|
college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my
; ^6 g3 n! |" N8 z! T+ bparents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work. {9 \; p2 b3 P
out okay.”6 o4 x3 V/ C- k2 M# o1 O0 _8 [
/ B) O) w- E" H: {* I3 W% wHe didn’t actually want to leave Reed; he just wanted to quit paying tuition and taking
7 C7 Y; ~) M! |* N; x! I* Kclasses that didn’t interest him. Remarkably, Reed tolerated that. “He had a very inquiring
% J$ [5 ]1 l$ s( E- \) E6 kmind that was enormously attractive,” said the dean of students, Jack Dudman. “He refused- t6 W1 d& S* |& M+ @
to accept automatically received truths, and he wanted to examine everything himself.”) B! F/ |# x% S% d% j
Dudman allowed Jobs to audit classes and stay with friends in the dorms even after he
; ?8 k' m1 V9 F- l Jstopped paying tuition.
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" c* U: z. c2 H$ P/ j" N$ q) v$ S“The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest
$ u: g8 W( z* h# Wme, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting,” he said. Among them was a8 a2 L9 ]- {! l5 I5 S6 |
calligraphy class that appealed to him after he saw posters on campus that were beautifully
9 Q# S* H. i# k& s% ydrawn. “I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space+ E4 L1 l5 f# ?8 d9 {, J7 K
between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was+ l! C0 @5 M% N3 b$ I( t( K
beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it
1 k/ \$ T3 W& ^5 }6 l5 Wfascinating.”# n) T! [6 T& v- F! B4 t5 N
2 m% X9 t$ W$ yIt was yet another example of Jobs consciously positioning himself at the intersection! ~, Y! v7 r/ L$ J7 b, P; w
of the arts and technology. In all of his products, technology would be married to great
. Q1 }4 J8 G" o% K" ?* D$ ?design, elegance, human touches, and even romance. He would be in the fore of pushing
) X2 Q& L3 k# b j) s& _friendly graphical user interfaces. The calligraphy course would become iconic in that8 m9 J; S) Q0 z% U' h1 q( k
regard. “If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have/ O/ ^) u3 n* b
never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just9 t) c N% W) S3 s. V7 ]
copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.”
5 ~0 X; {+ m" {( F# r# S1 P) A" W/ ^- d# ?4 O* [* E
In the meantime Jobs eked out a bohemian existence on the fringes of Reed. He went
?3 d4 ]1 U6 }/ N4 X0 W0 B. Y3 lbarefoot most of the time, wearing sandals when it snowed. Elizabeth Holmes made meals
- h4 t5 F+ d z" h+ u+ [for him, trying to keep up with his obsessive diets. He returned soda bottles for spare4 J# Z# J, T: t/ S9 a* E
change, continued his treks to the free Sunday dinners at the Hare Krishna temple, and0 x+ k' {/ z5 Q9 s# @$ [+ ] x
wore a down jacket in the heatless garage apartment he rented for $20 a month. When he
( ^% s& e5 M( Y! u4 xneeded money, he found work at the psychology department lab maintaining the electronic
* b. x: b4 o: \& M+ i7 Uequipment that was used for animal behavior experiments. Occasionally Chrisann Brennan$ S# J. ]& [4 {; D. Q/ s( u$ d
would come to visit. Their relationship sputtered along erratically. But mostly he tended to9 {8 V0 H- S9 P7 M2 j
the stirrings of his own soul and personal quest for enlightenment.
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! j$ E4 e+ ^9 X; i( h2 n4 g" \# G/ b# E' p/ Q5 C
“I came of age at a magical time,” he reflected later. “Our consciousness was raised by
$ n6 P( M+ L4 r, p% V4 K. G) yZen, and also by LSD.” Even later in life he would credit psychedelic drugs for making
/ s; I2 H" f- X3 i+ X- chim more enlightened. “Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important7 U; x" G' c# K, E2 C* M0 g& E/ _( ]
things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t
" W P+ T8 `4 q. m" ] u: q& J$ Q5 Iremember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was ( L* `8 s* X, z8 D Z! W8 h
# G1 W+ Y$ C* G' R3 u) p4 a# S. t8 A0 T, q$ V3 x* n2 r
' ~0 z2 o! d% j0 n+ n
: I5 T' J; ~3 `2 Z' ~6 l5 `" w D% o9 o% I( a! I. E3 B
5 j# d" S1 R! `7 D& ^3 b! E) o8 K' j; p. z2 ]% N
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7 z* j1 g$ Q( _6 A# N4 bimportant—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the x: k1 x8 Q% p) [$ }8 }! G
stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”0 ?( h, l! |; e3 @: q- l8 {
2 P9 ^8 S+ j7 u* c; P/ r) E) q
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* M" J. f' w$ F) x$ h" G; `
CHAPTER FOUR
8 W; J A) s9 k4 X1 M) o6 c. p1 l0 i @5 R+ Z, \
9 ^' {' u3 Q) d. L$ r2 U& P
8 s; }. g5 r# e' B- m- m; ZATARI AND INDIA
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& _" x7 c6 y8 {# w
2 t/ Z" U' m9 {5 V \0 K6 l; t$ r8 F
Zen and the Art of Game Design; ~' [8 B4 O' r1 k
D4 e8 d6 @; w. k3 ~% Z" ?# v: K) R. J* M2 }
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Atari! Y3 u. N% m6 ?) V
1 f- X% a* U) }( ]
In February 1974, after eighteen months of hanging around Reed, Jobs decided to move+ [/ H% b( w7 N U S) ]( f g
back to his parents’ home in Los Altos and look for a job. It was not a difficult search. At O! S' [* Q8 b, N+ Q! |2 S
peak times during the 1970s, the classified section of the San Jose Mercury carried up to! a' M* U$ A3 B
sixty pages of technology help-wanted ads. One of those caught Jobs’s eye. “Have fun,, F% ]+ g6 b2 {, h3 k
make money,” it said. That day Jobs walked into the lobby of the video game manufacturer
( l$ N% o- K! O* U4 J+ RAtari and told the personnel director, who was startled by his unkempt hair and attire, that
" W% Z2 M$ M5 E& g2 g' fhe wouldn’t leave until they gave him a job.
/ J+ [" c1 U7 i J
0 S) Q! {+ b) v1 P% s% O6 Z3 q: L1 z; LAtari’s founder was a burly entrepreneur named Nolan Bushnell, who was a charismatic
- m3 s+ m6 z5 o! t" ~) E: Ovisionary with a nice touch of showmanship in him—in other words, another role model# f/ T. W0 j6 D1 _0 P
waiting to be emulated. After he became famous, he liked driving around in a Rolls,
8 h0 @+ E# u. |& Csmoking dope, and holding staff meetings in a hot tub. As Friedland had done and as Jobs' U/ E2 l9 K9 z: g
would learn to do, he was able to turn charm into a cunning force, to cajole and intimidate3 x+ i( }/ L1 d9 m C/ ?: a
and distort reality with the power of his personality. His chief engineer was Al Alcorn,
% @0 S4 z+ B+ V' }- kbeefy and jovial and a bit more grounded, the house grown-up trying to implement the
/ G# @# V, z3 qvision and curb the enthusiasms of Bushnell. Their big hit thus far was a video game called
9 L o4 ?9 c8 n ^Pong, in which two players tried to volley a blip on a screen with two movable lines that$ Q8 U4 e" p1 U
acted as paddles. (If you’re under thirty, ask your parents.)
/ f8 P" u2 {4 G/ x5 V6 n
5 r+ A! c, b" yWhen Jobs arrived in the Atari lobby wearing sandals and demanding a job, Alcorn was Q% z$ p6 S2 w0 \; v
the one who was summoned. “I was told, ‘We’ve got a hippie kid in the lobby. He says he’s
' L' h0 y% e! U: r' Gnot going to leave until we hire him. Should we call the cops or let him in?’ I said bring
7 W4 b; X9 L; s) t0 y: s8 Lhim on in!”
1 y, W$ a8 |7 F9 W, O5 G% w' X, r, d8 T. F, i8 ?0 u. C
Jobs thus became one of the first fifty employees at Atari, working as a technician for$ N" R& R9 z6 V: Z
$5 an hour. “In retrospect, it was weird to hire a dropout from Reed,” Alcorn recalled. “But ! H: c Y2 T/ H
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$ U) [8 C+ \+ b1 {6 z* k+ L! {) a4 [% c. B* v
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+ G7 {% B* B+ t8 R7 z+ p& I. y# c! C+ F3 K
4 `" y; _' r9 R- EI saw something in him. He was very intelligent, enthusiastic, excited about tech.” Alcorn% H1 ~" w! I! Q0 G
assigned him to work with a straitlaced engineer named Don Lang. The next day Lang
7 @5 ~ `( {3 c6 icomplained, “This guy’s a goddamn hippie with b.o. Why did you do this to me? And he’s
. l& }* p9 V% L9 O3 R% N+ wimpossible to deal with.” Jobs clung to the belief that his fruit-heavy vegetarian diet would
" z' k0 d m" ~9 A4 Tprevent not just mucus but also body odor, even if he didn’t use deodorant or shower
7 T+ M6 P& a' T1 zregularly. It was a flawed theory.
8 X. L# N: s; ~, _
# q" {! l. f' b4 o, |( LLang and others wanted to let Jobs go, but Bushnell worked out a solution. “The smell
- w+ K: B' Z* ]- o' E; b( B xand behavior wasn’t an issue with me,” he said. “Steve was prickly, but I kind of liked him.0 [& Y9 \4 [' X O* J$ O6 E' }; G
So I asked him to go on the night shift. It was a way to save him.” Jobs would come in after
! s H0 q N$ {Lang and others had left and work through most of the night. Even thus isolated, he became
1 m. v! U/ `/ u+ e" }0 J hknown for his brashness. On those occasions when he happened to interact with others, he
1 |/ |- ^# `5 M4 i2 Z7 [0 ywas prone to informing them that they were “dumb shits.” In retrospect, he stands by that7 U# `1 H. w) }
judgment. “The only reason I shone was that everyone else was so bad,” Jobs recalled.
