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college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my8 ?( Q' l4 C* l4 a' p
parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work
( k1 D6 {# |0 I! k# s$ n: mout okay.”$ V& o3 q" u: ~) P; V* b* @8 N
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He didn’t actually want to leave Reed; he just wanted to quit paying tuition and taking/ K! d4 V3 m/ u. x* _6 n
classes that didn’t interest him. Remarkably, Reed tolerated that. “He had a very inquiring3 ?" u5 s6 N2 l
mind that was enormously attractive,” said the dean of students, Jack Dudman. “He refused) u0 g% t$ ^8 h6 B
to accept automatically received truths, and he wanted to examine everything himself.”7 J7 t1 U2 k; y8 x6 p. j) c K
Dudman allowed Jobs to audit classes and stay with friends in the dorms even after he8 k2 Z @$ a; ~! @3 s/ G$ t1 E& r
stopped paying tuition., C8 H% \- `* z. y8 }) |
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“The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest, `1 V2 e2 ^! v' j
me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting,” he said. Among them was a
1 n$ r+ F) E+ ?# L6 B4 jcalligraphy class that appealed to him after he saw posters on campus that were beautifully
9 S& c6 ]/ v7 a2 q% K2 F2 zdrawn. “I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space' d4 V. j7 x7 h9 I
between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was
( r( I' r8 e: C6 V7 T% {) O; ^$ ibeautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it8 P8 x6 L$ D% S
fascinating.”
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) a, F G3 b; G9 t6 b# ?- F$ |0 }It was yet another example of Jobs consciously positioning himself at the intersection) x" t+ M1 Y* L6 }
of the arts and technology. In all of his products, technology would be married to great0 |; m8 h" y' g1 Z% d; Z L. l
design, elegance, human touches, and even romance. He would be in the fore of pushing" ^: c0 L& \ [
friendly graphical user interfaces. The calligraphy course would become iconic in that
5 P, [! i, y5 z8 E" o( M O5 jregard. “If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have- x* r0 \) v- R0 ?; V
never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just n; {4 M0 o3 v% h3 z
copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.”
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In the meantime Jobs eked out a bohemian existence on the fringes of Reed. He went, a) k7 S- m: k% O0 _
barefoot most of the time, wearing sandals when it snowed. Elizabeth Holmes made meals# A6 z2 R8 S. ]0 ]) ]1 u& V* X
for him, trying to keep up with his obsessive diets. He returned soda bottles for spare
7 `- u, D( e! a6 p* ychange, continued his treks to the free Sunday dinners at the Hare Krishna temple, and: J- l! s1 P. _8 N: a
wore a down jacket in the heatless garage apartment he rented for $20 a month. When he
; M6 E [( ]+ _! H0 M. g# ?6 Ineeded money, he found work at the psychology department lab maintaining the electronic
D8 n* U0 G0 U( v# g( Y/ M' W% mequipment that was used for animal behavior experiments. Occasionally Chrisann Brennan& Y( ~3 n" {# q6 O8 E2 U
would come to visit. Their relationship sputtered along erratically. But mostly he tended to
% w9 b; E8 }5 b& Rthe stirrings of his own soul and personal quest for enlightenment.
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“I came of age at a magical time,” he reflected later. “Our consciousness was raised by
; c2 |( s/ c& M! {Zen, and also by LSD.” Even later in life he would credit psychedelic drugs for making- C( y, ^( T/ ]
him more enlightened. “Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important4 l' D- ?, E$ f z$ Z
things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t( C; K* W+ t6 r% d
remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was
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- e* j u, u9 w0 himportant—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the9 ~4 G: q4 B* U8 c
stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”
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# s: g: W* V5 X8 r6 c( o' S, P% P
CHAPTER FOUR
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6 Q" u0 W. V. S* F/ W$ n0 |9 G9 r6 _0 Q" Y8 {% I: }
ATARI AND INDIA
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! ~1 G# s# Q! j1 \% R/ u8 Z1 U {/ g G8 \* ^, {
Zen and the Art of Game Design
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Atari
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: m8 g: d M$ ~ t; B2 H7 {In February 1974, after eighteen months of hanging around Reed, Jobs decided to move6 b9 {' N0 D2 @
back to his parents’ home in Los Altos and look for a job. It was not a difficult search. At
' g2 `3 {2 s' F; j+ o' }peak times during the 1970s, the classified section of the San Jose Mercury carried up to, j7 i7 F* r! y# Z. S
sixty pages of technology help-wanted ads. One of those caught Jobs’s eye. “Have fun,
, M/ T# S- l( Z1 @3 ~$ K1 @make money,” it said. That day Jobs walked into the lobby of the video game manufacturer
; p5 ?+ C1 l7 U1 W6 g# Z3 I6 X. N+ RAtari and told the personnel director, who was startled by his unkempt hair and attire, that
~' n2 Z7 g9 c {he wouldn’t leave until they gave him a job.5 h |$ K0 A: m1 [3 T G
5 d2 i; m* b6 Z* E' W5 g( N" [1 }
Atari’s founder was a burly entrepreneur named Nolan Bushnell, who was a charismatic- N' ?, {) P& _5 }8 i
visionary with a nice touch of showmanship in him—in other words, another role model
$ @4 _! D* l# a( Z7 jwaiting to be emulated. After he became famous, he liked driving around in a Rolls,7 Y# {( J* I: h, s) \
smoking dope, and holding staff meetings in a hot tub. As Friedland had done and as Jobs: Y- o" K7 P3 u9 j1 q3 |
would learn to do, he was able to turn charm into a cunning force, to cajole and intimidate" Y: t6 ^* E6 O: C1 a
and distort reality with the power of his personality. His chief engineer was Al Alcorn,+ U. U" b2 k8 ~' q5 v+ w2 M
beefy and jovial and a bit more grounded, the house grown-up trying to implement the
9 |2 N3 f' }' o% Q {* o% zvision and curb the enthusiasms of Bushnell. Their big hit thus far was a video game called
3 C' G. h; h" h: dPong, in which two players tried to volley a blip on a screen with two movable lines that
2 b( d& m! \! l! L. H$ Y) oacted as paddles. (If you’re under thirty, ask your parents.)8 M" E" I( Y- c4 c: g4 t
) D- U D: e0 s @When Jobs arrived in the Atari lobby wearing sandals and demanding a job, Alcorn was. `! F3 F' }& T/ x. }
the one who was summoned. “I was told, ‘We’ve got a hippie kid in the lobby. He says he’s
* u$ y! m! I1 D9 c+ M- onot going to leave until we hire him. Should we call the cops or let him in?’ I said bring; m$ F- X0 j+ o/ @3 c& ^$ `0 e
him on in!”# L$ G" ^7 q2 n* `8 ~- V$ \% J
k) Q$ R: Y4 i5 k, f6 T, M% dJobs thus became one of the first fifty employees at Atari, working as a technician for
5 z9 C' p4 E% j5 }; T7 u$5 an hour. “In retrospect, it was weird to hire a dropout from Reed,” Alcorn recalled. “But
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4 D# [( y. P+ s6 y4 BI saw something in him. He was very intelligent, enthusiastic, excited about tech.” Alcorn
$ W/ {/ Z1 H9 y4 e5 hassigned him to work with a straitlaced engineer named Don Lang. The next day Lang
2 L9 R% U L1 E3 gcomplained, “This guy’s a goddamn hippie with b.o. Why did you do this to me? And he’s: l0 L. X9 u+ T5 m& H) R
impossible to deal with.” Jobs clung to the belief that his fruit-heavy vegetarian diet would9 c! N4 T8 r" V7 u3 x6 m# S
prevent not just mucus but also body odor, even if he didn’t use deodorant or shower; J, q% F( H/ i' i" O& B7 i
regularly. It was a flawed theory.8 O0 f2 Y+ S4 v! H, L
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Lang and others wanted to let Jobs go, but Bushnell worked out a solution. “The smell
# J8 y, }6 H" l4 E( rand behavior wasn’t an issue with me,” he said. “Steve was prickly, but I kind of liked him.
3 S# t" f9 j* uSo I asked him to go on the night shift. It was a way to save him.” Jobs would come in after
' a7 x( {6 S( e! J" {0 C& K* i+ gLang and others had left and work through most of the night. Even thus isolated, he became
" r' X) d; r1 D# Z8 iknown for his brashness. On those occasions when he happened to interact with others, he
8 \ u6 N4 P( y6 t iwas prone to informing them that they were “dumb shits.” In retrospect, he stands by that
$ e. ?# B2 m2 t) C! P1 @" N! Wjudgment. “The only reason I shone was that everyone else was so bad,” Jobs recalled.- B3 \ r4 H0 Z& p& ]
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Despite his arrogance (or perhaps because of it) he was able to charm Atari’s boss. “He
0 k3 G5 V- @6 w4 y" zwas more philosophical than the other people I worked with,” Bushnell recalled. “We used4 `) u' J S" M# B1 B2 k( `
to discuss free will versus determinism. I tended to believe that things were much more
! M- a; }( m; B' ndetermined, that we were programmed. If we had perfect information, we could predict
1 |) g: I2 w8 a0 K( ]people’s actions. Steve felt the opposite.” That outlook accorded with his faith in the power( j# B# E9 ^: j& g) F& l; R
of the will to bend reality.' o2 j; t6 R, `" ]; ?
