|
college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my* k; P0 Z6 k( ~# q! v
parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work
. L% ]7 C- T9 k) qout okay.”1 B! W9 F; H& f
! `" Y, ]* ~2 Y) z# kHe didn’t actually want to leave Reed; he just wanted to quit paying tuition and taking
+ X0 a5 k3 I8 M9 C4 xclasses that didn’t interest him. Remarkably, Reed tolerated that. “He had a very inquiring
; S3 B' ~5 `5 ]# ]mind that was enormously attractive,” said the dean of students, Jack Dudman. “He refused
! I! Q$ p' D) u/ F( qto accept automatically received truths, and he wanted to examine everything himself.”
X$ {) z" [2 A" \Dudman allowed Jobs to audit classes and stay with friends in the dorms even after he
' D& ?' d, E6 b/ p9 l; d8 cstopped paying tuition.& x4 ?, ~) O) v1 v2 ]& Y2 O' p+ n4 H
* X4 ]+ D$ A( d1 K! J5 q9 M$ q“The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest
9 m$ N& [, r# {% |& x- X$ ^me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting,” he said. Among them was a& B: V& p/ ? J" ]0 d* l
calligraphy class that appealed to him after he saw posters on campus that were beautifully, _! v' R, a6 e( B
drawn. “I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space5 Z4 _, }. m( `; X# j# [) k* u
between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was) f0 }8 F" E d% i# P
beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it
8 M, `* M z. r. D2 \6 p8 _( I2 I# Ufascinating.”
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It was yet another example of Jobs consciously positioning himself at the intersection
- K, B' i# l0 ]8 i$ Y6 Z# j2 C% Yof the arts and technology. In all of his products, technology would be married to great
5 w( G8 s: q3 f5 F0 O" B' ?design, elegance, human touches, and even romance. He would be in the fore of pushing
8 |) K: |, J) a% C& K6 T; rfriendly graphical user interfaces. The calligraphy course would become iconic in that
% o3 Z8 G# K& J. h# b5 f# Uregard. “If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have ?" c. ^9 v; s$ f
never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just- l. l, Z# ^9 K' E
copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.”
& f1 [4 |) N* e; q
8 m: s3 V4 h1 P; ?' Q7 ?+ ?In the meantime Jobs eked out a bohemian existence on the fringes of Reed. He went
; u' g9 L; Q$ T. _! y4 b# t/ Qbarefoot most of the time, wearing sandals when it snowed. Elizabeth Holmes made meals
0 S' B& E2 C% Ifor him, trying to keep up with his obsessive diets. He returned soda bottles for spare
: B+ x$ m% q+ d# Q6 Nchange, continued his treks to the free Sunday dinners at the Hare Krishna temple, and
# ~& H* U2 E/ a) `3 kwore a down jacket in the heatless garage apartment he rented for $20 a month. When he
- _/ c$ g% U8 V* j% N/ Wneeded money, he found work at the psychology department lab maintaining the electronic
1 C* n( ?: T* P4 j, i5 e4 Iequipment that was used for animal behavior experiments. Occasionally Chrisann Brennan
# s( d8 s+ L; @' i! k, mwould come to visit. Their relationship sputtered along erratically. But mostly he tended to
0 ], U" H+ J- }* J5 l; x. Z9 S. ~% Nthe stirrings of his own soul and personal quest for enlightenment.+ |# }" f N0 g5 s& W
4 f$ g5 y0 B) b/ ?5 K. B" r3 J% {7 H- h) ~( p2 J; b5 D3 S3 b
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{! N4 i* O) m3 `7 n1 ]
“I came of age at a magical time,” he reflected later. “Our consciousness was raised by
7 V! q) d( V1 z/ T' HZen, and also by LSD.” Even later in life he would credit psychedelic drugs for making
) @2 ?% B" m/ Q( Ghim more enlightened. “Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important$ L5 D+ ~) K$ R/ d
things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t4 b( S" v1 R- ?, e' n2 G; g# ~. ?
remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was
. S7 x O/ b! {1 R8 R6 V3 A# z/ K$ D W: a) R6 j2 C
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important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the
) N) A; K- }% m1 w# ~stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”
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3 |8 H0 d* y) X5 mCHAPTER FOUR
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% R) D% l+ B5 E3 |* QATARI AND INDIA
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6 x9 p) g, I7 DZen and the Art of Game Design
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Atari
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! L+ x5 z7 w9 S" A" pIn February 1974, after eighteen months of hanging around Reed, Jobs decided to move
* K* ^0 T9 t( aback to his parents’ home in Los Altos and look for a job. It was not a difficult search. At# ~9 Z& m9 K- z6 [) ]; j3 u# |8 q
peak times during the 1970s, the classified section of the San Jose Mercury carried up to
7 O2 e$ x' R4 x$ p" j* p: \1 z$ zsixty pages of technology help-wanted ads. One of those caught Jobs’s eye. “Have fun,) h; L/ ~0 n2 { O2 h
make money,” it said. That day Jobs walked into the lobby of the video game manufacturer
% S! V9 q+ j, i! P1 Y* R# R- }Atari and told the personnel director, who was startled by his unkempt hair and attire, that
. }* i( F- @& m% o4 O1 `# j/ M/ Whe wouldn’t leave until they gave him a job.
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Atari’s founder was a burly entrepreneur named Nolan Bushnell, who was a charismatic5 |) X% E% g7 B, A) V. \$ u q
visionary with a nice touch of showmanship in him—in other words, another role model7 E! Z4 |2 U2 X8 @+ l1 ^
waiting to be emulated. After he became famous, he liked driving around in a Rolls,
6 S) c/ h) H+ j5 F. {- C F- Fsmoking dope, and holding staff meetings in a hot tub. As Friedland had done and as Jobs
4 c5 o3 |8 _1 j; q9 o' ]2 kwould learn to do, he was able to turn charm into a cunning force, to cajole and intimidate! [9 j1 J) T1 q; @
and distort reality with the power of his personality. His chief engineer was Al Alcorn,
* y2 V; U m* ]) R4 l" H& `beefy and jovial and a bit more grounded, the house grown-up trying to implement the
+ |7 C v0 R- _! lvision and curb the enthusiasms of Bushnell. Their big hit thus far was a video game called
2 }" E8 A6 v7 b& i6 `- S! j0 W0 g$ XPong, in which two players tried to volley a blip on a screen with two movable lines that: ~6 b7 T* v. B( j4 Y1 X, }
acted as paddles. (If you’re under thirty, ask your parents.)
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When Jobs arrived in the Atari lobby wearing sandals and demanding a job, Alcorn was, e+ }$ _' g, ~8 J0 l. j
the one who was summoned. “I was told, ‘We’ve got a hippie kid in the lobby. He says he’s1 X4 o+ ?% F3 _4 X0 D8 X$ E. g
not going to leave until we hire him. Should we call the cops or let him in?’ I said bring
2 k6 T! l' Y) {* N( ]! e# D ghim on in!”7 G8 d. ^' ] W+ F) f
- g: G! M/ `4 qJobs thus became one of the first fifty employees at Atari, working as a technician for, _. X& O" g6 Y$ {
$5 an hour. “In retrospect, it was weird to hire a dropout from Reed,” Alcorn recalled. “But 1 D7 T |( m6 [/ R. t1 G& j
+ T4 j% s4 b9 o2 d0 m7 ]) J) N( ?8 Q5 r- b5 _
g7 {4 k% J6 B5 w+ x: q, h
T8 X0 e6 u- ^& q, v/ W8 M% |) l( Z) I2 c' o- ]7 E; [* M% w
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: |. G. s. Y, JI saw something in him. He was very intelligent, enthusiastic, excited about tech.” Alcorn
/ V2 e* x. f9 {# n' |0 `assigned him to work with a straitlaced engineer named Don Lang. The next day Lang
* J) q1 P' ]$ K2 Y) w X, `0 U* Acomplained, “This guy’s a goddamn hippie with b.o. Why did you do this to me? And he’s' J1 j+ H6 Z0 v1 V1 Z, O
impossible to deal with.” Jobs clung to the belief that his fruit-heavy vegetarian diet would0 s4 e7 h) u; X0 o. ~5 P
prevent not just mucus but also body odor, even if he didn’t use deodorant or shower( N! y f3 x# n6 E+ K: p4 u
regularly. It was a flawed theory.