$ c1 U# L" Q8 O, u1 K' ?1 E% g% }3 q0 E
Despite his arrogance (or perhaps because of it) he was able to charm Atari’s boss. “He
. H) C0 K3 Z: g- c- Iwas more philosophical than the other people I worked with,” Bushnell recalled. “We used
+ q# |' W3 w2 h: R0 Jto discuss free will versus determinism. I tended to believe that things were much more
( H6 Q; ~: o% f6 N# ~. @) @; Ddetermined, that we were programmed. If we had perfect information, we could predict3 q! |% c) a k+ @6 [$ `
people’s actions. Steve felt the opposite.” That outlook accorded with his faith in the power8 L) u5 c Z- {, y' o" Z
of the will to bend reality.
$ e# n( X5 }0 e. @$ H$ p3 r' @' c" k. B
Jobs helped improve some of the games by pushing the chips to produce fun designs,
4 y+ C) `7 e& D) u! ]8 v R% @, zand Bushnell’s inspiring willingness to play by his own rules rubbed off on him. In ~$ L& [% g9 g7 u
addition, he intuitively appreciated the simplicity of Atari’s games. They came with no
' h# c8 x ^7 {/ lmanual and needed to be uncomplicated enough that a stoned freshman could figure them
z7 @) s9 p1 [/ n* f4 H7 `out. The only instructions for Atari’s Star Trek game were “1. Insert quarter. 2. Avoid+ ^1 l4 k7 W! I5 y; l1 @4 y1 k
Klingons.”
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1 V' V6 k3 U2 j) I, X- mNot all of his coworkers shunned Jobs. He became friends with Ron Wayne, a3 g0 ^0 @& e* y& d
draftsman at Atari, who had earlier started a company that built slot machines. It9 O! P( _7 ^+ C( I
subsequently failed, but Jobs became fascinated with the idea that it was possible to start8 }, Z+ @. z1 A& J: S3 \
your own company. “Ron was an amazing guy,” said Jobs. “He started companies. I had" \/ H$ z% N5 A6 X2 K
never met anybody like that.” He proposed to Wayne that they go into business together;( X9 R# F6 H' z5 Z
Jobs said he could borrow $50,000, and they could design and market a slot machine. But
6 J @/ K% j; l& z( U( ^4 D, i1 |4 aWayne had already been burned in business, so he declined. “I said that was the quickest
: q3 D& I9 U% ?) L8 b7 N. e/ Wway to lose $50,000,” Wayne recalled, “but I admired the fact that he had a burning drive to
+ {6 A$ v' j4 Rstart his own business.”
4 R: }1 ]$ [% k3 }7 {4 [2 B6 Z6 ~ i
One weekend Jobs was visiting Wayne at his apartment, engaging as they often did in/ _6 F2 Y/ J! f$ c; w
philosophical discussions, when Wayne said that there was something he needed to tell
$ E) x) O. F( A; G- Khim. “Yeah, I think I know what it is,” Jobs replied. “I think you like men.” Wayne said
0 H* Z9 k3 d# I6 hyes. “It was my first encounter with someone who I knew was gay,” Jobs recalled. “He7 Q7 P% I9 e3 a9 L3 |* k
planted the right perspective of it for me.” Jobs grilled him: “When you see a beautiful ; [8 ^6 g; o5 w
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7 M3 l7 m0 ^' W* w1 d' ?+ y! X! K2 ~; O8 J
woman, what do you feel?” Wayne replied, “It’s like when you look at a beautiful horse.
% u- F& Z9 v% ?" m% a' hYou can appreciate it, but you don’t want to sleep with it. You appreciate beauty for what it' @+ H3 x- z7 B+ O/ M, x
is.” Wayne said that it is a testament to Jobs that he felt like revealing this to him. “Nobody% ~, R1 h4 f: ]: T& L- ?' F, I8 ~- q
at Atari knew, and I could count on my toes and fingers the number of people I told in my a% m5 H$ s& h, C9 E$ a
whole life. But I guess it just felt right to tell him, that he would understand, and it didn’t$ H, A0 a( h8 v f; g2 ^
have any effect on our relationship.”
9 N& l6 {& x7 K- j r& O
% M. j% G5 R0 C/ {- Y1 g8 IIndia
W. _3 S2 [0 j& f x1 s+ C! D5 \5 N) i! E
One reason Jobs was eager to make some money in early 1974 was that Robert
' W) A4 T+ [8 ^8 r' rFriedland, who had gone to India the summer before, was urging him to take his own
' q8 v: d( F* q) ?! R( j, a* mspiritual journey there. Friedland had studied in India with Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji),
, p6 s$ G9 u V- E. d* a3 b( Hwho had been the guru to much of the sixties hippie movement. Jobs decided he should do
, ]+ J7 }3 G P6 E$ Dthe same, and he recruited Daniel Kottke to go with him. Jobs was not motivated by mere
$ j8 j" H. j- J1 m" s# Padventure. “For me it was a serious search,” he said. “I’d been turned on to the idea of
/ [5 d+ N9 f& L$ Q- j) X0 b. Renlightenment and trying to figure out who I was and how I fit into things.” Kottke adds |# d4 R9 r" K5 |! w3 \5 n
that Jobs’s quest seemed driven partly by not knowing his birth parents. “There was a hole1 s) O b, {5 }9 \. }8 u% y7 ]
in him, and he was trying to fill it.”
; G- w" u3 f% B3 T6 d- Y. Q
8 @3 a; z& o2 K# b, ]When Jobs told the folks at Atari that he was quitting to go search for a guru in India,$ S }9 [, `2 ^: k1 M" U4 H
the jovial Alcorn was amused. “He comes in and stares at me and declares, ‘I’m going to
! L! B1 e- E. X- B8 S1 Zfind my guru,’ and I say, ‘No shit, that’s super. Write me!’ And he says he wants me to help" l! l' d: ?2 O# m% @
pay, and I tell him, ‘Bullshit!’” Then Alcorn had an idea. Atari was making kits and- d- a5 [3 X, a1 k, w
shipping them to Munich, where they were built into finished machines and distributed by a7 s; q& l, U$ w
wholesaler in Turin. But there was a problem: Because the games were designed for the4 D1 j, Q4 }8 m9 C, ^. |
American rate of sixty frames per second, there were frustrating interference problems in
% P j) z, u- D" \$ A6 t% HEurope, where the rate was fifty frames per second. Alcorn sketched out a fix with Jobs and
% \" e0 t' r8 L5 e/ Y8 R( n5 Mthen offered to pay for him to go to Europe to implement it. “It’s got to be cheaper to get to2 o% N }; z) I f+ K. m
India from there,” he said. Jobs agreed. So Alcorn sent him on his way with the
, {0 t1 Y$ e; xexhortation, “Say hi to your guru for me.”
- I/ n, _; M5 O: Z% N4 V' o E3 y: d
Jobs spent a few days in Munich, where he solved the interference problem, but in the/ w0 g8 B$ E5 j: J+ `+ ]. y
process he flummoxed the dark-suited German managers. They complained to Alcorn that
0 ?- M3 y5 k* i# the dressed and smelled like a bum and behaved rudely. “I said, ‘Did he solve the problem?’* b- G) E) _% C6 I
And they said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘If you got any more problems, you just call me, I got more& g! e0 m, D7 k5 A+ S5 J
guys just like him!’ They said, ‘No, no we’ll take care of it next time.’” For his part, Jobs
4 q8 w9 {( |5 [' hwas upset that the Germans kept trying to feed him meat and potatoes. “They don’t even& C% N* G- N! d/ b8 H& P Q
have a word for vegetarian,” he complained (incorrectly) in a phone call to Alcorn.