2 ]6 f; V$ w+ `) L% pJobs helped improve some of the games by pushing the chips to produce fun designs,
5 H0 G2 c! k6 Q% {1 J# ^1 uand Bushnell’s inspiring willingness to play by his own rules rubbed off on him. In# `: x% M7 }9 }2 D* `8 z9 k
addition, he intuitively appreciated the simplicity of Atari’s games. They came with no
, y) T) B" K! c7 r; jmanual and needed to be uncomplicated enough that a stoned freshman could figure them
# ^( D' a* ^6 }# D2 W# K2 jout. The only instructions for Atari’s Star Trek game were “1. Insert quarter. 2. Avoid
" i* g1 c: v! D! F' zKlingons.”
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! a* \! P3 m) {$ Z0 C: mNot all of his coworkers shunned Jobs. He became friends with Ron Wayne, a
5 O! }& o; b: e( qdraftsman at Atari, who had earlier started a company that built slot machines. It
5 `9 |' Z8 T9 d$ Q0 }subsequently failed, but Jobs became fascinated with the idea that it was possible to start
1 Z( v# w; Q+ {& cyour own company. “Ron was an amazing guy,” said Jobs. “He started companies. I had
Y4 ]! O0 b2 j5 V4 x: x# ?8 x1 E2 w1 dnever met anybody like that.” He proposed to Wayne that they go into business together;# g/ W i% b$ o" n# K! p* Z |
Jobs said he could borrow $50,000, and they could design and market a slot machine. But
8 [5 C! G w2 J( C1 m! LWayne had already been burned in business, so he declined. “I said that was the quickest
7 @" G& Q8 {( t4 M" S% @* B5 Zway to lose $50,000,” Wayne recalled, “but I admired the fact that he had a burning drive to
- Q5 Y" `1 |( |; @! |0 vstart his own business.”9 t( x' ^1 R$ a+ l: i2 E; ?
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One weekend Jobs was visiting Wayne at his apartment, engaging as they often did in
) i9 J! d0 x5 D& }: {4 rphilosophical discussions, when Wayne said that there was something he needed to tell
" X5 ~; I7 F: k G0 }him. “Yeah, I think I know what it is,” Jobs replied. “I think you like men.” Wayne said T( t2 G T, c2 W- b
yes. “It was my first encounter with someone who I knew was gay,” Jobs recalled. “He
! l$ O" h% L m& _planted the right perspective of it for me.” Jobs grilled him: “When you see a beautiful
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8 P X+ i' v" \4 X) B+ `( Z9 M: Lwoman, what do you feel?” Wayne replied, “It’s like when you look at a beautiful horse.5 T R+ r+ {% [" y
You can appreciate it, but you don’t want to sleep with it. You appreciate beauty for what it
3 }' X8 o4 ~/ X1 u, T' c4 p6 ais.” Wayne said that it is a testament to Jobs that he felt like revealing this to him. “Nobody% o3 d- q7 w4 r1 X! F. l& [5 s
at Atari knew, and I could count on my toes and fingers the number of people I told in my
$ \$ F. p; a9 N7 {' ^& G- Iwhole life. But I guess it just felt right to tell him, that he would understand, and it didn’t0 W5 e T# I3 N- M( h& j/ W W
have any effect on our relationship.”" F2 w+ F& @% T( D* N
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One reason Jobs was eager to make some money in early 1974 was that Robert, b; r+ l$ C# _, I
Friedland, who had gone to India the summer before, was urging him to take his own ?: C4 X" t( F* X( I9 D! X$ J
spiritual journey there. Friedland had studied in India with Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji),. R/ ~3 f: L2 L0 c( ]( D' R
who had been the guru to much of the sixties hippie movement. Jobs decided he should do9 s, S* ~ J6 V: K
the same, and he recruited Daniel Kottke to go with him. Jobs was not motivated by mere: Y! j" u3 z1 _& m1 ] e( d7 l9 w
adventure. “For me it was a serious search,” he said. “I’d been turned on to the idea of5 o3 ?# x f* A. P) E9 T
enlightenment and trying to figure out who I was and how I fit into things.” Kottke adds) [+ I) L0 A" T& |
that Jobs’s quest seemed driven partly by not knowing his birth parents. “There was a hole w6 U, e1 P! q9 k" g) @
in him, and he was trying to fill it.”
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When Jobs told the folks at Atari that he was quitting to go search for a guru in India,
0 e, a/ U o" O. f( h. T( kthe jovial Alcorn was amused. “He comes in and stares at me and declares, ‘I’m going to; K; S, x0 g/ ^ C8 u* v! Z1 l
find my guru,’ and I say, ‘No shit, that’s super. Write me!’ And he says he wants me to help! T1 [7 N1 z+ C! K0 Y- a! ?
pay, and I tell him, ‘Bullshit!’” Then Alcorn had an idea. Atari was making kits and( ~7 ~7 X- e" \; o( N
shipping them to Munich, where they were built into finished machines and distributed by a
4 s) K9 i( G" i9 ?. G" N0 cwholesaler in Turin. But there was a problem: Because the games were designed for the( A z9 O8 x+ i! i! ]3 Z" r
American rate of sixty frames per second, there were frustrating interference problems in& y0 B3 Z! n9 m# E7 a) l
Europe, where the rate was fifty frames per second. Alcorn sketched out a fix with Jobs and
; S# B7 A2 ], ^5 L! n S9 Ithen offered to pay for him to go to Europe to implement it. “It’s got to be cheaper to get to
( A. s/ j& L- W* f# F- v: eIndia from there,” he said. Jobs agreed. So Alcorn sent him on his way with the+ z% n; r* i5 E9 o: D' ~8 F
exhortation, “Say hi to your guru for me.”' u- f- z" r( C; b! A/ @. s4 i8 G
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Jobs spent a few days in Munich, where he solved the interference problem, but in the8 y" o5 f1 Z3 l9 `
process he flummoxed the dark-suited German managers. They complained to Alcorn that
; z: N Y" e& Zhe dressed and smelled like a bum and behaved rudely. “I said, ‘Did he solve the problem?’ F8 s2 o! c4 f3 N: B- a* `: M. \
And they said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘If you got any more problems, you just call me, I got more
/ H9 q( r& n" N# ^/ j' oguys just like him!’ They said, ‘No, no we’ll take care of it next time.’” For his part, Jobs
0 L$ K$ d# A, M3 U0 ]7 Xwas upset that the Germans kept trying to feed him meat and potatoes. “They don’t even
" v- }! J/ m3 w5 B" f( F- Thave a word for vegetarian,” he complained (incorrectly) in a phone call to Alcorn.