4 G6 R6 S4 L3 l
$ Z: d2 F, G I- O) T" QLang and others wanted to let Jobs go, but Bushnell worked out a solution. “The smell
, O( t- i8 f }0 `and behavior wasn’t an issue with me,” he said. “Steve was prickly, but I kind of liked him.- P- ~5 _2 h( s6 L/ F5 Z
So I asked him to go on the night shift. It was a way to save him.” Jobs would come in after
' f" Z' b9 T. }6 xLang and others had left and work through most of the night. Even thus isolated, he became- X2 }& [. a7 s
known for his brashness. On those occasions when he happened to interact with others, he6 P+ }; D: p7 d3 i! w
was prone to informing them that they were “dumb shits.” In retrospect, he stands by that; F4 I7 s$ Z; W
judgment. “The only reason I shone was that everyone else was so bad,” Jobs recalled.7 \6 W5 E- N! H% j6 B; c% O4 X# V2 b
' p6 O5 f+ e9 q' H0 fDespite his arrogance (or perhaps because of it) he was able to charm Atari’s boss. “He, D; i6 b3 w: v4 D
was more philosophical than the other people I worked with,” Bushnell recalled. “We used
( k! j! z B& l! Hto discuss free will versus determinism. I tended to believe that things were much more
1 W' d; x( Q: u5 i2 Jdetermined, that we were programmed. If we had perfect information, we could predict
7 ]& e2 e: t- opeople’s actions. Steve felt the opposite.” That outlook accorded with his faith in the power
1 c ^: j7 G4 w& `- H9 W8 Xof the will to bend reality.
M1 ?+ V3 p) J) S% b$ T+ Z% t( q: b2 B9 @/ w( F
Jobs helped improve some of the games by pushing the chips to produce fun designs,
6 B" j, r: J* hand Bushnell’s inspiring willingness to play by his own rules rubbed off on him. In3 Q. f# {& M2 Q5 d: k3 L' I$ L
addition, he intuitively appreciated the simplicity of Atari’s games. They came with no: _4 O7 L8 n9 V
manual and needed to be uncomplicated enough that a stoned freshman could figure them
9 c+ k( @; H# p- `9 S7 Pout. The only instructions for Atari’s Star Trek game were “1. Insert quarter. 2. Avoid
3 D3 C: Q# \ k4 [. V- \' HKlingons.”; Q" f7 A, l; X: @2 T8 e( E
+ l. z, }$ Z" K8 {6 I, N; [; @9 p4 D
Not all of his coworkers shunned Jobs. He became friends with Ron Wayne, a [6 H$ J5 c8 n6 N) T
draftsman at Atari, who had earlier started a company that built slot machines. It
' h* ]) e% Z# @! ?) [; |subsequently failed, but Jobs became fascinated with the idea that it was possible to start
" K5 \2 k% r4 c! Eyour own company. “Ron was an amazing guy,” said Jobs. “He started companies. I had
0 C9 ~, E8 o$ [* E+ s0 y. A) h- k; Knever met anybody like that.” He proposed to Wayne that they go into business together;
- X7 g- s" J" H1 R& a/ [1 pJobs said he could borrow $50,000, and they could design and market a slot machine. But& l* J' ^% K/ P0 F) G5 k- C
Wayne had already been burned in business, so he declined. “I said that was the quickest
4 i2 g8 ~9 y% U* z% [way to lose $50,000,” Wayne recalled, “but I admired the fact that he had a burning drive to) g* \$ _$ X; f" d1 M$ j+ H
start his own business.”, O: P; B& o' O. _1 L
! w5 o* m. {- P- u* i% }5 _, r/ bOne weekend Jobs was visiting Wayne at his apartment, engaging as they often did in- D! p* y" F) Q. p8 _, O
philosophical discussions, when Wayne said that there was something he needed to tell7 t1 R: H2 ?2 m) X
him. “Yeah, I think I know what it is,” Jobs replied. “I think you like men.” Wayne said
7 T- d2 p. M/ `" N$ ]; H5 Y+ uyes. “It was my first encounter with someone who I knew was gay,” Jobs recalled. “He
. T+ P: F0 R; V& U* { M( dplanted the right perspective of it for me.” Jobs grilled him: “When you see a beautiful # I9 m1 x+ z% o3 |9 z2 N5 A/ ]
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9 _! S& t* b) g4 i4 {% F r7 K7 Jwoman, what do you feel?” Wayne replied, “It’s like when you look at a beautiful horse.# H6 y$ \% g( u, R! t, L* W
You can appreciate it, but you don’t want to sleep with it. You appreciate beauty for what it
7 v& G! X# B5 Y6 A8 K0 U7 v# vis.” Wayne said that it is a testament to Jobs that he felt like revealing this to him. “Nobody; C0 O) C& {, M! X' o
at Atari knew, and I could count on my toes and fingers the number of people I told in my
8 X6 J( k* `2 q& Hwhole life. But I guess it just felt right to tell him, that he would understand, and it didn’t
4 [ I8 M. w. ehave any effect on our relationship.”
2 Q; F! T2 A+ e& F& w- ~. D9 U0 a6 e
India
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One reason Jobs was eager to make some money in early 1974 was that Robert
( k1 d) n; d1 d5 B, s, j9 IFriedland, who had gone to India the summer before, was urging him to take his own: N+ s# ]; z& `& \
spiritual journey there. Friedland had studied in India with Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji),
" h- x# F/ T4 t) k7 Nwho had been the guru to much of the sixties hippie movement. Jobs decided he should do
0 e [0 t0 g# @5 ?/ _# vthe same, and he recruited Daniel Kottke to go with him. Jobs was not motivated by mere
9 a* s. o2 h0 {adventure. “For me it was a serious search,” he said. “I’d been turned on to the idea of
; u; ~* p1 o" _1 j7 yenlightenment and trying to figure out who I was and how I fit into things.” Kottke adds* n( v( a5 [0 n6 a/ e/ c' H; Z& N) X
that Jobs’s quest seemed driven partly by not knowing his birth parents. “There was a hole( k8 X# `; b. D1 [4 {
in him, and he was trying to fill it.”
9 j, e$ n' D0 I) v6 s; L9 w) s9 A) ~1 w; j9 {# f3 P% ~ K3 i
When Jobs told the folks at Atari that he was quitting to go search for a guru in India,
! Z! ?2 d( c% S5 ^the jovial Alcorn was amused. “He comes in and stares at me and declares, ‘I’m going to" A8 S' _. q8 i
find my guru,’ and I say, ‘No shit, that’s super. Write me!’ And he says he wants me to help$ @/ q( F# ?+ E( ^
pay, and I tell him, ‘Bullshit!’” Then Alcorn had an idea. Atari was making kits and
7 w( J9 o2 ]) i) yshipping them to Munich, where they were built into finished machines and distributed by a
7 z, M! i7 J9 V2 H; Qwholesaler in Turin. But there was a problem: Because the games were designed for the
/ x" y1 A% _+ u8 s4 ]' Y1 tAmerican rate of sixty frames per second, there were frustrating interference problems in
/ o3 P& @! A0 sEurope, where the rate was fifty frames per second. Alcorn sketched out a fix with Jobs and
2 e4 `) |5 k1 C/ x0 hthen offered to pay for him to go to Europe to implement it. “It’s got to be cheaper to get to
5 b& i- w& E4 I& W- W( d, \, gIndia from there,” he said. Jobs agreed. So Alcorn sent him on his way with the
" y$ s {1 R$ O" i O# \exhortation, “Say hi to your guru for me.”! o, p/ @: u. ~1 U4 n6 f+ {
/ ?/ J9 G- v' E/ ]9 O5 [Jobs spent a few days in Munich, where he solved the interference problem, but in the* V- r" s: H5 u2 r
process he flummoxed the dark-suited German managers. They complained to Alcorn that0 `4 x" C/ F7 O3 O# E2 k
he dressed and smelled like a bum and behaved rudely. “I said, ‘Did he solve the problem?’2 ^2 P7 F3 W2 e2 \# u' I. |7 E
And they said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘If you got any more problems, you just call me, I got more
% O$ ]. e, l: U& Z1 i# u4 gguys just like him!’ They said, ‘No, no we’ll take care of it next time.’” For his part, Jobs
$ B" g6 A, l: }% w# M# Xwas upset that the Germans kept trying to feed him meat and potatoes. “They don’t even
' G9 d1 {6 v7 n, @6 v1 rhave a word for vegetarian,” he complained (incorrectly) in a phone call to Alcorn.
5 ?% r$ C* s5 Z; P+ x5 K( j0 q# u' r6 W1 T5 J* M8 s1 _, J
He had a better time when he took the train to see the distributor in Turin, where the l, }# D5 q1 V% `9 p
Italian pastas and his host’s camaraderie were more simpatico. “I had a wonderful couple of
! @3 a4 y1 E8 D% vweeks in Turin, which is this charged-up industrial town,” he recalled. “The distributor/ ^# ?/ V+ _% J( h2 L9 d
took me every night to dinner at this place where there were only eight tables and no menu.* ]5 N/ o' {! u+ n
You’d just tell them what you wanted, and they made it. One of the tables was on reserve
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for the chairman of Fiat. It was really super.” He next went to Lugano, Switzerland, where
& U4 Z; O: Y- ^; jhe stayed with Friedland’s uncle, and from there took a flight to India.