* C( A o6 j1 E- @ ? |! i( _8 _- l: @* w. a" K) Z
He had a better time when he took the train to see the distributor in Turin, where the
* D( }! t0 _6 F1 WItalian pastas and his host’s camaraderie were more simpatico. “I had a wonderful couple of. D x, A7 _- _8 R
weeks in Turin, which is this charged-up industrial town,” he recalled. “The distributor
' ]' n/ U3 x( Y/ ztook me every night to dinner at this place where there were only eight tables and no menu.! ?* n! B% o: _3 G$ n, f
You’d just tell them what you wanted, and they made it. One of the tables was on reserve ; b9 {6 {* a$ o' w/ Q: Z* y
9 R. e: T, o9 p; W4 }
. @' B5 Q& O- m) t! ]' }: h
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) `2 x/ F3 |, N- N$ xfor the chairman of Fiat. It was really super.” He next went to Lugano, Switzerland, where9 O# z7 ^0 r s; q0 W9 Q
he stayed with Friedland’s uncle, and from there took a flight to India.
3 I5 O) |, }1 V; D- Z- x4 m( d( W
. e- q# t$ S: x/ N2 O JWhen he got off the plane in New Delhi, he felt waves of heat rising from the tarmac,7 P; ?1 ]! ~8 b- F
even though it was only April. He had been given the name of a hotel, but it was full, so he8 e" S. I# M( m' ~6 p4 Y
went to one his taxi driver insisted was good. “I’m sure he was getting some baksheesh,8 R6 @# L* |/ x0 q8 T1 j" i) r
because he took me to this complete dive.” Jobs asked the owner whether the water was
1 |: ~2 a3 u9 Ifiltered and foolishly believed the answer. “I got dysentery pretty fast. I was sick, really" o l! n4 n' @& J0 A/ B3 d
sick, a really high fever. I dropped from 160 pounds to 120 in about a week.”/ x7 M- {8 t1 }( p0 T3 O
" b1 t# H8 J0 }6 {; C% ?
Once he got healthy enough to move, he decided that he needed to get out of Delhi. So
4 Q( i. q) f+ J, a+ ]) }. X1 Xhe headed to the town of Haridwar, in western India near the source of the Ganges, which
; p0 S& e+ H* E0 F1 U0 xwas having a festival known as the Kumbh Mela. More than ten million people poured into
9 c) E5 s' L5 O& d9 ua town that usually contained fewer than 100,000 residents. “There were holy men all. {% J1 O& G6 } g& Y) m
around. Tents with this teacher and that teacher. There were people riding elephants, you; n% O( X4 j- T; d0 {7 g
name it. I was there for a few days, but I decided that I needed to get out of there too.” W% A; ]# f+ O
+ K; G+ C+ A7 J4 aHe went by train and bus to a village near Nainital in the foothills of the Himalayas.0 Z& w) ` k) @4 q9 H& V; l* j
That was where Neem Karoli Baba lived, or had lived. By the time Jobs got there, he was" P3 S' K3 g- |4 s, Z$ r
no longer alive, at least in the same incarnation. Jobs rented a room with a mattress on the
# |$ c+ e5 a1 c: ?- sfloor from a family who helped him recuperate by feeding him vegetarian meals. “There' n- ^2 e7 Q* Q' s7 l
was a copy there of Autobiography of a Yogi in English that a previous traveler had left,9 S5 F/ T0 V p' N
and I read it several times because there was not a lot to do, and I walked around from
: ]. [/ D2 b' ~- u/ A! A1 ]; ~' wvillage to village and recovered from my dysentery.” Among those who were part of the
) M+ _# H9 A {4 E# Ocommunity there was Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist who was working to eradicate
' o4 o4 [8 \$ A$ \smallpox and who later ran Google’s philanthropic arm and the Skoll Foundation. He
\" f; n2 K8 M5 X9 o4 K. W4 j' zbecame Jobs’s lifelong friend.
! L, M/ b& Q4 \3 }6 z& y$ o1 z8 a N8 @6 k c' K( W, A9 p2 u
At one point Jobs was told of a young Hindu holy man who was holding a gathering of7 J8 R* Y/ P# J
his followers at the Himalayan estate of a wealthy businessman. “It was a chance to meet a
5 a7 e+ i, Q$ s3 H- B$ a( W( wspiritual being and hang out with his followers, but it was also a chance to have a good
4 Z3 F& e: J, k9 U+ M3 Zmeal. I could smell the food as we got near, and I was very hungry.” As Jobs was eating,5 l+ @4 Y" P( L* b# R4 M
the holy man—who was not much older than Jobs—picked him out of the crowd, pointed3 E* w, Z" i6 H9 Q0 M, Q r2 \
at him, and began laughing maniacally. “He came running over and grabbed me and made a9 E' O- A: p! P* L2 @: e
tooting sound and said, ‘You are just like a baby,’” recalled Jobs. “I was not relishing this
2 L: _2 U+ q% F6 }) h, I6 B* z2 mattention.” Taking Jobs by the hand, he led him out of the worshipful crowd and walked2 [) E. P* V# |; G$ W. [- }1 {7 C
him up to a hill, where there was a well and a small pond. “We sit down and he pulls out; F3 y, w( p3 d* S
this straight razor. I’m thinking he’s a nutcase and begin to worry. Then he pulls out a bar" w# d( h& ^! Y& d0 G/ q! Y
of soap—I had long hair at the time—and he lathered up my hair and shaved my head. He
" z- G; g. N' @5 |$ F9 Dtold me that he was saving my health.”! @+ T- w( `( x$ y
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Daniel Kottke arrived in India at the beginning of the summer, and Jobs went back to5 V3 E/ m0 l2 w! h1 F; Q
New Delhi to meet him. They wandered, mainly by bus, rather aimlessly. By this point Jobs/ ~6 b/ q: q8 M, p, a3 N' V; g
was no longer trying to find a guru who could impart wisdom, but instead was seeking " G- Y7 {( V6 I7 e$ K( ^
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5 A% R) l' C; ? S/ l" I% b
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enlightenment through ascetic experience, deprivation, and simplicity. He was not able to
3 \8 X) q! q: o. vachieve inner calm. Kottke remembers him getting into a furious shouting match with a l0 x: @6 w: k/ ~
Hindu woman in a village marketplace who, Jobs alleged, had been watering down the9 s( ~, r" @+ n
milk she was selling them.
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6 i# S4 F1 n% m$ b, T! q; YYet Jobs could also be generous. When they got to the town of Manali, Kottke’s
' X1 g% \; f# ^1 @9 usleeping bag was stolen with his traveler’s checks in it. “Steve covered my food expenses
1 Z5 O- y$ N- B3 wand bus ticket back to Delhi,” Kottke recalled. He also gave Kottke the rest of his own
3 B8 F3 N0 r+ u0 ymoney, $100, to tide him over.6 V, f2 ]5 g" d0 z8 M+ k9 s# W
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During his seven months in India, he had written to his parents only sporadically,; k* A/ K4 Y) C5 r- d; P K/ t
getting mail at the American Express office in New Delhi when he passed through, and so0 U, O- e2 W2 v3 ~3 P! t# l
they were somewhat surprised when they got a call from the Oakland airport asking them
/ q$ L. A* v; w1 z8 C# m+ Oto pick him up. They immediately drove up from Los Altos. “My head had been shaved, I8 i. S9 p' F" S0 ~; x" G
was wearing Indian cotton robes, and my skin had turned a deep, chocolate brown-red from
0 [: P0 ], O# \$ U0 w p/ l! Zthe sun,” he recalled. “So I’m sitting there and my parents walked past me about five times- B8 N$ d, v+ v, l9 G6 g( o
and finally my mother came up and said ‘Steve?’ and I said ‘Hi!’”1 ]! P/ X( a; G- ]2 }. Z, \
9 t5 c/ f. E' B5 c" D) n/ I; L
They took him back home, where he continued trying to find himself. It was a pursuit
1 l$ F5 v5 _" F5 n& Z* @with many paths toward enlightenment. In the mornings and evenings he would meditate
+ C0 {0 W0 K: J+ Q. Y' z( f Jand study Zen, and in between he would drop in to audit physics or engineering courses at& U+ P: e7 K# w. A7 d% I5 I( Q# S
Stanford.' u7 f- g7 c6 v0 f
- k/ _6 q7 r# h* h) {2 o& k
The Search
: Y3 ~" o* n& u' c! {4 }, I
# V; F$ K) Y/ c e$ [0 ]/ tJobs’s interest in Eastern spirituality, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and the search for- g5 u* D" }9 }) b/ R/ E
enlightenment was not merely the passing phase of a nineteen-year-old. Throughout his life
7 k- M. @4 o0 c7 Jhe would seek to follow many of the basic precepts of Eastern religions, such as the
, b7 X# p$ U a' cemphasis on experiential prajñā, wisdom or cognitive understanding that is intuitively, p) i& T, R; x2 ~+ A* y9 q) @# l
experienced through concentration of the mind. Years later, sitting in his Palo Alto garden,$ i, {% i% u) b8 j2 P1 r; R
he reflected on the lasting influence of his trip to India:
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, o4 ^5 H8 a# Z8 o+ D) N$ AComing back to America was, for me, much more of a cultural shock than going to
7 P( w* B- y7 ~- `India. The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do, they use
. i1 n* E' Q. i8 ptheir intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world.