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7 e! R* E8 R7 A/ W4 x% OHe had a better time when he took the train to see the distributor in Turin, where the! q8 H/ i" W/ A
Italian pastas and his host’s camaraderie were more simpatico. “I had a wonderful couple of
( \5 c5 D9 U' u9 @. l( G/ m @+ iweeks in Turin, which is this charged-up industrial town,” he recalled. “The distributor
. B: P2 M2 I3 m% ^( t) J8 Vtook me every night to dinner at this place where there were only eight tables and no menu. R1 W9 g1 t5 u M
You’d just tell them what you wanted, and they made it. One of the tables was on reserve
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2 V1 U ~9 |8 ~' u. ~) v$ B, Yfor the chairman of Fiat. It was really super.” He next went to Lugano, Switzerland, where
! [- n5 ~. a4 q# Hhe stayed with Friedland’s uncle, and from there took a flight to India.+ Z2 O) a. A' m' P' s1 z2 S
0 {$ f* a- a3 o) e" ]/ RWhen he got off the plane in New Delhi, he felt waves of heat rising from the tarmac,
! ~+ D0 A) c% i8 seven though it was only April. He had been given the name of a hotel, but it was full, so he
4 M( r* Y5 _% n Nwent to one his taxi driver insisted was good. “I’m sure he was getting some baksheesh,
; F5 O( Q% R5 @: b, E- c) B8 Bbecause he took me to this complete dive.” Jobs asked the owner whether the water was1 N8 m( ]9 m0 K/ t
filtered and foolishly believed the answer. “I got dysentery pretty fast. I was sick, really5 |" l8 O) n s5 e
sick, a really high fever. I dropped from 160 pounds to 120 in about a week.”+ l' N/ Q5 |& R1 ]. `) |
4 A+ f& L1 [# M7 sOnce he got healthy enough to move, he decided that he needed to get out of Delhi. So
4 ~' h% y) j& Z( che headed to the town of Haridwar, in western India near the source of the Ganges, which4 x1 Z- ?% z/ X" b1 d
was having a festival known as the Kumbh Mela. More than ten million people poured into
( r1 {5 I" Y/ y! l% N3 ea town that usually contained fewer than 100,000 residents. “There were holy men all6 q2 K( w* N( B* ~8 `+ E2 ~* R
around. Tents with this teacher and that teacher. There were people riding elephants, you
" ]6 O# f# v0 g& t$ jname it. I was there for a few days, but I decided that I needed to get out of there too.”
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He went by train and bus to a village near Nainital in the foothills of the Himalayas.. d8 h: @ o. o6 q
That was where Neem Karoli Baba lived, or had lived. By the time Jobs got there, he was
4 o n( A+ N, |$ F1 xno longer alive, at least in the same incarnation. Jobs rented a room with a mattress on the
& ?/ I, U. I- b8 I& ifloor from a family who helped him recuperate by feeding him vegetarian meals. “There3 e4 E. h. g6 c4 Y
was a copy there of Autobiography of a Yogi in English that a previous traveler had left,8 O2 ?" ]6 g4 m$ a0 B8 c$ S
and I read it several times because there was not a lot to do, and I walked around from# P* X) t. A/ p. a8 r3 O! h
village to village and recovered from my dysentery.” Among those who were part of the
) u5 D& ^/ y: C8 x$ k. t( B/ zcommunity there was Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist who was working to eradicate1 _- E5 U" a7 U0 u2 d: _0 D0 U
smallpox and who later ran Google’s philanthropic arm and the Skoll Foundation. He
# c$ M5 v4 X# C$ `became Jobs’s lifelong friend.
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3 d# r* d4 ~9 W# c6 Z! \At one point Jobs was told of a young Hindu holy man who was holding a gathering of8 C! N( j( [% N1 @$ p) n2 z, L2 D
his followers at the Himalayan estate of a wealthy businessman. “It was a chance to meet a1 D, i" k# ^/ p8 a Y
spiritual being and hang out with his followers, but it was also a chance to have a good( o2 U0 ~0 m+ J" `$ [. S5 s
meal. I could smell the food as we got near, and I was very hungry.” As Jobs was eating,
- r( B, F" C% A( p$ V/ Ethe holy man—who was not much older than Jobs—picked him out of the crowd, pointed; [; T# C, `1 Z, b7 X( R
at him, and began laughing maniacally. “He came running over and grabbed me and made a2 P1 r9 W. q7 \
tooting sound and said, ‘You are just like a baby,’” recalled Jobs. “I was not relishing this
4 V1 |$ t# @0 Q& y- C" dattention.” Taking Jobs by the hand, he led him out of the worshipful crowd and walked: D- A8 P. T$ b" C& p
him up to a hill, where there was a well and a small pond. “We sit down and he pulls out
/ j: i9 T/ u5 I: @9 l1 uthis straight razor. I’m thinking he’s a nutcase and begin to worry. Then he pulls out a bar& M& T" _7 b: P5 O
of soap—I had long hair at the time—and he lathered up my hair and shaved my head. He5 k9 [6 t$ |' P9 j! Z. s6 U- [
told me that he was saving my health.”
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& y ]" X* y( hDaniel Kottke arrived in India at the beginning of the summer, and Jobs went back to
, W# x6 u! O+ k$ _2 N, i t- ]9 _New Delhi to meet him. They wandered, mainly by bus, rather aimlessly. By this point Jobs. q6 k" O& D0 }8 ~! a. ?1 W
was no longer trying to find a guru who could impart wisdom, but instead was seeking 7 v/ u3 g% E9 Z' U3 t
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- q) G( {" }: _9 J: eenlightenment through ascetic experience, deprivation, and simplicity. He was not able to
9 f' Y' Q& i( [2 _achieve inner calm. Kottke remembers him getting into a furious shouting match with a
3 L6 p* l; @" N8 zHindu woman in a village marketplace who, Jobs alleged, had been watering down the) P2 n$ I# I1 I" ?/ U! }" ?
milk she was selling them.- D% R$ L0 O4 }7 H, r `' h% ~9 ?
+ i8 J9 F) R6 W/ I% J( q; A" f
Yet Jobs could also be generous. When they got to the town of Manali, Kottke’s
8 G1 A; u2 a1 Ssleeping bag was stolen with his traveler’s checks in it. “Steve covered my food expenses9 [. i( w# N6 ~/ d' e
and bus ticket back to Delhi,” Kottke recalled. He also gave Kottke the rest of his own" [& V. z% |2 A0 _: |
money, $100, to tide him over.
4 `* v2 N. j3 B, {7 {0 E/ O4 E8 [! w4 S
During his seven months in India, he had written to his parents only sporadically,
, w+ J0 A" \* q$ K9 egetting mail at the American Express office in New Delhi when he passed through, and so
8 h* o5 C. b# E" j+ D/ U6 s" cthey were somewhat surprised when they got a call from the Oakland airport asking them6 N6 V6 u% z4 i6 z! h) M
to pick him up. They immediately drove up from Los Altos. “My head had been shaved, I
3 x& H$ c1 i) {7 Uwas wearing Indian cotton robes, and my skin had turned a deep, chocolate brown-red from- M! V9 I* G4 I
the sun,” he recalled. “So I’m sitting there and my parents walked past me about five times. L* Z0 V, N4 q$ I0 f3 R j
and finally my mother came up and said ‘Steve?’ and I said ‘Hi!’”* E" s4 \$ j1 _# K3 ?: H. @- o
- I% S0 p! c- tThey took him back home, where he continued trying to find himself. It was a pursuit
. J* @9 N4 @& D3 Twith many paths toward enlightenment. In the mornings and evenings he would meditate" w7 G; [3 T# x8 J' a6 v$ i1 m: |0 [1 u
and study Zen, and in between he would drop in to audit physics or engineering courses at; t6 @1 r3 g/ v/ ?) y7 |
Stanford.
0 D: }' M# t, i8 x1 r- T7 }0 ^; `
* ^. o% M) h4 }& s8 J' LThe Search2 g7 r$ I+ g- u
% p; C, y- R1 f2 ^Jobs’s interest in Eastern spirituality, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and the search for+ P7 x! ?8 Z4 S& u
enlightenment was not merely the passing phase of a nineteen-year-old. Throughout his life# R& I4 N7 N, j$ q% M. o7 C
he would seek to follow many of the basic precepts of Eastern religions, such as the( w/ L" A* g2 Q) ?' K% G
emphasis on experiential prajñā, wisdom or cognitive understanding that is intuitively# f( g; D) M2 C; w0 J D
experienced through concentration of the mind. Years later, sitting in his Palo Alto garden,
. Y3 P' P; d# X. T; phe reflected on the lasting influence of his trip to India:
, V" U: j$ O. s& r$ t
7 o1 P5 l% `* _; f* |Coming back to America was, for me, much more of a cultural shock than going to
' ]* w0 H j' L8 @* A! Z5 {India. The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do, they use
, ]4 M1 g: x. I$ a% Z9 @) jtheir intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world.
d6 ^9 `4 S2 X ]% I d, z; |$ {Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a& t1 Y3 I" ?, i" G
big impact on my work." p& L; H9 V- a
& l$ s0 K8 o% ^! Q6 r. T9 zWestern rational thought is not an innate human characteristic; it is learned and is the
% y4 K; J0 k9 S, a# Z: }+ cgreat achievement of Western civilization. In the villages of India, they never learned it.! f/ N% `/ A0 P
They learned something else, which is in some ways just as valuable but in other ways is- K5 m" l. }! M7 a8 z5 }
not. That’s the power of intuition and experiential wisdom. " }9 W3 |$ M# x# Q2 G: [4 [
( }7 {! |- z6 Z: H
( d* P5 D7 f8 a5 R$ a& `! j8 v* F0 G
! G4 r) I: }# V7 M9 ?