4 w4 y/ T/ }$ {( o% @- x' T4 d* h* x4 E
When he got off the plane in New Delhi, he felt waves of heat rising from the tarmac,
7 D' I& h+ j0 s& N/ X* N" \4 Oeven though it was only April. He had been given the name of a hotel, but it was full, so he/ Y2 s, c( o/ u, ~0 u4 }* B5 E# }
went to one his taxi driver insisted was good. “I’m sure he was getting some baksheesh,4 H7 V* c7 G5 f3 c& L" k
because he took me to this complete dive.” Jobs asked the owner whether the water was# A+ }9 s, K# a1 I! F# h& f
filtered and foolishly believed the answer. “I got dysentery pretty fast. I was sick, really7 o; l) v# J9 _0 W
sick, a really high fever. I dropped from 160 pounds to 120 in about a week.”
( ~' f9 Z: t7 G' A, x# Y3 W) {! s- }& {4 N& i& v
Once he got healthy enough to move, he decided that he needed to get out of Delhi. So r ?! I$ ]3 F' W8 \$ t
he headed to the town of Haridwar, in western India near the source of the Ganges, which
' ], {1 N2 Q5 L* Vwas having a festival known as the Kumbh Mela. More than ten million people poured into6 }2 R' W+ x3 ? Z/ s
a town that usually contained fewer than 100,000 residents. “There were holy men all
# y2 K; S8 v4 x8 G/ q: garound. Tents with this teacher and that teacher. There were people riding elephants, you
" H. W2 v& w+ f: b& ?2 `name it. I was there for a few days, but I decided that I needed to get out of there too.”
* y) Y6 o8 o1 q/ d, B9 M5 I+ P: t
3 f6 b* Z3 P* C5 A3 ~He went by train and bus to a village near Nainital in the foothills of the Himalayas.
) Y6 S6 u9 g8 K" W- o% jThat was where Neem Karoli Baba lived, or had lived. By the time Jobs got there, he was
' e B4 ~/ o( c# x {+ S5 [6 c7 Fno longer alive, at least in the same incarnation. Jobs rented a room with a mattress on the) K R& Z- [1 H# N* Q( Q9 r
floor from a family who helped him recuperate by feeding him vegetarian meals. “There/ N3 O S) g8 f+ W1 ~% |
was a copy there of Autobiography of a Yogi in English that a previous traveler had left,
, ?8 s' ]$ t( _# {0 U8 ~/ gand I read it several times because there was not a lot to do, and I walked around from3 q. u) T {2 l3 z
village to village and recovered from my dysentery.” Among those who were part of the' J" W' N* F) N
community there was Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist who was working to eradicate
( F' l! S) l8 z; h2 }1 R) rsmallpox and who later ran Google’s philanthropic arm and the Skoll Foundation. He# _5 A' L2 u2 c& ]; F; g- A
became Jobs’s lifelong friend.% `+ @7 j3 G) I$ |0 r- |, }4 j
4 b' n! t1 @: S5 `9 DAt one point Jobs was told of a young Hindu holy man who was holding a gathering of: ?, T9 H" S. A! i
his followers at the Himalayan estate of a wealthy businessman. “It was a chance to meet a7 E4 Q7 M8 `1 S! p
spiritual being and hang out with his followers, but it was also a chance to have a good ]" V, |7 J1 y0 g
meal. I could smell the food as we got near, and I was very hungry.” As Jobs was eating,
, q" Q& e. |2 M2 y4 y7 c" E! Cthe holy man—who was not much older than Jobs—picked him out of the crowd, pointed
" v; A7 V( Q( [at him, and began laughing maniacally. “He came running over and grabbed me and made a
" A) u3 p$ ~( a" n7 s% Vtooting sound and said, ‘You are just like a baby,’” recalled Jobs. “I was not relishing this
6 A" k; J$ n7 T, Tattention.” Taking Jobs by the hand, he led him out of the worshipful crowd and walked9 k& j4 |' M8 {2 C ^+ I& Z
him up to a hill, where there was a well and a small pond. “We sit down and he pulls out
& |5 b: E! v- f! ?this straight razor. I’m thinking he’s a nutcase and begin to worry. Then he pulls out a bar! |, I; k' ?0 U$ w9 k8 f6 D+ O0 J0 ?
of soap—I had long hair at the time—and he lathered up my hair and shaved my head. He
2 Y4 I- u4 t; b6 r6 A: Ptold me that he was saving my health.”
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Daniel Kottke arrived in India at the beginning of the summer, and Jobs went back to: a% M* T. j S. D
New Delhi to meet him. They wandered, mainly by bus, rather aimlessly. By this point Jobs
. E9 V% y$ ^1 |" P2 g7 L$ _was no longer trying to find a guru who could impart wisdom, but instead was seeking
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enlightenment through ascetic experience, deprivation, and simplicity. He was not able to$ {# H, K/ S( M6 w/ }
achieve inner calm. Kottke remembers him getting into a furious shouting match with a$ b% z" D9 w" _8 D" H. t* H4 O
Hindu woman in a village marketplace who, Jobs alleged, had been watering down the
! f- `5 e; L9 U& gmilk she was selling them.
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0 b( G# r8 `) r1 m( ^Yet Jobs could also be generous. When they got to the town of Manali, Kottke’s
# D3 A4 T9 E( p. Qsleeping bag was stolen with his traveler’s checks in it. “Steve covered my food expenses
- n/ ]' K8 T1 z( V! L$ ?) `and bus ticket back to Delhi,” Kottke recalled. He also gave Kottke the rest of his own1 w) x( B$ }8 |! R2 h# G9 J& ~4 @
money, $100, to tide him over.* x0 C* g% K K( m% N3 G
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During his seven months in India, he had written to his parents only sporadically,) h7 _; `& o1 \/ X( M! Z& O# Y
getting mail at the American Express office in New Delhi when he passed through, and so4 X* b. B& r! F. `, f$ j, {* {' \
they were somewhat surprised when they got a call from the Oakland airport asking them+ {0 k/ b( C( I" D) }& F' @% ~+ a5 v
to pick him up. They immediately drove up from Los Altos. “My head had been shaved, I1 B; M7 d2 W+ b0 E& f& R- V
was wearing Indian cotton robes, and my skin had turned a deep, chocolate brown-red from4 T4 x6 ?) X" _$ t( Q7 W
the sun,” he recalled. “So I’m sitting there and my parents walked past me about five times
7 A( F8 K: I: K% T- M# Aand finally my mother came up and said ‘Steve?’ and I said ‘Hi!’”
8 L" t& j: U6 u! \' P1 j
$ `2 E H1 O4 l1 WThey took him back home, where he continued trying to find himself. It was a pursuit; j, H% i: k6 b' Y# |
with many paths toward enlightenment. In the mornings and evenings he would meditate
6 s6 V2 x3 Q4 b. sand study Zen, and in between he would drop in to audit physics or engineering courses at1 q3 ~8 H+ G3 {5 X8 k2 G
Stanford.6 B) q' J2 M: y" N: X
9 d8 Q9 O) G) z/ f. x2 J
The Search
~/ ?7 w ~7 s* m, @2 E% T7 y) ~6 ^8 @- f) C" x
Jobs’s interest in Eastern spirituality, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and the search for
; ?/ U* Y) C% ]5 m& B j' wenlightenment was not merely the passing phase of a nineteen-year-old. Throughout his life {- _9 s+ W8 D! O) o+ s2 }9 I/ b
he would seek to follow many of the basic precepts of Eastern religions, such as the
) Q8 u6 {# p; j5 y1 Gemphasis on experiential prajñā, wisdom or cognitive understanding that is intuitively- F8 |. O8 a1 j6 w
experienced through concentration of the mind. Years later, sitting in his Palo Alto garden,
# l, K! E! }0 b% ^! \0 a7 [he reflected on the lasting influence of his trip to India:
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Coming back to America was, for me, much more of a cultural shock than going to* z* ^* Q2 V! T! y/ Y. J7 U. B
India. The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do, they use
$ x0 `( Y0 h: B/ O4 ]their intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world.4 W4 H3 q% Q& J0 r) y4 M# i5 L8 g
Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a2 |0 ?4 p) J% g* h; L
big impact on my work.