3 k5 r) O9 T+ _. y4 hIntuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a8 l* ?- K9 `% {
big impact on my work.
3 X% Q" K, y5 t0 E$ G# c3 K! c
- {5 n- q) b% PWestern rational thought is not an innate human characteristic; it is learned and is the
' s0 [ ]9 k' P4 tgreat achievement of Western civilization. In the villages of India, they never learned it.& y% h4 B5 e5 J5 d Y' ~ n% Z6 t
They learned something else, which is in some ways just as valuable but in other ways is" h8 I9 ?/ f! L0 t
not. That’s the power of intuition and experiential wisdom. 0 J: q, A/ ~' W; M: H9 Y) z+ }/ n
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$ L1 t, e8 I' p4 ?/ g; \3 `
Coming back after seven months in Indian villages, I saw the craziness of the Western
2 h$ P) y3 F" G7 V/ e6 P1 Q9 @world as well as its capacity for rational thought. If you just sit and observe, you will see7 a$ o4 l% V3 X7 u- H
how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does5 m8 \3 l* g/ X/ T2 g9 _$ a
calm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things—that’s when your intuition
+ \) m. x' z+ Y$ fstarts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your
0 Q1 R. W' G/ e' `/ w/ Cmind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much7 d0 c: k/ A6 {0 i
more than you could see before. It’s a discipline; you have to practice it.9 t, O+ K3 l$ L+ p- O7 T& J: ~
& n! a2 \8 h [/ [" n
Zen has been a deep influence in my life ever since. At one point I was thinking about
& [, n# C% @ t, \8 i; ogoing to Japan and trying to get into the Eihei-ji monastery, but my spiritual advisor urged
2 Y: Z" x. E$ G4 O2 i) E) Jme to stay here. He said there is nothing over there that isn’t here, and he was correct. I( H/ w V" _8 n( n3 \
learned the truth of the Zen saying that if you are willing to travel around the world to meet( L" i; n4 c1 a8 n) y& l% c: E8 {
a teacher, one will appear next door.! G8 f. [0 |) ~
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- e5 A* a( _+ z. s8 dJobs did in fact find a teacher right in his own neighborhood. Shunryu Suzuki, who8 V6 \' a/ a0 T/ g+ R, u: z
wrote Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind and ran the San Francisco Zen Center, used to come to2 }9 M+ B& p9 w. g1 h" `
Los Altos every Wednesday evening to lecture and meditate with a small group of8 a& S7 H4 _1 U7 ^
followers. After a while he asked his assistant, Kobun Chino Otogawa, to open a full-time# M/ l% ^. K" E; S! k. S. g
center there. Jobs became a faithful follower, along with his occasional girlfriend, Chrisann2 b/ r4 I2 t1 c; L& q* R; z) R
Brennan, and Daniel Kottke and Elizabeth Holmes. He also began to go by himself on6 @% g4 X6 ]) v+ u3 L* W& B7 [9 u
retreats to the Tassajara Zen Center, a monastery near Carmel where Kobun also taught.
* W, E- W5 Z" A4 z; L: ~& p: o- R
Kottke found Kobun amusing. “His English was atrocious,” he recalled. “He would
$ g- `- v3 Y1 {5 Z# t2 yspeak in a kind of haiku, with poetic, suggestive phrases. We would sit and listen to him,
* X) q' V; n( {* Q' Z% \and half the time we had no idea what he was going on about. I took the whole thing as a
3 p4 N- u! G, |. K/ W5 Kkind of lighthearted interlude.” Holmes was more into the scene. “We would go to Kobun’s8 V& m3 I1 |0 C# W, R
meditations, sit on zafu cushions, and he would sit on a dais,” she said. “We learned how to# h" A( _* ?: B+ ^4 Q
tune out distractions. It was a magical thing. One evening we were meditating with Kobun; }2 m3 f. P/ n0 x; z5 f x; C d& D' G
when it was raining, and he taught us how to use ambient sounds to bring us back to focus
2 V& a" J0 C- Eon our meditation.”. F4 M. N- N# B/ F0 ^8 e
5 j& W8 |; V$ \% d: gAs for Jobs, his devotion was intense. “He became really serious and self-important and! A- Z$ @/ H* v" g5 w, B' V
just generally unbearable,” according to Kottke. He began meeting with Kobun almost
& f6 _3 x2 _* |8 E4 [3 T( N K3 Pdaily, and every few months they went on retreats together to meditate. “I ended up5 _% _6 {; S! S/ [; W
spending as much time as I could with him,” Jobs recalled. “He had a wife who was a nurse0 Z7 @2 g7 c+ ?, j k
at Stanford and two kids. She worked the night shift, so I would go over and hang out with
|- I9 p3 S) J6 c, Zhim in the evenings. She would get home about midnight and shoo me away.” They! `( V3 D' E! k: m' o9 \* v! v
sometimes discussed whether Jobs should devote himself fully to spiritual pursuits, but
. z% O; I. I0 f( b8 b0 yKobun counseled otherwise. He assured Jobs that he could keep in touch with his spiritual+ ^# W- j9 B! R- L
side while working in a business. The relationship turned out to be lasting and deep;* I3 L4 }" I+ X+ V) @1 G2 _
seventeen years later Kobun would perform Jobs’s wedding ceremony. ) w; S7 b. c4 r' @: o0 m
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Jobs’s compulsive search for self-awareness also led him to undergo primal scream
$ w9 a4 O+ R9 }: q0 i6 ]8 dtherapy, which had recently been developed and popularized by a Los Angeles1 A* i% F8 b" I$ e; W# x1 _
psychotherapist named Arthur Janov. It was based on the Freudian theory that
) ]3 t2 _6 H1 l9 v- D, z5 J+ ]4 c3 gpsychological problems are caused by the repressed pains of childhood; Janov argued that
2 Z6 M s. d3 T' O1 n7 vthey could be resolved by re-suffering these primal moments while fully expressing the% a& ~$ \( Y- E0 b" y
pain—sometimes in screams. To Jobs, this seemed preferable to talk therapy because it
& [# c7 k" O7 `" iinvolved intuitive feeling and emotional action rather than just rational analyzing. “This
; i) T; w! o3 W s {3 {was not something to think about,” he later said. “This was something to do: to close your
. Q0 ^: F h$ U2 r& x0 Weyes, hold your breath, jump in, and come out the other end more insightful.”8 a. f# b% Y' y5 r, O
4 ^+ _2 d- ]1 Y# m( [
A group of Janov’s adherents ran a program called the Oregon Feeling Center in an old+ R$ d8 D5 I- R
hotel in Eugene that was managed by Jobs’s Reed College guru Robert Friedland, whose
' s: F9 a5 N* A, f; HAll One Farm commune was nearby. In late 1974, Jobs signed up for a twelve-week course
" K% @4 m8 a# d+ t! R/ n8 iof therapy there costing $1,000. “Steve and I were both into personal growth, so I wanted
: v2 e+ \0 b; E, x& E7 ito go with him,” Kottke recounted, “but I couldn’t afford it.”
2 u4 J& v# I! Z! w2 V: M! _/ u4 e* ^0 g/ r3 w
Jobs confided to close friends that he was driven by the pain he was feeling about being
3 ~( ^% e( k B- s6 R1 ^* l2 {put up for adoption and not knowing about his birth parents. “Steve had a very profound2 q5 E. ]' {- h j, d* {
desire to know his physical parents so he could better know himself,” Friedland later said.& q* I: b) u" f3 q4 ]& J
He had learned from Paul and Clara Jobs that his birth parents had both been graduate
. I* T1 T Q$ S' ~/ Cstudents at a university and that his father might be Syrian. He had even thought about6 S3 u& s8 B2 K( S! f
hiring a private investigator, but he decided not to do so for the time being. “I didn’t want
( E# }6 J9 ~' q' d* u' _$ I3 l" e3 wto hurt my parents,” he recalled, referring to Paul and Clara.7 X' u/ n- l2 _0 ~2 _
$ y2 i0 D: }, _# I) r“He was struggling with the fact that he had been adopted,” according to Elizabeth
T/ f ?) o. [3 \$ tHolmes. “He felt that it was an issue that he needed to get hold of emotionally.” Jobs
& h; y$ R9 ~% J# Tadmitted as much to her. “This is something that is bothering me, and I need to focus on it,”' N* F1 W: s( b* s" j) n
he said. He was even more open with Greg Calhoun. “He was doing a lot of soul-searching# P% ~2 S, B. f
about being adopted, and he talked about it with me a lot,” Calhoun recalled. “The primal- q" E; f$ r. e& |- B
scream and the mucusless diets, he was trying to cleanse himself and get deeper into his+ h6 ]7 P$ E V, Y: r
frustration about his birth. He told me he was deeply angry about the fact that he had been
* `+ o+ m" {7 `) j5 p7 xgiven up.”
