are separate,\" he said. When asked about the great design that could come from Jobs's approach, Gates gestured to the NeXT prototype thatwas still sitting onstage and sneered, \"Ifyou want black, I'll get youa can of paint.\"

NeXT IBM Jobs came up with a brilliant jujitsu m could have changed the balance of p forever. It required Jobs to do two thi licensing out his software to another bed with IBM. He had a pragmatic s able to overcome his reluctance. But which is why the alliance would turn It began at a party, a trulymemora day of the Washington Post publisher in Washington. Six hundred guests Ronald Reagan. Jobs flew in from C John Akers from New York. It was t took the opportunity to bad-mouth IBM from using its Windows operati ing him I thought IBM was taking a software strategyon Microsoft, becau very good,\"Jobs recalled. To Jobs's delight, Akers replied, \"H Within a few weeks Jobs showed up headquarters with his software engin demo of NeXT, which impressed th significance was NeXTSTEP, the m ing system. \"NeXTSTEP took care chores that slow down the software drew Heller, the general manager of I so impressedbyJobs that he named h The negotiations lasted into 1988, tiny details. He would stalk out of me colors or design, only to be calmed didn't seem to know which frightened In April Perot decided to play host for las headquarters, and a dealwas struck version ofthe NeXTSTEP software, a

T 231 maneuver against Gates, one that power in the computer industry ings that were against his nature: hardware maker and getting into streak, albeit a tiny one, so he was t his heart was never fully in it, out to be short-lived. able one, for the seventieth birth Katharine Graham inJune 1987 s attended, including President California and IBM's chairman the first time they had met. Jobs Microsoft and attempt to wean ing system. \"I couldn't resist tell a giant gamble betting its entire use I didn't think its software was How would you like to help us?\" p at IBM's Armonk, New York, neer Bud Tribble. They put on a he IBM engineers. Of particular machine's object-oriented operat of a lot of trivial programming development process,\" said An IBM's workstation unit,who was his newborn son Steve. with Jobs becoming prickly over eetings over disagreements about down by Tribble or Lewin. He d him more, IBM or Microsoft. or a mediating session at his Dal k: IBM would license the current and if the managers liked it, they

232 Walter would use it on some of their wo 125-page contract. Jobs tossed it get it,\" he said as he walked out o contract of only a few pages, whic Jobs wanted to keep the arran the big unveiling ofthe NeXT co IBM insisted on being forthcom this could wean IBM off its depe tems. \"NeXTSTEP isn't compatib executives. At first Jobs seemed to have Other computer makers that wer systems, most notably Compaq an to clone NeXT and license NeXT a lot more if NeXTwould get out That was too much forJobs, a the clone discussions. And he beg came reciprocal. When the perso on, Jobs went to Armonk to me They cleared the room and talke money to keep the relationship go NeXTSTEP to IBM. Cannavino sequently stopped returning Jobs's got a bit of money for a licensin change the world. The Launch, October 1988 Jobs had perfected the art of turn productions, and for the world p October 12,1988, in San Francis outdo himself. He needed to blo leading up to the event, he drov day to hole up in the Victorian h designer, whohaddone the origin

Isaacson orkstations. IBM sent to Palo Alto a down without reading it.\"You don't ofthe room. He demanded a simpler ch he gotwithin a week. ngement secret from Bill Gates until omputer, scheduled for October. But ming. Gates was furious. He realized endence on Microsoft operating sys ble with anything,\" he raged to IBM pulled off Gates's worst nightmare. re beholden to Microsoft's operating nd Dell, came to askJobs for theright TSTEP.There were even offersto pay t of the hardware business altogether. at leastfor the time being. He cut off gan to cool toward IBM.The chillbe on who made the deal at IBM moved eet his replacement, Jim Cannavino. ed one-on-one. Jobs demanded more going and to license newer versions of o made no commitments, and he sub s phone calls. The deal lapsed. NeXT ng fee, but it never got the chance to ning product launches into theatrical premiere of the NeXT computer—on sco's Symphony Hall—he wanted to ow away the doubters. In the weeks ve up to San Francisco almost every house of Susan Kare, NeXT's graphic nal fonts andicons forthe Macintosh.

NeXT She helped prepare each ofthe slides from the wording to the right hue of color. \"I like that green,\" he said proud in front ofsome staffers. \"Great green in assent. No detailwas too small. Jobs went the lunch menu (mineral water, croissa He picked out a video projection co help. And he hired the postmodernist tostage the show. Coates and Jobs dec tere and radically simple stage look. T cube would occur on a starkly minim background, a table covered by a blac the computer, and a simple vase of flo ware nor the operating system was a do a simulation. But he refused. Kno tightrope without a net, he decided to More than three thousand people s two hours before curtain time. They w the show. Jobs was onstage for three h in the words of Andrew Pollack of th Lloyd Webber of product introductio special effects.\" Wes Smith ofthe Chic \"to product demonstrations what Vatic Jobs had the audience cheering fr tobe back.\" Hebegan by recounting t architecture, and he promised that the \"thatoccurs only once or twice in a dec tecture isrolled outthatisgoing tocha NeXT software and hardware were de of consulting with universities across was that higher ed wants a personal m As usual there were superlatives. T said, \"the best thing we could have im of even the parts unseen. Balancing o circuit board that would be nestled in