4 _/ e; A, q5 A( k: l) Q' y
1 e/ L" X$ N$ C- f5 P; bWestern rational thought is not an innate human characteristic; it is learned and is the0 X* Z# t0 X- |# Y2 d
great achievement of Western civilization. In the villages of India, they never learned it.
' p- W/ Y" C1 cThey learned something else, which is in some ways just as valuable but in other ways is- G2 z- }- @# T7 v) r$ U$ h
not. That’s the power of intuition and experiential wisdom.
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Coming back after seven months in Indian villages, I saw the craziness of the Western
+ x7 ]) \, f2 q$ U" f$ y/ b+ qworld as well as its capacity for rational thought. If you just sit and observe, you will see5 ] |9 |# ^+ T* T1 C2 o+ X% l: |
how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does
$ m0 P0 F! M% X% f& Xcalm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things—that’s when your intuition2 r# }6 ?+ d, x
starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your
4 R; s* a2 i! W) P% Pmind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much
/ X; ?) P+ O5 }+ vmore than you could see before. It’s a discipline; you have to practice it.( P) d* M0 j2 ^. O& i
( j" E2 U; |6 i, u) v) y/ G) ]
Zen has been a deep influence in my life ever since. At one point I was thinking about
$ z+ n' X, h+ D& Hgoing to Japan and trying to get into the Eihei-ji monastery, but my spiritual advisor urged! ~* W X B/ {/ @7 S$ o
me to stay here. He said there is nothing over there that isn’t here, and he was correct. I
7 K$ t2 Y7 }6 R. `% Jlearned the truth of the Zen saying that if you are willing to travel around the world to meet( x$ ]/ ` p. \' y
a teacher, one will appear next door.) ]' t, \" C; f+ V8 w
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( i, B) Z( q6 z) i4 D; R" q z% c& R
: V. {+ }! ?6 a' H+ T. c5 V1 kJobs did in fact find a teacher right in his own neighborhood. Shunryu Suzuki, who
( W% d9 E5 F' K) e) Iwrote Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind and ran the San Francisco Zen Center, used to come to0 l! l- H# Q+ Y, q
Los Altos every Wednesday evening to lecture and meditate with a small group of
' G- _: X4 O1 ^& V0 w/ D/ }followers. After a while he asked his assistant, Kobun Chino Otogawa, to open a full-time
. `0 n s; V6 g2 Tcenter there. Jobs became a faithful follower, along with his occasional girlfriend, Chrisann5 l5 ^3 S; t5 g. `: p- Y# D4 l
Brennan, and Daniel Kottke and Elizabeth Holmes. He also began to go by himself on) K p: {6 K8 P7 |7 G& m& B
retreats to the Tassajara Zen Center, a monastery near Carmel where Kobun also taught.; x8 p- Z! `0 L
+ _, v3 {+ f' a3 q3 \Kottke found Kobun amusing. “His English was atrocious,” he recalled. “He would
6 ?! i% Z. V8 M0 r' H# \speak in a kind of haiku, with poetic, suggestive phrases. We would sit and listen to him,. _2 C( {, ]) F6 [. d/ c( b. Z$ H+ Q
and half the time we had no idea what he was going on about. I took the whole thing as a [4 A3 L! i# [. ?
kind of lighthearted interlude.” Holmes was more into the scene. “We would go to Kobun’s
2 Q2 s' h0 L& x- m3 Y5 W# hmeditations, sit on zafu cushions, and he would sit on a dais,” she said. “We learned how to7 A t9 Z6 _8 Q+ J
tune out distractions. It was a magical thing. One evening we were meditating with Kobun5 w( {) g% q! N8 B5 m5 p$ k
when it was raining, and he taught us how to use ambient sounds to bring us back to focus
* z- k8 c7 O# F$ f5 z; Z; P/ N, Ton our meditation.”+ d; z( ?! i4 A3 t: _
; j2 m: b1 t6 x2 pAs for Jobs, his devotion was intense. “He became really serious and self-important and
2 X' D* H( \$ U" D5 m1 njust generally unbearable,” according to Kottke. He began meeting with Kobun almost
0 r& d5 Q' J! i2 Fdaily, and every few months they went on retreats together to meditate. “I ended up
. F2 P+ }2 Y. f' a0 R7 nspending as much time as I could with him,” Jobs recalled. “He had a wife who was a nurse
3 z3 N% L1 F! o7 P# jat Stanford and two kids. She worked the night shift, so I would go over and hang out with
; |) D! \( G" Z( K( X/ v- ?him in the evenings. She would get home about midnight and shoo me away.” They
' ?5 Y, ^. l! A: g- X& jsometimes discussed whether Jobs should devote himself fully to spiritual pursuits, but2 l" U0 b: f+ ^' H4 @9 M
Kobun counseled otherwise. He assured Jobs that he could keep in touch with his spiritual% L3 G! e- v; L; Y
side while working in a business. The relationship turned out to be lasting and deep;
3 y2 t: k: j5 c6 Vseventeen years later Kobun would perform Jobs’s wedding ceremony.
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5 W i& P/ H2 s2 M7 b% J- {2 ?& S+ _0 C) f5 i, u' H. i
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Jobs’s compulsive search for self-awareness also led him to undergo primal scream# l! w) L$ x& k0 L( p' I! ]' S
therapy, which had recently been developed and popularized by a Los Angeles" w. I" C; ?6 A
psychotherapist named Arthur Janov. It was based on the Freudian theory that) c3 }( V; N, s) p3 V* T
psychological problems are caused by the repressed pains of childhood; Janov argued that
' C7 i5 T6 m2 I. U! Dthey could be resolved by re-suffering these primal moments while fully expressing the9 _4 q; j, _, n
pain—sometimes in screams. To Jobs, this seemed preferable to talk therapy because it
9 q2 y5 x. U8 C( {( z. ?, Yinvolved intuitive feeling and emotional action rather than just rational analyzing. “This
- j, x3 U. d) K5 d. {was not something to think about,” he later said. “This was something to do: to close your
% `+ D; x) E. ?) N5 T& weyes, hold your breath, jump in, and come out the other end more insightful.”
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1 [; B2 r/ l2 M2 f( ]A group of Janov’s adherents ran a program called the Oregon Feeling Center in an old7 y! S; E F: k/ a; }4 V, i L
hotel in Eugene that was managed by Jobs’s Reed College guru Robert Friedland, whose
' s8 v, k, @4 H1 T9 t$ @/ _All One Farm commune was nearby. In late 1974, Jobs signed up for a twelve-week course& }. a, d! Q# w7 ]- ?
of therapy there costing $1,000. “Steve and I were both into personal growth, so I wanted; H3 B# a* }8 a, j
to go with him,” Kottke recounted, “but I couldn’t afford it.”
u5 D/ Z* x7 Q& k2 T( D
2 r/ e* x# Y6 \# RJobs confided to close friends that he was driven by the pain he was feeling about being8 ~2 u& A/ F3 W y- J
put up for adoption and not knowing about his birth parents. “Steve had a very profound! A: \0 M* c& {
desire to know his physical parents so he could better know himself,” Friedland later said.! z) d' \$ w! j+ _
He had learned from Paul and Clara Jobs that his birth parents had both been graduate+ p) ^5 ]+ f! o, L% A
students at a university and that his father might be Syrian. He had even thought about
2 p3 g- E2 y K; w N+ Q: Mhiring a private investigator, but he decided not to do so for the time being. “I didn’t want* X! s' {* V( J! p% }
to hurt my parents,” he recalled, referring to Paul and Clara.
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“He was struggling with the fact that he had been adopted,” according to Elizabeth# w! o d% E& b; l& h
Holmes. “He felt that it was an issue that he needed to get hold of emotionally.” Jobs* w0 u- s. d1 F: K9 l. q: B! @
admitted as much to her. “This is something that is bothering me, and I need to focus on it,”
0 o1 z5 h$ ?0 b% ^" g7 ~he said. He was even more open with Greg Calhoun. “He was doing a lot of soul-searching
: A" Y! U: p4 a4 G5 x& T, v( }about being adopted, and he talked about it with me a lot,” Calhoun recalled. “The primal# a1 w0 P c" U- {3 S Q8 O- j
scream and the mucusless diets, he was trying to cleanse himself and get deeper into his' `8 E/ |2 r7 x5 L/ F5 {
frustration about his birth. He told me he was deeply angry about the fact that he had been0 u* U' t% |" c
given up.”