; V: b( W B$ ~2 u) b3 E, C) }# G$ e
( q! O& v: r+ d6 c+ L" z) r2 S7 ^0 R# U E g- v
8 K# G- F8 B( I( TComing back after seven months in Indian villages, I saw the craziness of the Western
' `9 [0 z: |5 v# c, E4 Q. Qworld as well as its capacity for rational thought. If you just sit and observe, you will see8 c4 [9 l& ]# \0 B" T) s
how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does
1 e/ l3 }( {: r% }5 H6 O* hcalm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things—that’s when your intuition
; m8 V6 i" P7 s7 \1 Rstarts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your
0 [1 Q1 k# L0 J4 S4 V3 E: ^( [mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much
( `% g: p/ a. o9 [6 u* C$ ]8 pmore than you could see before. It’s a discipline; you have to practice it. ^7 M' B# k6 g" ]4 ^5 D& |
: g* X6 E' N4 H( z6 O
Zen has been a deep influence in my life ever since. At one point I was thinking about
% O2 ^6 }4 G; S0 T2 ]( hgoing to Japan and trying to get into the Eihei-ji monastery, but my spiritual advisor urged
* v. |4 {! s4 w5 c- ?* Jme to stay here. He said there is nothing over there that isn’t here, and he was correct. I2 ^8 j* m. [0 \6 U. d4 P2 M
learned the truth of the Zen saying that if you are willing to travel around the world to meet4 c7 J- R+ i, r: a ~3 O
a teacher, one will appear next door.. j2 P7 j& e/ q8 K7 I2 t+ F
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: V& T& p g _
3 T! }9 g" U. ~. {6 K
( l$ p9 A5 G) B3 A4 ~Jobs did in fact find a teacher right in his own neighborhood. Shunryu Suzuki, who8 p# t. e, \* C; S& @
wrote Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind and ran the San Francisco Zen Center, used to come to5 `* w2 ^5 ?: l) u
Los Altos every Wednesday evening to lecture and meditate with a small group of
* D6 Q' _: U! |8 I# u m L- Xfollowers. After a while he asked his assistant, Kobun Chino Otogawa, to open a full-time
# O/ I7 y& y; Z/ |8 d f9 b7 bcenter there. Jobs became a faithful follower, along with his occasional girlfriend, Chrisann
4 R4 b' j( V9 y# W- yBrennan, and Daniel Kottke and Elizabeth Holmes. He also began to go by himself on; U# ]' H- x. A+ L9 J) ~
retreats to the Tassajara Zen Center, a monastery near Carmel where Kobun also taught.0 y8 `4 `: t/ H5 n! W7 R& ~; W- \. n9 w
+ l5 x0 n$ F8 \' s f
Kottke found Kobun amusing. “His English was atrocious,” he recalled. “He would1 z5 S+ Q4 G' d) w( m1 D: a: F
speak in a kind of haiku, with poetic, suggestive phrases. We would sit and listen to him,: o, \2 i; ?% G- A
and half the time we had no idea what he was going on about. I took the whole thing as a* N) x2 H/ Y$ x9 L/ j8 o
kind of lighthearted interlude.” Holmes was more into the scene. “We would go to Kobun’s
7 G2 v5 N4 Q' c: f& z, Q" }meditations, sit on zafu cushions, and he would sit on a dais,” she said. “We learned how to$ ]- S7 i- B+ |
tune out distractions. It was a magical thing. One evening we were meditating with Kobun
' b; x6 O) o: jwhen it was raining, and he taught us how to use ambient sounds to bring us back to focus
4 G; A; L. h. P3 a. fon our meditation.”
" H8 v9 |+ _2 F6 h: i) o
# l) s/ u" r a) V) r- w, |As for Jobs, his devotion was intense. “He became really serious and self-important and
) R5 H; A0 _$ X4 [ m$ ujust generally unbearable,” according to Kottke. He began meeting with Kobun almost
* T6 t# p$ G/ c0 zdaily, and every few months they went on retreats together to meditate. “I ended up& Y8 G5 j. V" Q6 N& u* u6 z- C7 Z
spending as much time as I could with him,” Jobs recalled. “He had a wife who was a nurse8 h3 m8 h5 c2 r3 Z# p" F9 ?$ O
at Stanford and two kids. She worked the night shift, so I would go over and hang out with
) s+ r/ l' V$ G7 [ m$ ahim in the evenings. She would get home about midnight and shoo me away.” They
1 G2 P8 h% \) W4 K5 s1 }+ rsometimes discussed whether Jobs should devote himself fully to spiritual pursuits, but5 R, Q" l6 J6 I B
Kobun counseled otherwise. He assured Jobs that he could keep in touch with his spiritual9 `0 d# A( ~, w# s( {
side while working in a business. The relationship turned out to be lasting and deep;' }+ a# x% Q. P- ?7 \- P: U6 Z+ V2 V
seventeen years later Kobun would perform Jobs’s wedding ceremony.
) X2 ?6 e* g! {8 F* S8 B$ A' s4 L2 o& p6 P
! z: f- N& _: x: d$ N% c) b# I' Q# m2 w- ^$ W2 _) i
% C/ J+ T2 y0 ?+ V) Q
" u! O4 e, p3 G- W" ~
4 d; D* s% O# S1 O0 C, O3 t+ u1 Q( W$ b6 v% W
a1 V3 b6 J4 Y& p$ c. V- p
+ u, X% K' j" ?" i9 g( N
Jobs’s compulsive search for self-awareness also led him to undergo primal scream
' g4 O$ ^" ]' f1 D+ Rtherapy, which had recently been developed and popularized by a Los Angeles4 i1 T& g4 t- {! O) z
psychotherapist named Arthur Janov. It was based on the Freudian theory that
* |! t0 y' j3 v( p) q5 }7 Dpsychological problems are caused by the repressed pains of childhood; Janov argued that
2 |9 Z. b3 `6 C$ X+ q! [they could be resolved by re-suffering these primal moments while fully expressing the
" f: z% p* k& s3 g0 t, W1 V5 i, Spain—sometimes in screams. To Jobs, this seemed preferable to talk therapy because it, H" b( h! U6 {) i+ V, o
involved intuitive feeling and emotional action rather than just rational analyzing. “This( V/ C/ Q: ^( H9 ]: [* C6 r7 w7 y
was not something to think about,” he later said. “This was something to do: to close your
% ~# ^1 Y+ N, p! P3 Ueyes, hold your breath, jump in, and come out the other end more insightful.”8 i/ B8 Q- R% r- u0 W6 F* {
& |" ?1 P* S1 z/ l9 I6 IA group of Janov’s adherents ran a program called the Oregon Feeling Center in an old3 G. h) X, Q0 X* ]$ K
hotel in Eugene that was managed by Jobs’s Reed College guru Robert Friedland, whose; {7 X" X. g- N8 ], R5 P
All One Farm commune was nearby. In late 1974, Jobs signed up for a twelve-week course3 \% N7 e9 z `% M% `2 m# t2 `
of therapy there costing $1,000. “Steve and I were both into personal growth, so I wanted Y; c/ B8 y$ T, b V- B" G. F/ }. i
to go with him,” Kottke recounted, “but I couldn’t afford it.”# f' Z2 i6 I- `: J, _2 R
- V1 E1 l- l9 s/ }$ z2 t$ ~& z ]
Jobs confided to close friends that he was driven by the pain he was feeling about being2 d( X3 v( {- L& Y _
put up for adoption and not knowing about his birth parents. “Steve had a very profound
' n, g* y5 T- cdesire to know his physical parents so he could better know himself,” Friedland later said.