T 233 es as Jobs fretted over everything fgreen to serve as the background dly as they were doing atrial run n, great green,\" they all murmured t over the invitationlist and even ants, cream cheese, bean sprouts). ompany and paid it $60,000 for theater producer George Coates cided, not surprisingly, onan aus The unveiling ofthe black perfect malist stage setting with a black ck cloth, a black veil draped over owers. Because neither the hard actually ready, Jobs was urged to owing it would be like walking a o do the demonstration live. showed up atthe event, lining up were not disappointed, atleast by hours, and he again proved to be, he New York Times, \"the Andrew ons, a master of stage flair and cago Tribune said thelaunch was can II was to church meetings.\" rom his opening line: \"It's great the history ofpersonal computer ey would now witness an event cade—a time whena newarchi ange the face ofcomputing.\"The esigned, he said, after three years the country. \"What we realized mainframe.\" The product was \"incredible,\" he magined.\" He praised the beauty on his fingertips the foot-square the foot-cube box, he enthused,

234 Walter \"Ihope you get achance tolook a tiful printed circuit board I've eve how the computer could play spe Dream\" and Kennedy's \"Ask Not\" ments. He leaned intothe microp of his own. \"Hi, this is Steve, se day.\" Then he asked those in the a to the message, andthey did. One ofJobs's management ph nowandthen,to roll the dice and or technology. At the NeXT lau as it turned out,would not be a (but slow) optical read/write disk years ago we made adecision,\" he andwe made a decision to risk ou Then he turned to a feature \"What we've done is made the fi the inclusion of the Oxford edit \"There has not been an advancem book technology since Gutenberg At times he could be amusin used the electronic book demon word that's sometimes used to de paused. The audience laughed kn rows, which were filled with Ne of the Macintosh team. Then he er's dictionary and read the first under the planet Mercury.\" Scro one isthe one theymean: 'Chara ness of mood.'\"There was a bit thesaurus, though, we see that th that? By simply double-clicking in the dictionary, and here it is: act or change. Of a gloomy or su across his face as he waited for t cluded, \"I don't think 'mercurial'

r Isaacson at this alittle later. It's the most beau ver seen in my life.\" He then showed eeches—he featured King's \"I Have a \"—and send email withaudio attach phone on the computer to record one ending a message on a pretty historic audience to add \"a round ofapplause\" hilosophies was thatit is crucial, every d \"betthe company\" on some new idea unch, he boasted of an example that, wise gamble: having a high-capacity k and no floppy disk as abackup. \"Two e said. \"We saw some new technology ur company.\" e that would prove more prescient. irst real digital books,\" he said, noting tion of Shakespeare and other tomes. ement in the state of the art of printed g.\" ngly aware of his own foibles, and he nstration to poke fun at himself. \"A escribe me is 'mercurial,'\" he said, then nowingly, especially those in the front eXT employees and former members e pulled up the word in the comput definition: \"Of or relating to, orborn olling down, he said, \"I thinkthe third acterized byunpredictable changeable- more laughter. \"If we scroll down the he antonym is 'saturnine.' Well what's g on it, we immediately look that up : 'Cold and steady in moods. Slow to surly disposition.'\" A little smile came the ripple of laughter. \"Well,\" he con is sobadafter all.\" After the applause,

NeXT he used the quotations book to make reality distortion field. The quote he Through the Looking Glass. After Ali hard she tries she can't believe impo retorts, \"Why, sometimes I've believed before breakfast.\" Especially from the knowing laughter. All ofthe good cheer served tosug the bad news. When it came time to machine, Jobs did what he would ofte reel off the features, describe them thousands ofdollars,\" and get the aud it really should be. Then he announc like alow price: \"We're going to be ch price of $6,500.\" From the faithful, th his panel ofacademic advisors had long tween $2,000 and $3,000, and they tho do so. Some ofthem were appalled. Th discovered that the optional printer w the slowness of the optical disk would external hard disk advisable. There was another disappointment next year, we will have our 0.9 release, and aggressive end users.\" There was hewas saying was that the real release known as the 1.0 release, would not 1989. In fact hedidn't set a hard date. H sometime in the second quarter of tha back in late 1985, he had refused to b pushback, from his commitment toha 1987. Now it was clear it would be mo The event ended on a more upbeat stage a violinist from the San Francisc AMinor Violin Concerto inaduet wi People erupted injubilant applause. Th were forgotten in the frenzy. When on

T 235 ke a more subtle point, about his e chose was from Lewis Carroll's ice laments that no matter how ossible things, the White Queen d as many as six impossible things e front rows, there was a roar of garcoat, ordistract attention from, o announce the price of the new en do in product demonstrations: as being \"worth thousands and dience to imagine how expensive ced what he hoped would seem harging higher education asingle here was scattered applause. But ng pushed tokeep the price tobe hought that Jobs had promised to his was especially true once they would cost another $2,000, and d make the purchase of a $2,500 that he tried to downplay: \"Early which is for software developers a bit ofnervous laughter. What ofthe machine andits software, actually be happening in early He merely suggested it would be at year. At the first NeXT retreat budge, despite Joanna Hoffman's ave the machine finished in early ore than two years later. t note, literally. Jobs brought on co Symphony who played Bach's ith the NeXT computer onstage. he price and the delayed release ne reporter asked him immedi-