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John Lennon had undergone the same primal scream therapy in 1970, and in December7 S0 z5 c8 M( I7 O6 X4 |( l
of that year he released the song “Mother” with the Plastic Ono Band. It dealt with3 E+ O6 `6 g0 @* j" \
Lennon’s own feelings about a father who had abandoned him and a mother who had been4 s$ N! i+ v+ ^# F) z7 Q) H! I
killed when he was a teenager. The refrain includes the haunting chant “Mama don’t go,
. r9 R, E" ?% G1 M& UDaddy come home.” Jobs used to play the song often.
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Jobs later said that Janov’s teachings did not prove very useful. “He offered a ready-* o' T3 C8 c8 ]# @7 F
made, buttoned-down answer which turned out to be far too oversimplistic. It became
+ o6 y& F" _7 L2 P9 y0 Sobvious that it was not going to yield any great insight.” But Holmes contended that it
( |( A$ o, Q1 r$ }3 z: I/ Hmade him more confident: “After he did it, he was in a different place. He had a very 2 {6 {/ \5 S( d1 b
9 r0 |! s; v. \. _& O- g. I. V" L g! r* P/ B8 o( f& x1 u: U" F
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) Q7 Y/ d5 S( y; l @- i& R
/ Q7 @' Y4 K9 `6 Wabrasive personality, but there was a peace about him for a while. His confidence improved0 }- K2 O8 A1 s( D' z3 ], S
and his feelings of inadequacy were reduced.”# y: F C4 t9 i z' g. q
" e, V6 L% h8 r5 v& b5 uJobs came to believe that he could impart that feeling of confidence to others and thus
) D# M5 Q0 w% n$ w; V: v* m- |1 Bpush them to do things they hadn’t thought possible. Holmes had broken up with Kottke. s6 Y5 _3 A, D" O8 i& N
and joined a religious cult in San Francisco that expected her to sever ties with all past* w' o* H" v8 c7 C
friends. But Jobs rejected that injunction. He arrived at the cult house in his Ford Ranchero
( l* ?9 e6 v: N/ w5 U! W* Mone day and announced that he was driving up to Friedland’s apple farm and she was to
7 P4 O# J; Z5 m/ `0 ?2 {6 Z) [come. Even more brazenly, he said she would have to drive part of the way, even though
6 z* X9 ~8 P/ dshe didn’t know how to use the stick shift. “Once we got on the open road, he made me get
0 B; C6 M; E; xbehind the wheel, and he shifted the car until we got up to 55 miles per hour,” she recalled.) A/ C3 H7 n1 _1 P5 W2 v- \
“Then he puts on a tape of Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, lays his head in my lap, and goes& s6 O3 m N" N2 p) f5 R( N' O2 s4 W
to sleep. He had the attitude that he could do anything, and therefore so can you. He put his
: s& }/ Z! O* m, l7 tlife in my hands. So that made me do something I didn’t think I could do.”
% |% |( z' R- {. C
/ M% e% E: O( Q' J$ J7 ]( b( dIt was the brighter side of what would become known as his reality distortion field. “If- Z8 F! {* X) a) w. N+ X/ n) E: z
you trust him, you can do things,” Holmes said. “If he’s decided that something should
! e3 [# S. C, N' S# l1 Whappen, then he’s just going to make it happen.”
( z5 D0 D8 k( U% I1 H6 ^ u5 p* X3 X
Breakout8 c& V; b+ e2 ~5 P, h
4 E8 | g( P, l/ x+ lOne day in early 1975 Al Alcorn was sitting in his office at Atari when Ron Wayne
; V' H$ b+ c* b# a, P" S" {* w/ j( @burst in. “Hey, Stevie is back!” he shouted.
; c( G+ F- r& A. P Z8 u0 |
* j; ^ d% M7 j- h) R2 ]“Wow, bring him on in,” Alcorn replied.
2 c' _5 `* I# X6 U# G
8 L8 s$ [: ?7 k/ a( ~# K! iJobs shuffled in barefoot, wearing a saffron robe and carrying a copy of Be Here Now,
8 P/ v4 c$ b. r7 Z6 W3 y- E8 ~which he handed to Alcorn and insisted he read. “Can I have my job back?” he asked.; z& _& h0 i3 a' V" e
! ?7 W! K. [* d* B“He looked like a Hare Krishna guy, but it was great to see him,” Alcorn recalled. “So I
! S% h& P& v$ l' B) Fsaid, sure!”
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Once again, for the sake of harmony, Jobs worked mostly at night. Wozniak, who was
, B& [: ^5 S2 Bliving in an apartment nearby and working at HP, would come by after dinner to hang out
6 P9 t( n& o7 ]and play the video games. He had become addicted to Pong at a Sunnyvale bowling alley,
9 ?6 M3 l6 L+ @' jand he was able to build a version that he hooked up to his home TV set.
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6 q* q0 k j6 S8 p7 t$ R" ~1 b6 VOne day in the late summer of 1975, Nolan Bushnell, defying the prevailing wisdom$ ~# X. P& C) _* ?( x( u+ y
that paddle games were over, decided to develop a single-player version of Pong; instead of# V+ b b, c* w: f8 q) u# m
competing against an opponent, the player would volley the ball into a wall that lost a brick( R. ^, `4 X' d& X# Y/ F) v7 b* h
whenever it was hit. He called Jobs into his office, sketched it out on his little blackboard,( ?$ e. x- {4 \& s5 E- {+ {( Q
and asked him to design it. There would be a bonus, Bushnell told him, for every chip B# ?1 g1 O/ ?: p
fewer than fifty that he used. Bushnell knew that Jobs was not a great engineer, but he% b$ w0 q$ j1 w; |: I
assumed, correctly, that he would recruit Wozniak, who was always hanging around. “I# ?! z8 S. N6 X7 E Y2 t% q+ j
looked at it as a two-for-one thing,” Bushnell recalled. “Woz was a better engineer.” 5 K" t6 A7 T0 Z0 ~/ s- M
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Wozniak was thrilled when Jobs asked him to help and proposed splitting the fee. “This3 y" I* x8 X+ ~; c
was the most wonderful offer in my life, to actually design a game that people would use,”9 M' \3 J9 \9 X! m( Y2 _9 z" a0 ~
he recalled. Jobs said it had to be done in four days and with the fewest chips possible.
* _, i ~) B' J J4 \What he hid from Wozniak was that the deadline was one that Jobs had imposed, because
. K7 h) r9 v ^/ a G2 {& N& \he needed to get to the All One Farm to help prepare for the apple harvest. He also didn’t9 i, L N5 E. _
mention that there was a bonus tied to keeping down the number of chips.