( y4 c1 y, i. e7 W" \6 vHe had learned from Paul and Clara Jobs that his birth parents had both been graduate# }5 u' E4 w3 E- T+ v9 Y" \. ~" }
students at a university and that his father might be Syrian. He had even thought about
; D% J& c) v; |# k% W' {hiring a private investigator, but he decided not to do so for the time being. “I didn’t want
" G7 q* Y/ p% B) Mto hurt my parents,” he recalled, referring to Paul and Clara.* M0 s. o2 c5 ]2 ~
# { R) G2 [: L- t: H7 S3 t- P2 ]“He was struggling with the fact that he had been adopted,” according to Elizabeth$ D; Z- Y: S) U6 s% H
Holmes. “He felt that it was an issue that he needed to get hold of emotionally.” Jobs
" j- D- k) h' |1 }: X/ I. X- ]7 y7 {admitted as much to her. “This is something that is bothering me, and I need to focus on it,” T% ~; g! k% T' S4 S7 K( I: ~
he said. He was even more open with Greg Calhoun. “He was doing a lot of soul-searching
4 ^8 R) E4 q2 m8 v1 S* q; I- Nabout being adopted, and he talked about it with me a lot,” Calhoun recalled. “The primal
9 @ {& _! J- lscream and the mucusless diets, he was trying to cleanse himself and get deeper into his1 {( A" u4 L% E& B* E: H! X" m
frustration about his birth. He told me he was deeply angry about the fact that he had been+ G4 n2 B' u% B
given up.”
5 ?2 k1 f( T& b" H3 \/ C7 _
9 B% C0 c) \3 ^+ |" T5 S nJohn Lennon had undergone the same primal scream therapy in 1970, and in December
3 p7 ?. @# o" eof that year he released the song “Mother” with the Plastic Ono Band. It dealt with
$ h1 ?/ M. w. d; o; {# sLennon’s own feelings about a father who had abandoned him and a mother who had been
& \6 h# n. E% ~8 ^7 y* Rkilled when he was a teenager. The refrain includes the haunting chant “Mama don’t go,( }' W! a/ [7 n- M& \8 G0 M
Daddy come home.” Jobs used to play the song often.7 E: |* Q2 S, \, l' c
( x2 l. z0 @ r/ N
Jobs later said that Janov’s teachings did not prove very useful. “He offered a ready-
' { K5 ?) Q4 f) t7 @' F" }9 Ymade, buttoned-down answer which turned out to be far too oversimplistic. It became$ _7 u9 p) L; g: [
obvious that it was not going to yield any great insight.” But Holmes contended that it
% @" f2 I9 b) Z& a6 E: I: E7 Dmade him more confident: “After he did it, he was in a different place. He had a very 4 ?9 M5 q5 o8 c. N: j ~
( Q6 A/ s- I" z- j0 _0 g
# W* _2 g( M0 O" ]1 p* [6 G$ N7 i
; X: h( ~* F8 q5 L/ B- J1 G- h4 u# F6 {1 @
$ S; ?! i0 [2 A/ K1 h7 f" v, j! X- `- }7 i( K) g4 C9 G" W
1 j8 J" N# Q2 _$ E& o' r
- K* a8 Q8 u% R9 c
- t: p9 i! m5 ?abrasive personality, but there was a peace about him for a while. His confidence improved2 X7 ?' q8 [8 B" g, r
and his feelings of inadequacy were reduced.”
) x9 S- L5 d, O5 j& S: s9 F9 F# b# F- }
Jobs came to believe that he could impart that feeling of confidence to others and thus" E! w D; [4 S; e# U2 x
push them to do things they hadn’t thought possible. Holmes had broken up with Kottke& {) {( I! q2 ^# V) T
and joined a religious cult in San Francisco that expected her to sever ties with all past3 ?$ l9 N1 W# X# `
friends. But Jobs rejected that injunction. He arrived at the cult house in his Ford Ranchero
$ }/ y" U3 c1 G( I4 W! mone day and announced that he was driving up to Friedland’s apple farm and she was to; x2 f7 N% F: q1 b1 R* x
come. Even more brazenly, he said she would have to drive part of the way, even though. `; Y1 r/ t& W H5 H3 ?
she didn’t know how to use the stick shift. “Once we got on the open road, he made me get" H, \/ f; p7 p$ }, w
behind the wheel, and he shifted the car until we got up to 55 miles per hour,” she recalled.
) i3 j: Q, V, o' O“Then he puts on a tape of Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, lays his head in my lap, and goes |( w* k0 P) A" C( U7 p
to sleep. He had the attitude that he could do anything, and therefore so can you. He put his
3 d [+ [ [- r/ Slife in my hands. So that made me do something I didn’t think I could do.”; H! H; v. V! W/ [. u' f! q" C
' V* c. J! p# s6 E4 o3 u( AIt was the brighter side of what would become known as his reality distortion field. “If+ w$ C2 g# T# O8 ^9 W7 P
you trust him, you can do things,” Holmes said. “If he’s decided that something should8 d0 ~' S7 w. c# y7 N/ ?3 l* M
happen, then he’s just going to make it happen.”- a$ \: x: [* v) o
% W5 ]5 ?# o- m4 e/ P7 ?- e) Y2 mBreakout
: E" T, Q5 X( M& J$ H+ a7 v: {
0 O" u6 Z5 ?5 @6 o4 N- u* {6 z* fOne day in early 1975 Al Alcorn was sitting in his office at Atari when Ron Wayne4 E/ E, K9 o6 t [7 k$ |0 C
burst in. “Hey, Stevie is back!” he shouted.
( s Z/ R3 s! | C' B7 V7 ^
: e$ u- H( X7 V w“Wow, bring him on in,” Alcorn replied.
7 e! k- X3 k$ V/ H4 _! `" k5 b. [4 m* `3 I2 O. ]
Jobs shuffled in barefoot, wearing a saffron robe and carrying a copy of Be Here Now,
; L% J- Z* Q5 D+ M* gwhich he handed to Alcorn and insisted he read. “Can I have my job back?” he asked.3 C$ o% m9 n8 q z- A4 _3 k
! V* i+ W- a [* ]% h
“He looked like a Hare Krishna guy, but it was great to see him,” Alcorn recalled. “So I! z! Q8 h, _9 c# m
said, sure!”2 T# q( [" [6 {& r9 M4 k
: t2 t, b3 x; `( J" pOnce again, for the sake of harmony, Jobs worked mostly at night. Wozniak, who was; j2 P$ N! O% C! m+ f3 L
living in an apartment nearby and working at HP, would come by after dinner to hang out
/ k* I0 C0 N+ [' ]$ Q# ^and play the video games. He had become addicted to Pong at a Sunnyvale bowling alley,5 b. ~6 f4 f; |' X$ V7 t
and he was able to build a version that he hooked up to his home TV set. K% F7 ^$ `4 A3 P" `
2 Y4 V3 | O7 V* ]" G/ o
One day in the late summer of 1975, Nolan Bushnell, defying the prevailing wisdom1 K; _* H; d6 E9 n& Y& t/ }
that paddle games were over, decided to develop a single-player version of Pong; instead of
; ?, Z z, s; Y' T, [$ Ocompeting against an opponent, the player would volley the ball into a wall that lost a brick6 f% t& x4 Z/ I5 R1 @
whenever it was hit. He called Jobs into his office, sketched it out on his little blackboard,
7 P$ }, H. ?* Y0 c0 Wand asked him to design it. There would be a bonus, Bushnell told him, for every chip
; I4 C- M6 p C) ]: I2 z9 ^fewer than fifty that he used. Bushnell knew that Jobs was not a great engineer, but he; q# g8 p# d3 H# n- E* i
assumed, correctly, that he would recruit Wozniak, who was always hanging around. “I3 a0 S& H6 ?# ?
looked at it as a two-for-one thing,” Bushnell recalled. “Woz was a better engineer.” & C' K0 {8 E5 Q& A8 O- R
3 ~( Z: q+ k, D8 _+ R4 F
- p: b4 P2 _ {3 ~
) c. d9 l* m9 ]" T# Z& A/ a' a. ?# y; o
5 K" H* @0 ?( c6 Q# {6 u0 K
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. @4 n8 W& H, u2 x4 N% ?2 d$ `
) m3 V- W5 H. E7 T
, Y1 G! H- H tWozniak was thrilled when Jobs asked him to help and proposed splitting the fee. “This( p$ k* `3 N( ^" G# Z2 i
was the most wonderful offer in my life, to actually design a game that people would use,”
' K+ _0 S( F7 w5 @; @% Q( |) r' Mhe recalled. Jobs said it had to be done in four days and with the fewest chips possible.