236 Walter ately afterward why the machine \"It's not late. It's five years ahead Aswould become his standard clusive\" interviews to anointed pu ing toput the story on the cover. T far, though it didn't really hurt. H Week's Katie Hafner for exclusive he also made a similar deal with What he didn't consider was tha Fraker, was married to NewsweeU tune story conference, when they exclusive, Frakermentioned that s had also been promised anexclusi days before Fortune. So Jobs end zine covers. Newsweek used the him leaning on a beautiful NeXT exciting machine in years.\" Busin in a darksuit, fingertips pressed But Hafner pointedly reported o her exclusive. \"NeXT carefully p and suppliers, monitoring them w strategy worked, but at a price: S relentless—displayed the side of The trait that most stands out isJ When thehype died down, th muted, especially since it was no the brilliant and wry chief scien it \"the first Yuppie workstation,\" pliment. Bill Gates, as might b dismissive. \"Frankly, I'm disappo \"Back in 1981, we were truly ex showed it to us, because when y computer, it was unlike anything NeXT machine was not like tha of these features are truly trivial. tinue its plans not to write softw

r Isaacson was going tobe so late, Jobs replied, of its time.\" d practice,Jobs offered to provide \"ex ublications in returnfor their promis This time he went one \"exclusive\" too He agreed to a request from Business e access to him before the launch, but h Newsweek and then with Fortune. at one of Fortunes top editors, Susan Us editorMaynard Parker. At the For ey were talking excitedly about their shehappened to knowthat Newsweek ive, and it would becoming outa few ded up that week on only two maga cover line \"Mr. Chips\" and showed T, which it proclaimed to be\"the most ness Week showed himlooking angelic together like a preacher or professor. on the manipulation that surrounded parceled out interviews with its staff with a censor's eye,\" she wrote. \"That Such maneuvering—self-serving and Steve Jobs that sohurt himat Apple. Jobs's need to control events.\" hereaction to theNeXT computer was ot yet commercially available. Bill Joy, ntist at rival Sun Microsystems, called ,\" which was not an unalloyed com be expected, continued to be publicly ointed,\" he told the Wall StreetJournal. xcited by the Macintosh when Steve you put it side-by-side with another g anybody had ever seen before.\" The at. \"In the grand scope of things, most .\" He said that Microsoft would con ware for the NeXT. Right after the an-

NeX nouncement event, Gates wrote apa has been completely suspended,\" it laughs that it mayhave been \"thebe When the NeXT computer final factory was primed to churn out te turned out, saleswere about four hun tory robots, so nicely painted, remai tinued to hemorrhage cash.

XT 237 arody email to his staff. \"All reality began. Looking back at it, Gates estemail I ever wrote.\" lly went on sale in mid-1989, the en thousand units a month. As it ndred a month. The beautiful fac ined mostly idle, and NeXT con

CHAPTER PIX Technolog Ed Catmull, SteveJobs, andJohnL Lucasfilms Computer Division When Jobs was losing his footin he wentfor a walk withAlan Kay was then an Apple Fellow. Kay k intersection of creativity andtechn friend of his, Ed Catmull, whow George Lucas's film studio. They County to the edge of Lucas's Sk his little computer division were b

NINETEEN XAR gy Meets Art Lasseter, 1999 ng at Apple in the summer of 1985, y, who had been at Xerox PARC and knew thatJobs was interested in the nology, sohe suggested theygo see a was running the computer division of rented a limo and rode up to Marin kywalker Ranch, where Catmull and based. \"I was blown away, andI came 238

Pixa back and tried to convince Sculley to \"But the folks running Apple weren kicking me out anyway.\" The Lucasfilm computer division rendering digital images, and it also tors making shorts, which was led by tive namedJohn Lasseter. Lucas, who trilogy, was embroiled in a contentio offthe division. Hetold Catmull tof After a few potential purchasers b and his colleague Alvy Ray Smith d they could buy the division themselv another meeting, and drove down to h for a while about the perfidies and i that he buy their Lucasfilm division murred: They wantedan investor, not clear that there was a middle ground: division and serve as chairman but al \"I wanted to buy it because I was Jobs recalled. \"I realized they were w ing art and technology, which is wha He offered to pay Lucas $5 million p capitalize thedivision as a stand-alone Lucas had been asking, butthe timin gotiate a deal. The chief financial officer at Luc prickly, so when it came time to hold told Catmull, \"We have to establish th was to gather everyone in a roomwit come in afew minutes late to establish the meeting. \"But a funny thing hap started the meeting on time without CFO walked in Steve was already inc Jobs met only once with George L people in thedivision cared more abo they did about making computers. \"Yo