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“A game like this might take most engineers a few months,” Wozniak recalled. “I
9 _$ ~0 r* h7 w0 [# u7 dthought that there was no way I could do it, but Steve made me sure that I could.” So he
% C$ _ J% K2 M! _5 Sstayed up four nights in a row and did it. During the day at HP, Wozniak would sketch out
# v! V+ r, L9 ~6 a/ E7 chis design on paper. Then, after a fast-food meal, he would go right to Atari and stay all
; i1 j4 _! t6 V, s+ Vnight. As Wozniak churned out the design, Jobs sat on a bench to his left implementing it
7 A: b) n: A n# Fby wire-wrapping the chips onto a breadboard. “While Steve was breadboarding, I spent
# ]9 D( |' ?- atime playing my favorite game ever, which was the auto racing game Gran Trak 10,”
. g8 E- w) B" B# [' |Wozniak said., `; h$ ?% ]7 @' t
- D3 B- C3 G0 w" \+ kAstonishingly, they were able to get the job done in four days, and Wozniak used only
1 B# @- t8 A7 uforty-five chips. Recollections differ, but by most accounts Jobs simply gave Wozniak half
d, n8 C# h- J& B( `of the base fee and not the bonus Bushnell paid for saving five chips. It would be another
1 G- e- l$ \. V; q, i+ Sten years before Wozniak discovered (by being shown the tale in a book on the history of- ~; X/ L0 ~# D/ E) W" n
Atari titled Zap) that Jobs had been paid this bonus. “I think that Steve needed the money,3 F/ k* E* e( t( E9 ~
and he just didn’t tell me the truth,” Wozniak later said. When he talks about it now, there
+ x) ]+ g1 y' w' f0 _0 uare long pauses, and he admits that it causes him pain. “I wish he had just been honest. If P- Q8 x# v2 x# l5 a: B9 s& L6 @
he had told me he needed the money, he should have known I would have just given it to
1 ~/ ?6 N0 ^5 g/ D; w6 ghim. He was a friend. You help your friends.” To Wozniak, it showed a fundamental
. l R ?3 |, H6 K/ mdifference in their characters. “Ethics always mattered to me, and I still don’t understand+ X/ c+ i: v" q7 p. R
why he would’ve gotten paid one thing and told me he’d gotten paid another,” he said.. O/ W. B9 J& Q2 E$ s" ^
“But, you know, people are different.”+ ?+ y5 P8 s# ^+ a! i" u! U
; @5 F& D% m$ S- ?5 |When Jobs learned this story was published, he called Wozniak to deny it. “He told me3 u9 C0 ~! o% h F$ n
that he didn’t remember doing it, and that if he did something like that he would remember- E4 \/ o8 q6 S3 p4 k8 A
it, so he probably didn’t do it,” Wozniak recalled. When I asked Jobs directly, he became
* x( _' @4 f dunusually quiet and hesitant. “I don’t know where that allegation comes from,” he said. “I
# q+ m8 b) `9 K# Hgave him half the money I ever got. That’s how I’ve always been with Woz. I mean, Woz
- b" V1 \$ n" [# w" Y: xstopped working in 1978. He never did one ounce of work after 1978. And yet he got/ E' n3 ]% i7 Y
exactly the same shares of Apple stock that I did.”
4 y, h, l! _: f1 r* H' v9 V1 G$ l# r7 D
Is it possible that memories are muddled and that Jobs did not, in fact, shortchange* j8 G( H+ d. K' t, n2 x: S
Wozniak? “There’s a chance that my memory is all wrong and messed up,” Wozniak told* X8 h, |7 |& m) c" _, F% H
me, but after a pause he reconsidered. “But no. I remember the details of this one, the $350/ e4 ~- B- e$ V) `2 e4 {
check.” He confirmed his memory with Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn. “I remember
5 _" @8 U- z- s0 k9 t8 G7 wtalking about the bonus money to Woz, and he was upset,” Bushnell said. “I said yes, there 5 S d# s& T: v0 X# j
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) b: R6 ~/ r* H% }was a bonus for each chip they saved, and he just shook his head and then clucked his1 p0 N0 s3 A2 m! v; I" R
tongue.”3 B8 s7 a3 J; S4 c
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Whatever the truth, Wozniak later insisted that it was not worth rehashing. Jobs is a3 ], Q, ^6 Z: e, n) ^1 Y! `
complex person, he said, and being manipulative is just the darker facet of the traits that
5 p- o) Y; |% Gmake him successful. Wozniak would never have been that way, but as he points out, he
. O' M# W2 W7 U9 S6 Ualso could never have built Apple. “I would rather let it pass,” he said when I pressed the
9 @3 s% j: e) q4 }$ u5 Upoint. “It’s not something I want to judge Steve by.”
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9 s5 j* R" f6 {5 B3 ]The Atari experience helped shape Jobs’s approach to business and design. He
_& d% q6 a' B. s' t9 m9 j3 Aappreciated the user-friendliness of Atari’s insert-quarter-avoid-Klingons games. “That
' i% K1 t n* X. r1 Isimplicity rubbed off on him and made him a very focused product person,” said Ron$ |2 H# f$ }/ u4 K2 }% g
Wayne. Jobs also absorbed some of Bushnell’s take-no-prisoners attitude. “Nolan wouldn’t3 ?! Y! I0 R3 i: E
take no for an answer,” according to Alcorn, “and this was Steve’s first impression of how' F- {6 M8 s! G& ?
things got done. Nolan was never abusive, like Steve sometimes is. But he had the same
7 L8 X- f$ |# v% E% H% C) H3 `driven attitude. It made me cringe, but dammit, it got things done. In that way Nolan was a# h6 R% r6 v0 b0 Y, L' S5 J4 z
mentor for Jobs.”8 s0 \% l6 `% C7 m: Q6 e% D
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Bushnell agreed. “There is something indefinable in an entrepreneur, and I saw that in3 \2 v0 v% H1 k% C7 ^
Steve,” he said. “He was interested not just in engineering, but also the business aspects. I
) h8 Y5 u, r6 ]9 m8 Y# w+ @. utaught him that if you act like you can do something, then it will work. I told him, ‘Pretend2 H9 N- u5 y G: Q/ T
to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.’”
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CHAPTER FIVE
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THE APPLE I
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$ B; C# `9 I8 ^" KTurn On, Boot Up, Jack In . . .
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Daniel Kottke and Jobs with the Apple I at the Atlantic City computer fair, 1976
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5 z- o3 W" V) e9 p4 |错误!超链接引用无效。
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In San Francisco and the Santa Clara Valley during the late 1960s, various cultural currents8 r" R; D6 c4 r3 u3 J- ~) q
flowed together. There was the technology revolution that began with the growth of
; g7 k: O8 |* T2 Q; q: ~military contractors and soon included electronics firms, microchip makers, video game
1 @1 @ k/ `! K1 e+ c/ Tdesigners, and computer companies. There was a hacker subculture—filled with wireheads,
; n3 t4 V5 T0 m2 l' U+ [phreakers, cyberpunks, hobbyists, and just plain geeks—that included engineers who didn’t
' }( J6 [( x& K+ iconform to the HP mold and their kids who weren’t attuned to the wavelengths of the2 V i* X# B5 t$ @9 ^
subdivisions. There were quasi-academic groups doing studies on the effects of LSD;9 n2 v- v* v8 ]3 L
participants included Doug Engelbart of the Augmentation Research Center in Palo Alto,
" L; ~0 y6 a% t) e! \2 M; Y- ~who later helped develop the computer mouse and graphical user interfaces, and Ken
; c* t( L: x& B" }0 u& {Kesey, who celebrated the drug with music-and-light shows featuring a house band that
% E: b+ Z$ }+ zbecame the Grateful Dead. There was the hippie movement, born out of the Bay Area’s
$ I9 j6 ]/ H" p+ T- ?% C/ ~beat generation, and the rebellious political activists, born out of the Free Speech6 u0 H5 l8 w6 I* ?
Movement at Berkeley. Overlaid on it all were various self-fulfillment movements pursuing' ~+ b' V' U# a( ~, `- Y7 E
paths to personal enlightenment: Zen and Hinduism, meditation and yoga, primal scream8 k1 R9 M: U& v; H. j9 d; d x
and sensory deprivation, Esalen and est. j3 R" K ?) s( Y/ U {
This fusion of flower power and processor power, enlightenment and technology, was6 Z* C; o$ F+ k% g8 F
embodied by Steve Jobs as he meditated in the mornings, audited physics classes at5 i$ I4 S5 R: _9 o+ g) p8 w( a- D6 e* g
Stanford, worked nights at Atari, and dreamed of starting his own business. “There was just
$ b9 v& q3 E' {something going on here,” he said, looking back at the time and place. “The best music ! O* v2 i) E* y+ N1 {
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came from here—the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin—and so5 n3 p0 y0 i. ~* D+ W! F
did the integrated circuit, and things like the Whole Earth Catalog.”* I) Z! \9 t& [% k* Y0 O
Initially the technologists and the hippies did not interface well. Many in the1 P7 t$ h- h0 M. \2 J/ d
counterculture saw computers as ominous and Orwellian, the province of the Pentagon and
* i& _7 o6 N/ \% @% W+ ]0 h1 C% Athe power structure. In The Myth of the Machine, the historian Lewis Mumford warned that7 G% E! e8 H, c
computers were sucking away our freedom and destroying “life-enhancing values.” An, w8 N& F7 ]3 n( N8 K. w
injunction on punch cards of the period—“Do not fold, spindle or mutilate”—became an1 G* C, ]9 o3 c0 |+ H+ `
ironic phrase of the antiwar Left.$ [. Z6 R1 H1 X9 s& j
But by the early 1970s a shift was under way. “Computing went from being dismissed as
5 V/ v V, T6 A' N; T3 N; P! _9 \a tool of bureaucratic control to being embraced as a symbol of individual expression and
* ]* S/ \+ M& W# f1 _& a7 \& u/ Gliberation,” John Markoff wrote in his study of the counterculture’s convergence with the2 Q0 Y ?8 B& E; B6 o8 h; F7 V
computer industry, What the Dormouse Said. It was an ethos lyrically expressed in Richard9 x7 _' R& k) R4 n$ R
Brautigan’s 1967 poem, “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace,” and the1 i8 y& i9 M- a: y
cyberdelic fusion was certified when Timothy Leary declared that personal computers had
: e/ n4 ] [$ `; D2 Rbecome the new LSD and years later revised his famous mantra to proclaim, “Turn on, boot. D* w3 L% i; G h9 q }
up, jack in.” The musician Bono, who later became a friend of Jobs, often discussed with! e6 b7 g8 I e
him why those immersed in the rock-drugs-rebel counterculture of the Bay Area ended up
: N3 q3 K) u2 A) ~) s; Q1 K8 a, ^helping to create the personal computer industry. “The people who invented the twenty-first, \+ v; o2 c$ |4 K8 P8 |9 e- p
century were pot-smoking, sandal-wearing hippies from the West Coast like Steve, because
" y9 Q, R. F( }1 I. O9 _they saw differently,” he said. “The hierarchical systems of the East Coast, England,
5 l3 i9 U) L# R1 Y" tGermany, and Japan do not encourage this different thinking. The sixties produced an
: U4 [: i" A2 v# R; |+ Wanarchic mind-set that is great for imagining a world not yet in existence.”