W7 G. i. o- u$ V2 M' XWhat he hid from Wozniak was that the deadline was one that Jobs had imposed, because! x7 G6 W' S" Z% V* a6 V
he needed to get to the All One Farm to help prepare for the apple harvest. He also didn’t
6 o1 @7 L' ]* E: qmention that there was a bonus tied to keeping down the number of chips.
* K: S! |# z4 l6 W, Y! m& H) _6 X. t8 R1 C
“A game like this might take most engineers a few months,” Wozniak recalled. “I2 W3 p1 W, J/ H6 I
thought that there was no way I could do it, but Steve made me sure that I could.” So he
& ]% `/ r" [/ V* {& s! |8 Z3 [stayed up four nights in a row and did it. During the day at HP, Wozniak would sketch out1 r7 B# `7 n5 {% W
his design on paper. Then, after a fast-food meal, he would go right to Atari and stay all4 a2 |5 ? b* K- n0 D! ?( j" ?, ]
night. As Wozniak churned out the design, Jobs sat on a bench to his left implementing it4 L3 L6 b0 [( B+ i4 l# l
by wire-wrapping the chips onto a breadboard. “While Steve was breadboarding, I spent9 G8 ]4 `, u0 ], G1 {
time playing my favorite game ever, which was the auto racing game Gran Trak 10,”6 ~% q2 u2 W' A2 I/ ^$ W
Wozniak said.
' j( Y; E/ M7 X$ ~3 c) {, k6 {* p' t" d+ Z
Astonishingly, they were able to get the job done in four days, and Wozniak used only- y5 E" a. V2 i/ k) r
forty-five chips. Recollections differ, but by most accounts Jobs simply gave Wozniak half
]: ^4 |; J8 cof the base fee and not the bonus Bushnell paid for saving five chips. It would be another% D0 D5 ~; Q, T# T
ten years before Wozniak discovered (by being shown the tale in a book on the history of
3 j4 F- s. Z0 o( HAtari titled Zap) that Jobs had been paid this bonus. “I think that Steve needed the money,; k3 O8 W* x/ d3 ^
and he just didn’t tell me the truth,” Wozniak later said. When he talks about it now, there7 h/ \ P0 t2 m" s3 U( V! @
are long pauses, and he admits that it causes him pain. “I wish he had just been honest. If
' W( J4 x# @8 @; B% @; S, X Vhe had told me he needed the money, he should have known I would have just given it to
& M! _1 v6 z/ ehim. He was a friend. You help your friends.” To Wozniak, it showed a fundamental v9 [% z9 }; M5 f
difference in their characters. “Ethics always mattered to me, and I still don’t understand1 F3 `/ \! K+ k5 F! g' h
why he would’ve gotten paid one thing and told me he’d gotten paid another,” he said.
4 M2 L: N9 s. Q( y3 @$ F! c“But, you know, people are different.”3 O$ k h3 o7 d1 `# E7 `9 s
s [4 A1 `5 o6 U3 K/ ?8 J& Q$ O( CWhen Jobs learned this story was published, he called Wozniak to deny it. “He told me' ]$ K$ v( h# f: [9 ^6 u0 c
that he didn’t remember doing it, and that if he did something like that he would remember9 z8 w/ `/ H/ i( ?# g k
it, so he probably didn’t do it,” Wozniak recalled. When I asked Jobs directly, he became+ G( A+ M1 w1 t& W, Z
unusually quiet and hesitant. “I don’t know where that allegation comes from,” he said. “I! R0 j5 _7 b7 |" @0 W
gave him half the money I ever got. That’s how I’ve always been with Woz. I mean, Woz
. }; s$ N: @* L" B; I2 Gstopped working in 1978. He never did one ounce of work after 1978. And yet he got8 {) Y6 z2 o; o5 B8 o
exactly the same shares of Apple stock that I did.”0 V8 H2 F1 h$ B7 y8 h
# j7 ?" U1 \7 c# Z, vIs it possible that memories are muddled and that Jobs did not, in fact, shortchange
3 z" V# r. H ZWozniak? “There’s a chance that my memory is all wrong and messed up,” Wozniak told0 ~! F4 |) R, o: _
me, but after a pause he reconsidered. “But no. I remember the details of this one, the $350
& G2 m- H" Q8 B" v3 j; [2 j" [check.” He confirmed his memory with Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn. “I remember
' |% ]8 x7 p% I+ ttalking about the bonus money to Woz, and he was upset,” Bushnell said. “I said yes, there
9 I2 b: ^ X( l7 {7 M3 b+ A9 F; a% i8 d2 \: g# o; _
. L) t( a5 A- ]4 x
3 ~# O9 k4 x) f1 f9 w/ z p/ k- T5 l, \8 f" s: M# J' K
$ G" H8 I; t8 V+ H; Z8 V! H
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- q8 O' V) i8 r) {$ E7 o. y( H% G" x+ h& k% r* [1 @
! v3 j: P, G5 R( v0 }- R
was a bonus for each chip they saved, and he just shook his head and then clucked his
! d, Q5 E$ Y* z- L& a% P, n; @tongue.”! y6 H. U6 H* t4 r7 B- J
4 A/ O& I! S4 N eWhatever the truth, Wozniak later insisted that it was not worth rehashing. Jobs is a4 o: `6 R/ M8 A, ^# k/ s/ o
complex person, he said, and being manipulative is just the darker facet of the traits that0 C _! R5 p( T1 r
make him successful. Wozniak would never have been that way, but as he points out, he
2 i, s+ ~+ i8 y- x1 ealso could never have built Apple. “I would rather let it pass,” he said when I pressed the
: ], K2 o- S& j, Upoint. “It’s not something I want to judge Steve by.”
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The Atari experience helped shape Jobs’s approach to business and design. He
' O' [: ^3 B6 I& ?9 t3 cappreciated the user-friendliness of Atari’s insert-quarter-avoid-Klingons games. “That& ~9 s" u7 U2 H( R" B
simplicity rubbed off on him and made him a very focused product person,” said Ron
$ Y* X! P! @8 r1 i8 cWayne. Jobs also absorbed some of Bushnell’s take-no-prisoners attitude. “Nolan wouldn’t) E5 ]; H& @& v( r/ Y' n0 O
take no for an answer,” according to Alcorn, “and this was Steve’s first impression of how
. N8 ~3 E( s( {. D9 U; T; t0 Ythings got done. Nolan was never abusive, like Steve sometimes is. But he had the same7 R( v6 K5 |3 W8 _: ^5 F
driven attitude. It made me cringe, but dammit, it got things done. In that way Nolan was a
# h1 ?9 J/ {5 b3 Y# ?mentor for Jobs.”
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) R* i5 L& y) f( EBushnell agreed. “There is something indefinable in an entrepreneur, and I saw that in0 D! l' S6 u9 n5 V/ V
Steve,” he said. “He was interested not just in engineering, but also the business aspects. I
1 r" s& W: k9 X G5 d6 ztaught him that if you act like you can do something, then it will work. I told him, ‘Pretend
9 k! d- c$ E2 D9 X2 Bto 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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Turn On, Boot Up, Jack In . . . + `( m' x5 ^+ a
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Daniel Kottke and Jobs with the Apple I at the Atlantic City computer fair, 1976! k% R; y2 |! m( t
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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 currents
$ g% e- a4 g1 i) T6 M' U9 ^flowed together. There was the technology revolution that began with the growth of
$ C0 A/ R! R z5 x8 D, G1 ?military contractors and soon included electronics firms, microchip makers, video game
+ x: U- \: P% @. C- T% Odesigners, and computer companies. There was a hacker subculture—filled with wireheads,0 ^ O. }4 U1 V1 m
phreakers, cyberpunks, hobbyists, and just plain geeks—that included engineers who didn’t
- y s( N e" ]" Y' [$ B0 ^) cconform to the HP mold and their kids who weren’t attuned to the wavelengths of the1 A7 l0 |+ v. C I+ z/ l& s( o( ^
subdivisions. There were quasi-academic groups doing studies on the effects of LSD;
% p9 G* D$ z( {7 ^participants included Doug Engelbart of the Augmentation Research Center in Palo Alto," L) x. F$ \( i4 x( X& G
who later helped develop the computer mouse and graphical user interfaces, and Ken
4 u* d; T0 X( lKesey, who celebrated the drug with music-and-light shows featuring a house band that4 u' P$ R' T; r& J
became the Grateful Dead. There was the hippie movement, born out of the Bay Area’s
8 d9 K5 p# Q8 Rbeat generation, and the rebellious political activists, born out of the Free Speech
6 _1 H* g% R5 T' kMovement at Berkeley. Overlaid on it all were various self-fulfillment movements pursuing5 J" d; V% E% A% P8 U ?
paths to personal enlightenment: Zen and Hinduism, meditation and yoga, primal scream
/ W- ~) q3 U% [1 }6 [ L8 Nand sensory deprivation, Esalen and est.