- _% m: Z, ?6 L4 @! u! u x1 w# e- y6 \/ C5 i
John Lennon had undergone the same primal scream therapy in 1970, and in December) h! D5 S) }( D$ _
of that year he released the song “Mother” with the Plastic Ono Band. It dealt with! C! T/ J, {8 R- {( k, Z
Lennon’s own feelings about a father who had abandoned him and a mother who had been1 |0 o$ v0 {9 t+ Z" O h" ^
killed when he was a teenager. The refrain includes the haunting chant “Mama don’t go,2 i5 d# }# b. d
Daddy come home.” Jobs used to play the song often.7 D) T( R- E1 p3 V! M; p' `" @
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Jobs later said that Janov’s teachings did not prove very useful. “He offered a ready-! i7 G4 P- d0 x: i; g
made, buttoned-down answer which turned out to be far too oversimplistic. It became
2 Q6 u3 h! D- F+ U; T: aobvious that it was not going to yield any great insight.” But Holmes contended that it
5 w$ f3 z) b4 Pmade him more confident: “After he did it, he was in a different place. He had a very 6 I8 J8 L9 N+ G9 s# O
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2 {7 {$ z/ b% h( o7 B8 U" o+ J* K3 a, }2 `( I( K. F
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6 M! G: M3 K4 }' q1 Iabrasive personality, but there was a peace about him for a while. His confidence improved( X8 {- H% x6 M- `2 f7 I9 [
and his feelings of inadequacy were reduced.”9 }, ?& b: X, j/ Q5 d
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Jobs came to believe that he could impart that feeling of confidence to others and thus
# g3 ?1 `, Q! Z! b" G' _8 r& Apush them to do things they hadn’t thought possible. Holmes had broken up with Kottke
* [/ k: T8 a3 v4 q/ U# Fand joined a religious cult in San Francisco that expected her to sever ties with all past
+ U, g5 j3 @6 }$ Vfriends. But Jobs rejected that injunction. He arrived at the cult house in his Ford Ranchero( D0 V- U7 L5 c/ F" d( R
one day and announced that he was driving up to Friedland’s apple farm and she was to' M, G- r1 P2 l& k @, h" e4 v: B
come. Even more brazenly, he said she would have to drive part of the way, even though
, o1 E( q- _9 d5 m7 Ishe didn’t know how to use the stick shift. “Once we got on the open road, he made me get6 z* {8 A; Q% d9 O6 s6 @
behind the wheel, and he shifted the car until we got up to 55 miles per hour,” she recalled.
8 T7 {+ A, s! }4 d; P“Then he puts on a tape of Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, lays his head in my lap, and goes% S, W. Q' T& b6 U* Q3 ~+ K
to sleep. He had the attitude that he could do anything, and therefore so can you. He put his
, c3 S8 D5 }, ]/ Clife in my hands. So that made me do something I didn’t think I could do.”8 q4 n4 K9 ]$ Z/ U' T1 z+ R# L
6 p4 P9 f5 w! N& o) Z' E W) TIt was the brighter side of what would become known as his reality distortion field. “If8 z# x9 }7 U, `% S' }, l, M" h4 j; \1 [, p
you trust him, you can do things,” Holmes said. “If he’s decided that something should/ q* b, Q4 s. A, z+ h& ]# L2 v- m
happen, then he’s just going to make it happen.”
# I* |# `2 k- K* Y/ c# X$ _9 s8 G# K! y) L2 \) Q3 k
Breakout
\1 V# Z+ F3 |% W
3 K6 M# ~7 Z9 J# Z* F% [One day in early 1975 Al Alcorn was sitting in his office at Atari when Ron Wayne1 g/ P& d4 k) z7 ?7 n: i) m
burst in. “Hey, Stevie is back!” he shouted.
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5 z1 e! z" |4 t4 h" v0 t“Wow, bring him on in,” Alcorn replied.
$ m- }0 o2 |1 P n3 C+ j% F7 T! m1 h/ W/ A s8 M7 L) n" T! g
Jobs shuffled in barefoot, wearing a saffron robe and carrying a copy of Be Here Now,7 H% _. i. |: P5 z1 B0 F. d! f
which he handed to Alcorn and insisted he read. “Can I have my job back?” he asked.; D/ e( C- \1 A
( c3 j+ ~+ |# L3 Y“He looked like a Hare Krishna guy, but it was great to see him,” Alcorn recalled. “So I& E- I' a; m) w
said, sure!”
4 a+ Y+ |' m4 r9 J7 u, u" Y# O$ H& X& v( w2 \) S* u
Once again, for the sake of harmony, Jobs worked mostly at night. Wozniak, who was( h, Y0 I, d2 d6 F
living in an apartment nearby and working at HP, would come by after dinner to hang out
" `- H) i# z+ C3 t) _3 rand play the video games. He had become addicted to Pong at a Sunnyvale bowling alley,
7 V+ _3 G1 j/ j+ Yand he was able to build a version that he hooked up to his home TV set.
3 X0 W, p; Z- [) b/ `- M! k% k1 h
1 N) ~3 A$ h8 a& b1 _# r/ SOne day in the late summer of 1975, Nolan Bushnell, defying the prevailing wisdom
) q: U" f c% s6 U1 j' C9 f0 mthat paddle games were over, decided to develop a single-player version of Pong; instead of
y2 O) g" F& Z1 p' Y5 c( t \competing against an opponent, the player would volley the ball into a wall that lost a brick
; ^) Q3 f: S: J2 g/ P" o7 o* Owhenever it was hit. He called Jobs into his office, sketched it out on his little blackboard,. B" R4 ~6 n. O! t p; Z
and asked him to design it. There would be a bonus, Bushnell told him, for every chip
: ~2 a% `. }" O1 gfewer than fifty that he used. Bushnell knew that Jobs was not a great engineer, but he
, d' a7 J% c# o4 g nassumed, correctly, that he would recruit Wozniak, who was always hanging around. “I
; m5 B' V) \. d8 h9 }& glooked at it as a two-for-one thing,” Bushnell recalled. “Woz was a better engineer.”
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8 W) v7 C. G* e* ^3 b! J. M. ]5 T+ aWozniak was thrilled when Jobs asked him to help and proposed splitting the fee. “This4 R7 g% y- |! M
was the most wonderful offer in my life, to actually design a game that people would use,”
* }7 w* f# a$ }he recalled. Jobs said it had to be done in four days and with the fewest chips possible." l. ?/ T- t: |% a
What he hid from Wozniak was that the deadline was one that Jobs had imposed, because
: z8 _9 e" D7 E% ^: E% N( Uhe needed to get to the All One Farm to help prepare for the apple harvest. He also didn’t2 H7 A8 x2 h# v1 t2 w, y1 ~7 k/ A, N
mention that there was a bonus tied to keeping down the number of chips.6 ], h4 ~. I/ P( y: t' \
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“A game like this might take most engineers a few months,” Wozniak recalled. “I9 Y! h& _0 Q+ h9 {5 p6 n
thought that there was no way I could do it, but Steve made me sure that I could.” So he- x: g) b3 |$ ?2 g0 H N
stayed up four nights in a row and did it. During the day at HP, Wozniak would sketch out: Q& |) Q" i, y+ q% J
his design on paper. Then, after a fast-food meal, he would go right to Atari and stay all
) D. T8 k+ i3 E+ K6 c2 e+ c Anight. As Wozniak churned out the design, Jobs sat on a bench to his left implementing it
5 i# I* m$ K% b/ c$ _* oby wire-wrapping the chips onto a breadboard. “While Steve was breadboarding, I spent
2 U& t) L* F% ~' ctime playing my favorite game ever, which was the auto racing game Gran Trak 10,”% z9 {, R5 S- R; Q$ F
Wozniak said.: l& w0 f& S. S: g
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Astonishingly, they were able to get the job done in four days, and Wozniak used only, m" p0 t' g' T: I
forty-five chips. Recollections differ, but by most accounts Jobs simply gave Wozniak half
% q C' @1 S* Wof the base fee and not the bonus Bushnell paid for saving five chips. It would be another
! R; ?8 I% X" O3 @# kten years before Wozniak discovered (by being shown the tale in a book on the history of, r4 z4 X6 w& j. D' C) s
Atari titled Zap) that Jobs had been paid this bonus. “I think that Steve needed the money,5 x# k5 E3 y8 ?# t5 u0 F" ^ L# @
and he just didn’t tell me the truth,” Wozniak later said. When he talks about it now, there2 n0 d! s/ ^, l* s0 s
are long pauses, and he admits that it causes him pain. “I wish he had just been honest. If# S4 d& Z& c$ P9 y- k6 W# j
he had told me he needed the money, he should have known I would have just given it to
% D$ a6 a4 j* b5 k2 R2 G" W3 Ohim. He was a friend. You help your friends.” To Wozniak, it showed a fundamental
1 h( i2 @; n4 h; X; _+ qdifference in their characters. “Ethics always mattered to me, and I still don’t understand* {+ m, j& V0 m* M% X( N- H
why he would’ve gotten paid one thing and told me he’d gotten paid another,” he said." h1 ?! a. y' t9 F9 F
“But, you know, people are different.”