h, R: U( c$ J6 U2 r: `; s8 n6 d& UOne person who encouraged the denizens of the counterculture to make common cause% l' R: Q/ h4 |
with the hackers was Stewart Brand. A puckish visionary who generated fun and ideas over
8 p2 q+ g, A0 H5 T3 z* s: ]many decades, Brand was a participant in one of the early sixties LSD studies in Palo Alto.
2 P9 D8 _% i3 n! \He joined with his fellow subject Ken Kesey to produce the acid-celebrating Trips Festival,
9 E, j5 a5 w2 U" D" L4 Y' ^appeared in the opening scene of Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and worked
- c2 z3 Z/ J) U5 Bwith Doug Engelbart to create a seminal sound-and-light presentation of new technologies" x* ]* M% e$ K y( M
called the Mother of All Demos. “Most of our generation scorned computers as the
. l t c6 ?/ J& }2 Uembodiment of centralized control,” Brand later noted. “But a tiny contingent—later called
" V1 | ^' i7 ihackers—embraced computers and set about transforming them into tools of liberation.; [# u" c2 G# C5 S- x0 w& f1 Y
That turned out to be the true royal road to the future.”" b# G) e4 I7 l! W
Brand ran the Whole Earth Truck Store, which began as a roving truck that sold useful
8 E2 A% s# n; q2 a+ E! _8 btools and educational materials, and in 1968 he decided to extend its reach with the Whole' l, ^" w2 c- R# L8 S' h
Earth Catalog. On its first cover was the famous picture of Earth taken from space; its
0 o* }- d- M* A3 q2 F' csubtitle was “Access to Tools.” The underlying philosophy was that technology could be
4 ~6 h+ F% ?" g" F7 ^our friend. Brand wrote on the first page of the first edition, “A realm of intimate, personal
4 V/ z, L% {7 @0 O4 B. Mpower is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own) o/ h. g: R3 x$ d. ~3 `+ x# u
inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested.
5 N1 ]0 o& o& {7 K# L( WTools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the Whole Earth Catalog.”5 C/ V4 h, S( c0 g) F$ a
Buckminster Fuller followed with a poem that began: “I see God in the instruments and
( z; w2 b) Z4 o8 Z. R9 Mmechanisms that work reliably.” 3 `1 w% ~3 @) ]9 ]3 y- `7 h, n
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Jobs became a Whole Earth fan. He was particularly taken by the final issue, which came! [1 A- T/ r6 O+ t# f) E* e
out in 1971, when he was still in high school, and he brought it with him to college and! Q/ D& {6 `) x* ]3 A/ E3 Y
then to the All One Farm. “On the back cover of their final issue” Jobs recalled, “was a
5 l V% D& {" Q, ]) a! |photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking
4 q2 K* ^" s- d7 ton if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: ‘Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.’”
O, N8 M& M; p$ M: o0 q+ s8 WBrand sees Jobs as one of the purest embodiments of the cultural mix that the catalog
3 D! z/ W* @# g+ A+ h" wsought to celebrate. “Steve is right at the nexus of the counterculture and technology,” he
. _6 c) N3 z( G% v# Q! K; b! }said. “He got the notion of tools for human use.”2 [. y7 V: U& K! f, ~
Brand’s catalog was published with the help of the Portola Institute, a foundation& [3 i7 f3 X w; g s, E, p" I
dedicated to the fledgling field of computer education. The foundation also helped launch, s; |8 h6 O: @
the People’s Computer Company, which was not a company at all but a newsletter and! N. M6 v4 e8 v2 r
organization with the motto “Computer power to the people.” There were occasional( ~5 V" L3 x- H0 h
Wednesday-night potluck dinners, and two of the regulars, Gordon French and Fred Moore,
, c ]$ Z* k' Jdecided to create a more formal club where news about personal electronics could be
5 B( J. }; w+ C8 lshared.
" ]3 V3 I& K, tThey were energized by the arrival of the January 1975 issue of Popular Mechanics,( t6 j+ U' d8 B$ b! E3 q
which had on its cover the first personal computer kit, the Altair. The Altair wasn’t much—
; R4 c2 y' k! K% njust a $495 pile of parts that had to be soldered to a board that would then do little—but for
5 k: t1 A& o+ C* X' p- d1 G# T& F4 bhobbyists and hackers it heralded the dawn of a new era. Bill Gates and Paul Allen read the
, |* V- t+ ^0 pmagazine and started working on a version of BASIC, an easy-to-use programming& R a. V7 L5 J, I
language, for the Altair. It also caught the attention of Jobs and Wozniak. And when an/ O7 B, ~* ^4 x6 c( ]5 w* @& B
Altair kit arrived at the People’s Computer Company, it became the centerpiece for the first
& b: p( S! N0 m# c$ ~8 Lmeeting of the club that French and Moore had decided to launch., l; j# r0 l+ m2 O' y0 {/ e
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9 e+ v% E' J, x d# h7 x( JThe group became known as the Homebrew Computer Club, and it encapsulated the Whole
& H8 p, {7 y+ I/ s2 S$ TEarth fusion between the counterculture and technology. It would become to the personal! l0 F. n! R; ~' [6 ?* @
computer era something akin to what the Turk’s Head coffeehouse was to the age of Dr.
$ W" U* v% t; V9 \0 w" pJohnson, a place where ideas were exchanged and disseminated. Moore wrote the flyer for6 C' x) ^/ d' c' R M7 l3 Q
the first meeting, held on March 5, 1975, in French’s Menlo Park garage: “Are you8 |' X- ^4 ~2 z- \
building your own computer? Terminal, TV, typewriter?” it asked. “If so, you might like to
# B p5 X5 e/ }) J/ Pcome to a gathering of people with like-minded interests.”% d1 f( H5 a$ \* M9 @2 o. o7 w: F
Allen Baum spotted the flyer on the HP bulletin board and called Wozniak, who agreed, ^0 E }- {8 P6 z% S; F) H
to go with him. “That night turned out to be one of the most important nights of my life,”/ l d/ x" c' M; H$ b8 U; w% ]
Wozniak recalled. About thirty other people showed up, spilling out of French’s open
9 @8 {5 S& o2 n, {0 a0 a1 R. Tgarage door, and they took turns describing their interests. Wozniak, who later admitted to
- B% m5 o' D0 e% ibeing extremely nervous, said he liked “video games, pay movies for hotels, scientific5 h: F/ }6 E: h, m0 q
calculator design, and TV terminal design,” according to the minutes prepared by Moore." e+ X/ D# d& f
There was a demonstration of the new Altair, but more important to Wozniak was seeing' |) d( C/ r' v) A
the specification sheet for a microprocessor.6 H% y3 D+ p3 p$ _- [' ?
As he thought about the microprocessor—a chip that had an entire central processing, ~: a3 C/ W4 d2 a4 G
unit on it—he had an insight. He had been designing a terminal, with a keyboard and ) I, O: P! P1 \( ?: V3 j
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monitor, that would connect to a distant minicomputer. Using a microprocessor, he could9 I) Z9 r/ b( `& y5 [$ w* q3 I* E
put some of the capacity of the minicomputer inside the terminal itself, so it could become
1 P+ d+ L5 u9 w$ i& ~a small stand-alone computer on a desktop. It was an enduring idea: keyboard, screen, and
+ ^& r, t" V. ]8 @0 u8 W7 q* Gcomputer all in one integrated personal package. “This whole vision of a personal computer! N# V# ^7 z5 e; H' V0 L, K
just popped into my head,” he said. “That night, I started to sketch out on paper what would% `% G; \1 A$ C6 O
later become known as the Apple I.”! m4 Q V5 Z: F/ e: j" L% k K
At first he planned to use the same microprocessor that was in the Altair, an Intel 8080.' r4 k8 i! I( b" e- C5 _
But each of those “cost almost more than my monthly rent,” so he looked for an alternative.