' n! {+ f1 Q0 g/ h$ j% AThis fusion of flower power and processor power, enlightenment and technology, was, t! w( d% X. A1 l& J% e( u
embodied by Steve Jobs as he meditated in the mornings, audited physics classes at4 T4 X+ A2 B( b2 W0 [- U4 X
Stanford, worked nights at Atari, and dreamed of starting his own business. “There was just
" Y2 v- Z4 ^: ~) L `something going on here,” he said, looking back at the time and place. “The best music
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6 t5 Y1 P5 d o9 [, V: J& Ccame from here—the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin—and so
) z5 E/ L: T! c) ~0 H0 }did the integrated circuit, and things like the Whole Earth Catalog.” O) T: E3 Y( H8 A9 c5 J
Initially the technologists and the hippies did not interface well. Many in the
1 Q) h4 |$ [1 s4 q, f4 c8 hcounterculture saw computers as ominous and Orwellian, the province of the Pentagon and
, T; `- Z7 y- W3 [3 _1 xthe power structure. In The Myth of the Machine, the historian Lewis Mumford warned that9 v% X; @- ~) O3 T) v% u
computers were sucking away our freedom and destroying “life-enhancing values.” An. r0 } Z: {% E8 N
injunction on punch cards of the period—“Do not fold, spindle or mutilate”—became an
4 I7 U# m/ P' U7 y% Qironic phrase of the antiwar Left.& c% a. V3 v& T8 g# }5 r) }
But by the early 1970s a shift was under way. “Computing went from being dismissed as G& k$ Y9 ?; B+ Y* u# c
a tool of bureaucratic control to being embraced as a symbol of individual expression and* t+ F X$ s0 V6 ^
liberation,” John Markoff wrote in his study of the counterculture’s convergence with the
0 R' b! G+ a/ x2 Icomputer industry, What the Dormouse Said. It was an ethos lyrically expressed in Richard. J# {5 p) \" U3 }- @+ z4 n5 [
Brautigan’s 1967 poem, “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace,” and the$ L- ^' d T0 H
cyberdelic fusion was certified when Timothy Leary declared that personal computers had
* Q/ m4 j, F) T! G7 k2 y, _become the new LSD and years later revised his famous mantra to proclaim, “Turn on, boot
( b8 V/ T$ T3 {; L, V. Eup, jack in.” The musician Bono, who later became a friend of Jobs, often discussed with# ^6 C0 T$ Y( m" G0 x% H
him why those immersed in the rock-drugs-rebel counterculture of the Bay Area ended up% b5 l3 [+ f; U. ^( @/ b; {
helping to create the personal computer industry. “The people who invented the twenty-first
" |+ j1 u4 }1 H+ E O; q' dcentury were pot-smoking, sandal-wearing hippies from the West Coast like Steve, because
# ]& r2 W r* p2 k/ Zthey saw differently,” he said. “The hierarchical systems of the East Coast, England,
8 s7 K! R# Q/ z' i8 Q ^) wGermany, and Japan do not encourage this different thinking. The sixties produced an( \$ V# T4 t) n+ `
anarchic mind-set that is great for imagining a world not yet in existence.”. G2 g( W; c0 p8 ?# L [# g9 r# z5 N
One person who encouraged the denizens of the counterculture to make common cause
, \7 R7 ?+ S" S4 R9 K) bwith the hackers was Stewart Brand. A puckish visionary who generated fun and ideas over
, D& L4 g) k: \9 S; O2 tmany decades, Brand was a participant in one of the early sixties LSD studies in Palo Alto.
$ x; k g$ d8 n9 kHe joined with his fellow subject Ken Kesey to produce the acid-celebrating Trips Festival,
5 y, d: I4 ~: q9 Q v# Jappeared in the opening scene of Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and worked
2 C, i0 O# B- `0 I% e8 _3 ]8 swith Doug Engelbart to create a seminal sound-and-light presentation of new technologies
# X1 j) _. ?! T+ r1 Ccalled the Mother of All Demos. “Most of our generation scorned computers as the
' S. p& f- p2 x. O- t( b! h8 E! bembodiment of centralized control,” Brand later noted. “But a tiny contingent—later called
& R$ O! f" R3 dhackers—embraced computers and set about transforming them into tools of liberation.
' k1 Q. c* D. C2 m6 _" cThat turned out to be the true royal road to the future.”8 @. j# f( |9 L5 J1 q2 ]9 ^
Brand ran the Whole Earth Truck Store, which began as a roving truck that sold useful: `7 o1 M! V1 c- x$ U, z0 w
tools and educational materials, and in 1968 he decided to extend its reach with the Whole* U6 m6 S6 F k) Q" B
Earth Catalog. On its first cover was the famous picture of Earth taken from space; its
# S7 \' b. C& P( ]subtitle was “Access to Tools.” The underlying philosophy was that technology could be. G' E* i6 v: w/ k5 L- ^* u
our friend. Brand wrote on the first page of the first edition, “A realm of intimate, personal
& h. E% k O: S5 S% r, c& Ppower is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own
+ i7 P8 n$ z; E; V3 j: i- w# Einspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. {9 C) A2 n$ l
Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the Whole Earth Catalog.”