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+ l! R$ J; `; b7 G7 Y3 ?) BWhen Jobs learned this story was published, he called Wozniak to deny it. “He told me" V9 F* f& w8 g) o Q& P! g6 v4 V
that he didn’t remember doing it, and that if he did something like that he would remember
% z% B4 \" q ^9 s, d! H- wit, so he probably didn’t do it,” Wozniak recalled. When I asked Jobs directly, he became
: b3 X' B9 r& t, l$ i2 Y* r5 zunusually quiet and hesitant. “I don’t know where that allegation comes from,” he said. “I
/ N$ W: R$ C" t. u# m1 Fgave him half the money I ever got. That’s how I’ve always been with Woz. I mean, Woz
1 p; C& ^# {* H' @& Gstopped working in 1978. He never did one ounce of work after 1978. And yet he got
, H$ [2 w! ^* ]: \: bexactly the same shares of Apple stock that I did.”& V6 ]# \. H4 l5 ~
' U- l' R) a) U. F
Is it possible that memories are muddled and that Jobs did not, in fact, shortchange
( L1 s ^2 J0 `8 S$ [Wozniak? “There’s a chance that my memory is all wrong and messed up,” Wozniak told
8 b8 T1 Y J, I; {me, but after a pause he reconsidered. “But no. I remember the details of this one, the $350
" t" ?" z0 y6 R' v' xcheck.” He confirmed his memory with Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn. “I remember
( W9 V1 J# s) n) D) D; c |+ Ntalking about the bonus money to Woz, and he was upset,” Bushnell said. “I said yes, there
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6 y4 P/ n9 S6 k) ^* xwas a bonus for each chip they saved, and he just shook his head and then clucked his3 p9 Q7 p0 z Z# O
tongue.”$ O' E' G, Z, z1 t, O9 _- r6 m3 Z+ O
1 F* D+ e( w1 F: HWhatever the truth, Wozniak later insisted that it was not worth rehashing. Jobs is a
3 B) L4 l( N' e6 {complex person, he said, and being manipulative is just the darker facet of the traits that7 x" ~, ]# V9 j; h* q
make him successful. Wozniak would never have been that way, but as he points out, he
2 t+ R% Y" h' H& A! m7 k5 Falso could never have built Apple. “I would rather let it pass,” he said when I pressed the
: k" h! ^8 {* B0 c* J' `point. “It’s not something I want to judge Steve by.”1 e, Q' a2 v9 \, x3 I2 Y
( y. o' ~! C" }. R8 h' ~
The Atari experience helped shape Jobs’s approach to business and design. He! \( E1 y" j" V! H, c
appreciated the user-friendliness of Atari’s insert-quarter-avoid-Klingons games. “That! }' k5 j4 {" N
simplicity rubbed off on him and made him a very focused product person,” said Ron' K) t3 ? c' o; h& q! ?
Wayne. Jobs also absorbed some of Bushnell’s take-no-prisoners attitude. “Nolan wouldn’t
+ t( \% j, x' W: R1 N& a: ltake no for an answer,” according to Alcorn, “and this was Steve’s first impression of how; R! L4 M( i- k9 _7 u: s
things got done. Nolan was never abusive, like Steve sometimes is. But he had the same4 H1 g5 d6 T' _
driven attitude. It made me cringe, but dammit, it got things done. In that way Nolan was a) r1 b- Q5 X( \/ P- q( H
mentor for Jobs.”
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5 I- g( d" P h q0 g( I' B; }4 uBushnell agreed. “There is something indefinable in an entrepreneur, and I saw that in
# B; d% a5 y0 O1 ~2 ]% S9 `Steve,” he said. “He was interested not just in engineering, but also the business aspects. I
5 ^& j$ Q1 ]' }$ `5 Z ktaught him that if you act like you can do something, then it will work. I told him, ‘Pretend
+ v, T$ d( J: V# `$ N0 Sto be completely in control and people will assume that you are.’”4 M* d0 s& O4 y
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CHAPTER FIVE, I A. H8 ^. ?" w# Q
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8 d. b( Z% ^; g1 o0 o' VTHE APPLE I* x* S7 W8 l3 J
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$ N; U& T7 v, x2 b" O* LTurn On, Boot Up, Jack In . . . ( T0 u$ {& v$ Z: r+ Y# P
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/ H9 Z- I+ {# N: N4 T& qDaniel Kottke and Jobs with the Apple I at the Atlantic City computer fair, 1976
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) [# Y/ }0 y1 N+ g: y3 XIn San Francisco and the Santa Clara Valley during the late 1960s, various cultural currents
' F+ S, N7 q$ P, m, dflowed together. There was the technology revolution that began with the growth of0 z6 o7 t6 c+ c% m7 H, E: d
military contractors and soon included electronics firms, microchip makers, video game
: c3 F9 m' m8 h7 ^designers, and computer companies. There was a hacker subculture—filled with wireheads,1 y/ {; r# O F+ ]
phreakers, cyberpunks, hobbyists, and just plain geeks—that included engineers who didn’t
% v5 @! X& C. N" `& uconform to the HP mold and their kids who weren’t attuned to the wavelengths of the2 p R- Z. z5 K5 n- w6 k
subdivisions. There were quasi-academic groups doing studies on the effects of LSD;/ D2 \9 i! Q0 S& w0 {7 k5 U" `
participants included Doug Engelbart of the Augmentation Research Center in Palo Alto,3 f+ @' C E7 ]/ d
who later helped develop the computer mouse and graphical user interfaces, and Ken5 z) c# x' K4 u
Kesey, who celebrated the drug with music-and-light shows featuring a house band that/ Q% |0 {- c" z% y- T8 Y, N
became the Grateful Dead. There was the hippie movement, born out of the Bay Area’s" j2 \" L. T p$ {4 |" T6 k+ m
beat generation, and the rebellious political activists, born out of the Free Speech
; U, w( H* ^* r! U5 \2 S( AMovement at Berkeley. Overlaid on it all were various self-fulfillment movements pursuing
% p6 `0 ~6 M, |paths to personal enlightenment: Zen and Hinduism, meditation and yoga, primal scream6 r% F. [( }( y1 B) ?
and sensory deprivation, Esalen and est. R1 n) l& o* G0 U a, K
This fusion of flower power and processor power, enlightenment and technology, was- h$ m1 _9 ~! Z& @. o6 r
embodied by Steve Jobs as he meditated in the mornings, audited physics classes at
, f' G! \7 c* u: a- }; PStanford, worked nights at Atari, and dreamed of starting his own business. “There was just4 \& ?& J/ b# h! @/ X* w
something going on here,” he said, looking back at the time and place. “The best music " o$ V, I" J9 z- b1 j6 S3 W- |
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came from here—the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin—and so6 u. C( [& K5 y# Z4 r- X/ W4 g
did the integrated circuit, and things like the Whole Earth Catalog.”
/ p6 S v9 X: `6 eInitially the technologists and the hippies did not interface well. Many in the: i, u1 p2 B4 t
counterculture saw computers as ominous and Orwellian, the province of the Pentagon and( o( E# F; c' A: }
the power structure. In The Myth of the Machine, the historian Lewis Mumford warned that2 Y- I% P7 t) u+ Q7 B$ [% l8 i
computers were sucking away our freedom and destroying “life-enhancing values.” An
8 y I+ ]" w% r1 Sinjunction on punch cards of the period—“Do not fold, spindle or mutilate”—became an
! |9 e8 m3 s/ J6 O& Y7 Bironic phrase of the antiwar Left.