D5 M' X0 \5 `7 @2 j6 tHe found one in the Motorola 6800, which a friend at HP was able to get for $40 apiece.! X9 m* v4 Y* H8 [, v. s: F
Then he discovered a chip made by MOS Technologies that was electronically the same but" d8 v! \$ v7 x b8 t+ p
cost only $20. It would make his machine affordable, but it would carry a long-term cost.
; P' b0 u& H* I. K3 w$ H1 f7 iIntel’s chips ended up becoming the industry standard, which would haunt Apple when its
* z1 c n' q# g4 b& scomputers were incompatible with it.
3 N* X( M+ ~+ a, b; ]6 z% EAfter work each day, Wozniak would go home for a TV dinner and then return to HP to7 g. Q$ C m6 l
moonlight on his computer. He spread out the parts in his cubicle, figured out their2 L2 J+ z" j/ I- g% h# ]9 S! H: t
placement, and soldered them onto his motherboard. Then he began writing the software
+ h# A7 t s/ }; e4 othat would get the microprocessor to display images on the screen. Because he could not
* \+ Y& e4 g$ \afford to pay for computer time, he wrote the code by hand. After a couple of months he4 f, W( A$ A6 R. F
was ready to test it. “I typed a few keys on the keyboard and I was shocked! The letters( R& Q; t+ b0 A" E+ C# ]( D5 {- t
were displayed on the screen.” It was Sunday, June 29, 1975, a milestone for the personal5 L8 f8 v9 U4 U! ?1 E: \0 a$ e; |
computer. “It was the first time in history,” Wozniak later said, “anyone had typed a
- T: q! V7 p( m. M+ Gcharacter on a keyboard and seen it show up on their own computer’s screen right in front: I) ~) l4 s0 k. a
of them.”
7 b+ f( ~7 _ L7 B. |5 HJobs was impressed. He peppered Wozniak with questions: Could the computer ever be
, T. }" u2 Q& E* d! tnetworked? Was it possible to add a disk for memory storage? He also began to help Woz& q+ i' s8 K: }
get components. Particularly important were the dynamic random-access memory chips.
/ e( Q' e2 b' ^4 Q# ?Jobs made a few calls and was able to score some from Intel for free. “Steve is just that sort
/ ^" d9 X/ R9 kof person,” said Wozniak. “I mean, he knew how to talk to a sales representative. I could
9 c8 o8 f$ F- [* rnever have done that. I’m too shy.” T' n( B2 B5 \; O* D* {" b# r
Jobs began to accompany Wozniak to Homebrew meetings, carrying the TV monitor and( z! I" v7 s: \7 |
helping to set things up. The meetings now attracted more than one hundred enthusiasts and
9 \. u7 a8 Q3 r* g( G& shad been moved to the auditorium of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Presiding
5 ^1 v# }& n: x2 `' _( ]with a pointer and a free-form manner was Lee Felsenstein, another embodiment of the8 r" B: O- H! m* u
merger between the world of computing and the counterculture. He was an engineering
- ], g8 X: F' u& l2 y. cschool dropout, a participant in the Free Speech Movement, and an antiwar activist. He had, \2 \! x; o! g8 T
written for the alternative newspaper Berkeley Barb and then gone back to being a: Q( ]: b/ {8 U) N2 Y7 F
computer engineer./ D1 e3 K6 s, f- S9 c
Woz was usually too shy to talk in the meetings, but people would gather around his
. d1 ]1 g4 `' W: Gmachine afterward, and he would proudly show off his progress. Moore had tried to instill
9 G" `# [9 Z& @' Uin the Homebrew an ethos of swapping and sharing rather than commerce. “The theme of
: c3 P4 o: [" F5 p% |0 Z$ D, ethe club,” Woz said, “was ‘Give to help others.’” It was an expression of the hacker ethic# {2 s: D6 Z& a4 c% v# ?6 Q
that information should be free and all authority mistrusted. “I designed the Apple I% g5 I1 }0 `- P$ |
because I wanted to give it away for free to other people,” said Wozniak.
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- W |% |5 Z9 [, QThis was not an outlook that Bill Gates embraced. After he and Paul Allen had8 g3 m# O* f6 M1 W
completed their BASIC interpreter for the Altair, Gates was appalled that members of the$ j/ H0 n; l! ?
Homebrew were making copies of it and sharing it without paying him. So he wrote what
+ N8 p2 i0 n% kwould become a famous letter to the club: “As the majority of hobbyists must be aware,
% L9 O4 G4 G6 i& p. B" tmost of you steal your software. Is this fair? . . . One thing you do is prevent good software- `6 E; R2 g! X* O
from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? . . . I would
, Q+ b" ?- n- ^& m; b9 [appreciate letters from anyone who wants to pay up.”
1 C* q' ~. M( P' R% T- tSteve Jobs, similarly, did not embrace the notion that Wozniak’s creations, be it a Blue- Z2 X9 Y4 X5 ~ n. Q
Box or a computer, wanted to be free. So he convinced Wozniak to stop giving away copies
' n% u: y5 }1 m Y% g6 ]9 q( bof his schematics. Most people didn’t have time to build it themselves anyway, Jobs, I2 Y0 y+ i* n7 m$ D0 f: K
argued. “Why don’t we build and sell printed circuit boards to them?” It was an example of
# Y5 ^5 G6 E* S8 S! Y6 a3 t2 I0 jtheir symbiosis. “Every time I’d design something great, Steve would find a way to make
7 U- z2 b$ f& o9 h1 C! b( u. ~9 A" smoney for us,” said Wozniak. Wozniak admitted that he would have never thought of doing
0 n3 ^, G& Z. Othat on his own. “It never crossed my mind to sell computers. It was Steve who said, ‘Let’s
4 y8 y5 I# j T' ohold them in the air and sell a few.’”/ L u) P u6 V* r1 N% I
Jobs worked out a plan to pay a guy he knew at Atari to draw the circuit boards and then- A J$ @4 j4 ^2 H' {7 Z8 U
print up fifty or so. That would cost about $1,000, plus the fee to the designer. They could5 n/ ^# A/ V u% o
sell them for $40 apiece and perhaps clear a profit of $700. Wozniak was dubious that they
) K% K. \; T9 l1 D' a' T% v1 H2 I+ |+ Fcould sell them all. “I didn’t see how we would make our money back,” he recalled. He) P, D3 f5 c* I S2 O; e" k
was already in trouble with his landlord for bouncing checks and now had to pay each4 ^( p6 d: l$ g
month in cash.
* T' Q+ t5 m+ x" `8 o" j* S9 `( Y, hJobs knew how to appeal to Wozniak. He didn’t argue that they were sure to make1 y6 p3 E) w( e7 l2 A
money, but instead that they would have a fun adventure. “Even if we lose our money,( \9 z3 B9 T% ]+ i
we’ll have a company,” said Jobs as they were driving in his Volkswagen bus. “For once in
* r1 W! g5 c( g' V9 [* Your lives, we’ll have a company.” This was enticing to Wozniak, even more than any; L/ y# C% D2 q2 s" S ]1 Z
prospect of getting rich. He recalled, “I was excited to think about us like that. To be two
: `' S8 o7 P% b2 m/ b q' \best friends starting a company. Wow. I knew right then that I’d do it. How could I not?”
; T# ?7 o4 s) c4 S2 W7 ?2 b w* _In order to raise the money they needed, Wozniak sold his HP 65 calculator for $500,
5 w* C2 A! G; q4 [though the buyer ended up stiffing him for half of that. For his part, Jobs sold his
; e: y5 u, \: v: m, z+ }Volkswagen bus for $1,500. But the person who bought it came to find him two weeks later
/ I+ K# M) V# o5 f- Wand said the engine had broken down, and Jobs agreed to pay for half of the repairs.
9 r4 W" Y; N: P$ `- d/ s2 fDespite these little setbacks, they now had, with their own small savings thrown in, about
\. K( ^9 Q+ i' t" j$1,300 in working capital, the design for a product, and a plan. They would start their own
. C( n3 W* x0 u+ R; ]computer company.+ C% Q! p# x o. u! o3 s
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错误!超链接引用无效。, ~: Y2 C& l" g
1 G2 l& X7 @* k% m9 B5 C5 qNow that they had decided to start a business, they needed a name. Jobs had gone for
3 O7 e$ x2 M& H tanother visit to the All One Farm, where he had been pruning the Gravenstein apple trees,
1 J1 V- \+ L C* i# L2 W/ eand Wozniak picked him up at the airport. On the ride down to Los Altos, they bandied
& a2 X; r) K) u, jaround options. They considered some typical tech words, such as Matrix, and some
) H& o. w* c2 i# G9 k# Xneologisms, such as Executek, and some straightforward boring names, like Personal
" J V- v2 w# P7 k/ HComputers Inc. The deadline for deciding was the next day, when Jobs wanted to start
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