9 x* K! _8 l% HBut by the early 1970s a shift was under way. “Computing went from being dismissed as
* V# d/ Y( s& \# O6 _a tool of bureaucratic control to being embraced as a symbol of individual expression and
2 c1 J% `6 N5 v/ R: L4 O# V1 @* m9 Tliberation,” John Markoff wrote in his study of the counterculture’s convergence with the) q% K5 u: a" R
computer industry, What the Dormouse Said. It was an ethos lyrically expressed in Richard
1 n" t. z+ E5 Z+ ?' ~ jBrautigan’s 1967 poem, “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace,” and the
8 E- a( p# C$ N) ]. q; acyberdelic fusion was certified when Timothy Leary declared that personal computers had. U$ [2 Q3 k* d" k5 z+ w* D4 q
become the new LSD and years later revised his famous mantra to proclaim, “Turn on, boot
7 y5 A; a- _; f0 ?* Dup, jack in.” The musician Bono, who later became a friend of Jobs, often discussed with) i; g( ]+ `/ x
him why those immersed in the rock-drugs-rebel counterculture of the Bay Area ended up
# {! \: p5 Q# L# H- w" l1 hhelping to create the personal computer industry. “The people who invented the twenty-first/ p; U& J; b: G1 S
century were pot-smoking, sandal-wearing hippies from the West Coast like Steve, because# J4 R: q" {1 @ l- E8 g3 J7 m5 Z
they saw differently,” he said. “The hierarchical systems of the East Coast, England, O& ]( N+ `1 x- \: H
Germany, and Japan do not encourage this different thinking. The sixties produced an ]6 e: c/ K3 M- _ ^7 a
anarchic mind-set that is great for imagining a world not yet in existence.”
s0 b1 R9 }& h4 m4 Z0 }0 QOne person who encouraged the denizens of the counterculture to make common cause& ^. s+ _7 v7 b; `
with the hackers was Stewart Brand. A puckish visionary who generated fun and ideas over
5 d; {$ {0 a! |; q$ Lmany decades, Brand was a participant in one of the early sixties LSD studies in Palo Alto.
) f1 o. T/ x' O* ~4 ]8 L! Y' uHe joined with his fellow subject Ken Kesey to produce the acid-celebrating Trips Festival,1 o5 _: `+ x- X( g' \
appeared in the opening scene of Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and worked8 [0 ~9 f4 c) j
with Doug Engelbart to create a seminal sound-and-light presentation of new technologies
+ E6 X6 A& w( p- a- A) c9 Z# gcalled the Mother of All Demos. “Most of our generation scorned computers as the
$ @1 _9 T1 F: m( rembodiment of centralized control,” Brand later noted. “But a tiny contingent—later called3 h; K, F9 D$ S: U
hackers—embraced computers and set about transforming them into tools of liberation.8 O. s7 W" E2 [# Z
That turned out to be the true royal road to the future.”9 `6 F7 U1 N; E" s& t
Brand ran the Whole Earth Truck Store, which began as a roving truck that sold useful
: k5 _) H2 h' ?! ]& ltools and educational materials, and in 1968 he decided to extend its reach with the Whole
0 |) I- ~' M8 B; E* w: O8 i* oEarth Catalog. On its first cover was the famous picture of Earth taken from space; its
# U$ e& B0 {7 u% z) Q+ Rsubtitle was “Access to Tools.” The underlying philosophy was that technology could be
5 c! g0 J# D5 @, D8 u, cour friend. Brand wrote on the first page of the first edition, “A realm of intimate, personal9 R# @& ?9 b, f! a
power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own
9 _2 n1 ?3 t- x: Einspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested.
7 L, ~0 I/ I8 g$ b& ?/ xTools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the Whole Earth Catalog.”5 k# }* h0 @) F4 s" T
Buckminster Fuller followed with a poem that began: “I see God in the instruments and
! F' ]4 r; s7 [mechanisms that work reliably.” - G1 X# H2 }% s7 ?
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Jobs became a Whole Earth fan. He was particularly taken by the final issue, which came
( ?" A- L8 ?8 L+ O h/ b+ oout in 1971, when he was still in high school, and he brought it with him to college and% o; V: _5 B4 F$ x+ r2 W5 u
then to the All One Farm. “On the back cover of their final issue” Jobs recalled, “was a; H) {% R+ K' @
photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking+ I8 b7 L% f- R1 \( b: x( K* e( I
on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: ‘Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.’”
- w" \+ S: D4 LBrand sees Jobs as one of the purest embodiments of the cultural mix that the catalog
6 S1 [5 H- S' `! L+ D6 tsought to celebrate. “Steve is right at the nexus of the counterculture and technology,” he4 X5 [# m7 U, {; Q6 q) T
said. “He got the notion of tools for human use.”! w9 D0 S& G/ j6 ^7 Z/ n
Brand’s catalog was published with the help of the Portola Institute, a foundation
/ V% l1 q6 n* F) sdedicated to the fledgling field of computer education. The foundation also helped launch, G3 o H/ T2 @: H- g
the People’s Computer Company, which was not a company at all but a newsletter and
6 X8 j/ q+ }9 K0 v# ]' C! jorganization with the motto “Computer power to the people.” There were occasional6 P/ }+ u+ `. Q- q: ^( k. G$ @/ F
Wednesday-night potluck dinners, and two of the regulars, Gordon French and Fred Moore,
6 S6 o% S0 I: n" u8 q# Gdecided to create a more formal club where news about personal electronics could be
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They were energized by the arrival of the January 1975 issue of Popular Mechanics,) R4 i: z! Q Y
which had on its cover the first personal computer kit, the Altair. The Altair wasn’t much—2 d/ B2 F5 V8 b: p9 x$ {# M
just a $495 pile of parts that had to be soldered to a board that would then do little—but for
# u; E& S4 K9 F$ ?1 y9 G! yhobbyists and hackers it heralded the dawn of a new era. Bill Gates and Paul Allen read the
4 N% ^5 t% s. n% p3 G7 V* umagazine and started working on a version of BASIC, an easy-to-use programming
1 F' A2 ?# F4 M9 m' elanguage, for the Altair. It also caught the attention of Jobs and Wozniak. And when an$ r% c3 z. F ?" d V
Altair kit arrived at the People’s Computer Company, it became the centerpiece for the first8 b) q0 \4 G3 x
meeting of the club that French and Moore had decided to launch.
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The group became known as the Homebrew Computer Club, and it encapsulated the Whole
3 D' T' ]( A" k& H# k$ mEarth fusion between the counterculture and technology. It would become to the personal
' Z1 C: G _1 L) K" I& I7 P- g( \" qcomputer era something akin to what the Turk’s Head coffeehouse was to the age of Dr.
* f3 O' q4 C* E! w: X" HJohnson, a place where ideas were exchanged and disseminated. Moore wrote the flyer for
5 v5 w5 D8 B3 H, v5 l" ]" |: Vthe first meeting, held on March 5, 1975, in French’s Menlo Park garage: “Are you. Y. `- \9 T+ F" [1 j# O
building your own computer? Terminal, TV, typewriter?” it asked. “If so, you might like to5 }, e7 Q3 c6 q/ O( \
come to a gathering of people with like-minded interests.”
6 t$ q/ x# j/ T0 o D' K7 m4 EAllen Baum spotted the flyer on the HP bulletin board and called Wozniak, who agreed/ y: i5 Y6 c+ Y# A6 A5 P
to go with him. “That night turned out to be one of the most important nights of my life,”
2 H2 R7 g' i T& u# XWozniak recalled. About thirty other people showed up, spilling out of French’s open( q' s3 T: X9 x+ [4 L \" ^
garage door, and they took turns describing their interests. Wozniak, who later admitted to. F. d/ ?9 ~/ q0 R+ c/ k( S( c
being extremely nervous, said he liked “video games, pay movies for hotels, scientific
0 C8 L. K% U% scalculator design, and TV terminal design,” according to the minutes prepared by Moore.0 t& M" ]; w! Q2 T; G; m7 x: L" S' @
There was a demonstration of the new Altair, but more important to Wozniak was seeing0 B& r- J* ~2 k" }( ?
the specification sheet for a microprocessor.
% e; f5 N9 h. }; v4 SAs he thought about the microprocessor—a chip that had an entire central processing
6 a9 ~' P7 t* bunit on it—he had an insight. He had been designing a terminal, with a keyboard and
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$ D1 j+ p6 Q5 S0 T- I: Fmonitor, that would connect to a distant minicomputer. Using a microprocessor, he could
, p$ f: ]! l h! A4 X, Fput some of the capacity of the minicomputer inside the terminal itself, so it could become
, D3 g2 Y/ V" G/ T: Z, ~a small stand-alone computer on a desktop. It was an enduring idea: keyboard, screen, and
( v2 ?; v" O1 P6 T. V, @8 V7 i) Dcomputer all in one integrated personal package. “This whole vision of a personal computer
+ L! w: `* Y) c5 r N8 {! Bjust popped into my head,” he said. “That night, I started to sketch out on paper what would r- l! a0 t( z5 L
later become known as the Apple I.”& H b: I |, Q
At first he planned to use the same microprocessor that was in the Altair, an Intel 8080.% j5 i$ J% l8 n
But each of those “cost almost more than my monthly rent,” so he looked for an alternative.
. [3 M( i) ]/ n1 W; kHe found one in the Motorola 6800, which a friend at HP was able to get for $40 apiece.
! Y5 R8 `1 o; k* A M6 y- fThen he discovered a chip made by MOS Technologies that was electronically the same but
" A! o- V# J& T" M' R- scost only $20. It would make his machine affordable, but it would carry a long-term cost.
' K ]3 D! C2 X' Q6 SIntel’s chips ended up becoming the industry standard, which would haunt Apple when its
& F1 F7 O# b! V Icomputers were incompatible with it.2 K: j b, g# y
After work each day, Wozniak would go home for a TV dinner and then return to HP to% E2 _- R/ x" Z8 g0 i: q" ?% E0 Z
moonlight on his computer. He spread out the parts in his cubicle, figured out their( N' {! [# f' W2 \# J
placement, and soldered them onto his motherboard. Then he began writing the software
; S$ B$ x1 b+ Dthat would get the microprocessor to display images on the screen. Because he could not
" b" D" x) l j0 C ^afford to pay for computer time, he wrote the code by hand. After a couple of months he
& Y# P1 Z: F. }* v' w. Vwas ready to test it. “I typed a few keys on the keyboard and I was shocked! The letters
; L4 e/ f: U' E6 A3 n2 @were displayed on the screen.” It was Sunday, June 29, 1975, a milestone for the personal/ @, Q. I) l, ~& ]
computer. “It was the first time in history,” Wozniak later said, “anyone had typed a
2 S0 Z( D% G7 j0 \. h( Y- U$ Dcharacter on a keyboard and seen it show up on their own computer’s screen right in front
* O4 V3 s/ y7 _9 U0 E) qof them.”( D" h- ?/ p, s. h% g
Jobs was impressed. He peppered Wozniak with questions: Could the computer ever be
: _1 `4 [2 ]7 onetworked? Was it possible to add a disk for memory storage? He also began to help Woz- E9 s1 h1 V# ^- `# s' I' ~
get components. Particularly important were the dynamic random-access memory chips.
, x2 D; w7 V4 l+ v4 m! S# `Jobs made a few calls and was able to score some from Intel for free. “Steve is just that sort4 Z5 v3 \& _ ` F2 c- a
of person,” said Wozniak. “I mean, he knew how to talk to a sales representative. I could- S) [5 `: ~5 L3 W: G/ L
never have done that. I’m too shy.”. E% i* M! f" G+ f) U. A( }
Jobs began to accompany Wozniak to Homebrew meetings, carrying the TV monitor and0 b. B4 J+ D) y i3 g) j
helping to set things up. The meetings now attracted more than one hundred enthusiasts and* L# W) |$ H- N) k7 L* @
had been moved to the auditorium of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Presiding5 t/ g8 m" p/ d4 x8 u& ?* ]. P6 L
with a pointer and a free-form manner was Lee Felsenstein, another embodiment of the
, J! a& i' N/ Z% V% Z/ y zmerger between the world of computing and the counterculture. He was an engineering
( g1 b- q% y" Ischool dropout, a participant in the Free Speech Movement, and an antiwar activist. He had
/ J5 q& X2 Q3 a/ C0 s. }written for the alternative newspaper Berkeley Barb and then gone back to being a
. r) A& ~4 e- l& c0 W' Ccomputer engineer.
* O- T3 J$ {1 K7 I, g1 V/ BWoz was usually too shy to talk in the meetings, but people would gather around his2 C! k Z5 Z1 E, s y x5 q
machine afterward, and he would proudly show off his progress. Moore had tried to instill
5 `) O$ i* @4 p+ bin the Homebrew an ethos of swapping and sharing rather than commerce. “The theme of5 ^3 ~ _ T: M. w
the club,” Woz said, “was ‘Give to help others.’” It was an expression of the hacker ethic- l. ?8 Z2 T+ E
that information should be free and all authority mistrusted. “I designed the Apple I
- Z0 w2 d+ X3 lbecause I wanted to give it away for free to other people,” said Wozniak. 3 c1 K7 s4 d& ^' O
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2 y$ b2 C7 `0 P6 ^0 S( JThis was not an outlook that Bill Gates embraced. After he and Paul Allen had/ X0 H( h( ]4 }& L; r; e% t- q! H# L
completed their BASIC interpreter for the Altair, Gates was appalled that members of the
2 V; D, `* q' {8 m1 s" LHomebrew were making copies of it and sharing it without paying him. So he wrote what
- C6 C% _ o- G: X% {, G5 |would become a famous letter to the club: “As the majority of hobbyists must be aware,
2 E s( L8 I% f+ I; q, K* K Smost of you steal your software. Is this fair? . . . One thing you do is prevent good software# A' @' \9 g9 _* A r
from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? . . . I would
8 ?7 q O5 k3 k# u, y' w0 f' i8 W Jappreciate letters from anyone who wants to pay up.”- z9 H2 _. \9 V6 h9 i
Steve Jobs, similarly, did not embrace the notion that Wozniak’s creations, be it a Blue
0 I9 c p+ A) O- |1 o" pBox or a computer, wanted to be free. So he convinced Wozniak to stop giving away copies
! F) G# e% T5 O/ J( M' Sof his schematics. Most people didn’t have time to build it themselves anyway, Jobs/ q3 s2 V N& N4 I4 c
argued. “Why don’t we build and sell printed circuit boards to them?” It was an example of
( I6 i! r5 S' g+ N: }their symbiosis. “Every time I’d design something great, Steve would find a way to make1 f9 X5 g- L6 p0 a( M3 [
money for us,” said Wozniak. Wozniak admitted that he would have never thought of doing
6 H" `0 c! E8 f3 gthat on his own. “It never crossed my mind to sell computers. It was Steve who said, ‘Let’s
. a3 a( z9 W6 g: _# e+ R8 N: N0 Ahold them in the air and sell a few.’”$ E1 c( s' a& x3 t/ _% d3 m
Jobs worked out a plan to pay a guy he knew at Atari to draw the circuit boards and then. P! ^* |, c% v7 w1 |9 {: H
print up fifty or so. That would cost about $1,000, plus the fee to the designer. They could2 B9 i" D g# I* Y0 x" X' [
sell them for $40 apiece and perhaps clear a profit of $700. Wozniak was dubious that they. k6 s& @1 t0 e. r3 E
could sell them all. “I didn’t see how we would make our money back,” he recalled. He$ q t- a- q" s- b5 r
was already in trouble with his landlord for bouncing checks and now had to pay each
! N$ \9 m$ _; Imonth in cash.
+ ~) ]. t6 ]2 c0 o1 IJobs knew how to appeal to Wozniak. He didn’t argue that they were sure to make. Q4 b# l$ X7 c3 j
money, but instead that they would have a fun adventure. “Even if we lose our money,4 r% j! i' R: G3 }) V
we’ll have a company,” said Jobs as they were driving in his Volkswagen bus. “For once in
5 a) p; S; t+ D% _3 n5 r r) Kour lives, we’ll have a company.” This was enticing to Wozniak, even more than any4 f$ F v& u5 z2 W+ O
prospect of getting rich. He recalled, “I was excited to think about us like that. To be two
3 b& [/ A g# o- cbest friends starting a company. Wow. I knew right then that I’d do it. How could I not?”# G2 c( b" y& w
In order to raise the money they needed, Wozniak sold his HP 65 calculator for $500, d6 Z. D/ p1 C) V9 f. ~
though the buyer ended up stiffing him for half of that. For his part, Jobs sold his
& z2 i6 B- _/ c2 rVolkswagen bus for $1,500. But the person who bought it came to find him two weeks later
6 C, U& \0 \; s, O9 _6 Y$ Q' ?and said the engine had broken down, and Jobs agreed to pay for half of the repairs.
, x3 n: V. j2 I7 YDespite these little setbacks, they now had, with their own small savings thrown in, about
$ G0 Q1 I. U$ y8 v# p* X. u2 w8 \$1,300 in working capital, the design for a product, and a plan. They would start their own5 `- t( l. F3 x) @: h
computer company.4 n; \9 j. z9 Z) D
/ q- k0 R! N. t) o. k错误!超链接引用无效。
1 `* E) i! l% [ e1 p# J+ z& k- ] h# k4 Q6 N% s& T$ Q$ O
Now that they had decided to start a business, they needed a name. Jobs had gone for
0 s/ o1 I9 e1 }% s' \0 janother visit to the All One Farm, where he had been pruning the Gravenstein apple trees,2 P0 l, k3 e6 o- m, B3 V
and Wozniak picked him up at the airport. On the ride down to Los Altos, they bandied
u& L) L" Y1 R0 e. M7 Yaround options. They considered some typical tech words, such as Matrix, and some3 p' s' W. w( @2 E5 z
neologisms, such as Executek, and some straightforward boring names, like Personal. {7 Z+ A/ t3 K: w3 M {
Computers Inc. The deadline for deciding was the next day, when Jobs wanted to start " A1 T$ p4 n# w' q
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