( j4 |4 ^: @! E3 B7 M& n0 tBuckminster Fuller followed with a poem that began: “I see God in the instruments and4 s! J, x! N b$ N3 K. i
mechanisms that work reliably.” ' n) Z! S3 Q8 P& y; r) t/ k7 v) V
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Jobs became a Whole Earth fan. He was particularly taken by the final issue, which came
4 p3 h* }! w. a" d) v' @0 @out in 1971, when he was still in high school, and he brought it with him to college and
( ]0 Q" S+ X6 I7 h( Lthen to the All One Farm. “On the back cover of their final issue” Jobs recalled, “was a- O H. J9 f% V
photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking) z1 N" @; l5 ~* q& t
on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: ‘Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.’”) H6 T4 ]8 g9 ~. U f3 I
Brand sees Jobs as one of the purest embodiments of the cultural mix that the catalog; q! W U2 ~3 ?! }4 d7 ], O; T8 J
sought to celebrate. “Steve is right at the nexus of the counterculture and technology,” he
: e. [3 t' a% Q2 m; B0 Z! _- v& Wsaid. “He got the notion of tools for human use.”% L; F* T+ X: k( M, x- R' z( h/ R u
Brand’s catalog was published with the help of the Portola Institute, a foundation* R' p3 a& b/ h2 D, \
dedicated to the fledgling field of computer education. The foundation also helped launch
' N* q1 \, \4 ~the People’s Computer Company, which was not a company at all but a newsletter and
1 x3 {& U/ M# q yorganization with the motto “Computer power to the people.” There were occasional3 T+ m* p7 T: {- y( S4 P, v- @0 p
Wednesday-night potluck dinners, and two of the regulars, Gordon French and Fred Moore,
- I O1 R0 t% Tdecided to create a more formal club where news about personal electronics could be
: J2 c/ i2 N8 `& h0 H5 }shared.; o$ F9 b* n; K( _" `$ u! B
They were energized by the arrival of the January 1975 issue of Popular Mechanics,: e$ K Z: W, T6 S8 Q% b
which had on its cover the first personal computer kit, the Altair. The Altair wasn’t much—3 x2 B0 f3 i( C8 O1 d
just a $495 pile of parts that had to be soldered to a board that would then do little—but for
1 G, z& S" m& z yhobbyists and hackers it heralded the dawn of a new era. Bill Gates and Paul Allen read the1 S o& V# b5 q% W5 g* v# j
magazine and started working on a version of BASIC, an easy-to-use programming" M0 Q; y9 S1 h( M, M- W
language, for the Altair. It also caught the attention of Jobs and Wozniak. And when an
+ c. \" E% C$ `' V( |: J; a9 h+ _Altair kit arrived at the People’s Computer Company, it became the centerpiece for the first, g) y3 |; ?5 R3 b$ A; {
meeting of the club that French and Moore had decided to launch.. ?# }0 M0 ~8 \. Y/ i
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& D+ i2 p8 a5 b" N% {1 h& @The group became known as the Homebrew Computer Club, and it encapsulated the Whole5 G' L; b7 w' f, [7 w
Earth fusion between the counterculture and technology. It would become to the personal
; f$ L( o# t! t( Q2 c* Xcomputer era something akin to what the Turk’s Head coffeehouse was to the age of Dr.. l; k: e: @, W6 [: J' v
Johnson, a place where ideas were exchanged and disseminated. Moore wrote the flyer for! [: o, h6 i: N
the first meeting, held on March 5, 1975, in French’s Menlo Park garage: “Are you6 r9 l1 J, c4 \+ l2 t% }
building your own computer? Terminal, TV, typewriter?” it asked. “If so, you might like to
y$ r1 m$ {1 h: R7 H5 X$ scome to a gathering of people with like-minded interests.”# ]4 C" N9 ^; a, G! Y/ O# {7 F
Allen Baum spotted the flyer on the HP bulletin board and called Wozniak, who agreed
5 B4 P; H! F' Z) u0 ]% gto go with him. “That night turned out to be one of the most important nights of my life,”, {' ^, q ~$ a+ {5 ~, j: W7 z
Wozniak recalled. About thirty other people showed up, spilling out of French’s open" z1 e% f: G3 T6 L$ n& z
garage door, and they took turns describing their interests. Wozniak, who later admitted to( Q8 A p' V- i6 H! i6 k: S& c
being extremely nervous, said he liked “video games, pay movies for hotels, scientific
5 {) P* _: { d6 T( n1 ecalculator design, and TV terminal design,” according to the minutes prepared by Moore.2 q5 R" X, }' |- J. v5 n& C
There was a demonstration of the new Altair, but more important to Wozniak was seeing1 m7 E& m% ~; z
the specification sheet for a microprocessor.
+ S+ D p' M; |- n1 ]As he thought about the microprocessor—a chip that had an entire central processing
) y5 \. h6 y4 `! v9 T( [6 Ounit on it—he had an insight. He had been designing a terminal, with a keyboard and
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) a7 ]# l. o; O+ p; x, [monitor, that would connect to a distant minicomputer. Using a microprocessor, he could
. V- T. m0 F5 ~; z* K0 U) Bput some of the capacity of the minicomputer inside the terminal itself, so it could become
6 f2 m$ S# g. L6 O, I. la small stand-alone computer on a desktop. It was an enduring idea: keyboard, screen, and4 `9 g9 t. ?2 I2 o
computer all in one integrated personal package. “This whole vision of a personal computer9 `0 G: @. d% [: k" O6 u1 X: i% s% Y
just popped into my head,” he said. “That night, I started to sketch out on paper what would; J& F1 C" {& g- ?
later become known as the Apple I.”( {: @3 q/ W8 u) v' t
At first he planned to use the same microprocessor that was in the Altair, an Intel 8080.
6 L$ ~ ?- E! C; U( BBut each of those “cost almost more than my monthly rent,” so he looked for an alternative.' {$ |$ r3 C5 v* H
He found one in the Motorola 6800, which a friend at HP was able to get for $40 apiece.. T" Z) J x( m) Y
Then he discovered a chip made by MOS Technologies that was electronically the same but' J# v0 ~$ P3 d2 o8 n* U
cost only $20. It would make his machine affordable, but it would carry a long-term cost. O( C. j) `6 t- _/ W* }
Intel’s chips ended up becoming the industry standard, which would haunt Apple when its
D3 B- \$ o/ a- h" Scomputers were incompatible with it.% Z8 r+ n: `" D5 L
After work each day, Wozniak would go home for a TV dinner and then return to HP to
8 r: {) _( K+ i( y; N( Bmoonlight on his computer. He spread out the parts in his cubicle, figured out their9 R! S# J0 Q3 b4 F
placement, and soldered them onto his motherboard. Then he began writing the software
X" d6 D/ \4 d! x7 F! Qthat would get the microprocessor to display images on the screen. Because he could not
7 O0 ]" Q* C) V9 wafford to pay for computer time, he wrote the code by hand. After a couple of months he. J, _3 g4 Z# o$ W% F5 b
was ready to test it. “I typed a few keys on the keyboard and I was shocked! The letters; H3 O: o# {7 ?
were displayed on the screen.” It was Sunday, June 29, 1975, a milestone for the personal
- ?+ {' X5 H' A% ]& P3 Gcomputer. “It was the first time in history,” Wozniak later said, “anyone had typed a R3 }2 W5 D0 v/ j
character on a keyboard and seen it show up on their own computer’s screen right in front
: z( g- X2 [9 n8 Lof them.”
! X8 D% I6 J) V; ]' M, i9 H4 AJobs was impressed. He peppered Wozniak with questions: Could the computer ever be
/ |. z: }, {& z. }" @networked? Was it possible to add a disk for memory storage? He also began to help Woz: j, K1 H8 D! K9 A7 p, m& k
get components. Particularly important were the dynamic random-access memory chips.
1 u N9 r: I, v( {3 J/ n0 e/ AJobs made a few calls and was able to score some from Intel for free. “Steve is just that sort- f+ R1 |; N. {. _( P* T
of person,” said Wozniak. “I mean, he knew how to talk to a sales representative. I could1 i, @0 c! E" z2 E
never have done that. I’m too shy.”+ W! O" d- o( l, H s' T2 R' ?9 {+ s
Jobs began to accompany Wozniak to Homebrew meetings, carrying the TV monitor and3 z, B* W0 O6 D; c( b y! |7 U
helping to set things up. The meetings now attracted more than one hundred enthusiasts and
- q5 U! p8 h/ F+ l' |" e: @0 Y) ihad been moved to the auditorium of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Presiding
- z# r5 u. S/ v( M! R5 V, x0 e: Hwith a pointer and a free-form manner was Lee Felsenstein, another embodiment of the
, d' x7 Y+ i% S$ h* Emerger between the world of computing and the counterculture. He was an engineering3 w) P) m5 F1 [) v3 c' H
school dropout, a participant in the Free Speech Movement, and an antiwar activist. He had6 M9 ]% @. G1 q# P* B. B6 m5 O
written for the alternative newspaper Berkeley Barb and then gone back to being a
8 Q) @, ^( i, E6 t* h+ Icomputer engineer.) R) i5 @6 j# ^' n3 c
Woz was usually too shy to talk in the meetings, but people would gather around his! _9 A3 C0 v9 ]3 x; o
machine afterward, and he would proudly show off his progress. Moore had tried to instill
( K+ |+ C! ?" F# \. k0 L e- V$ ~in the Homebrew an ethos of swapping and sharing rather than commerce. “The theme of
( M5 R% H2 ~; {% b# gthe club,” Woz said, “was ‘Give to help others.’” It was an expression of the hacker ethic
" J6 P$ j @, d1 w. w; n u/ n6 N! ythat information should be free and all authority mistrusted. “I designed the Apple I
4 F4 `$ ^4 n* ]! ]7 {because I wanted to give it away for free to other people,” said Wozniak.
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1 l/ G* V6 h$ }' J+ ]- J" uThis was not an outlook that Bill Gates embraced. After he and Paul Allen had
, O. m7 b9 H# [& o, n8 B3 g: Xcompleted their BASIC interpreter for the Altair, Gates was appalled that members of the
2 f, D+ x- p" V, FHomebrew were making copies of it and sharing it without paying him. So he wrote what
4 N( c, Z+ J) Q% B1 v7 e* hwould become a famous letter to the club: “As the majority of hobbyists must be aware,% N1 @4 h" a2 `1 s& z( Q' E
most of you steal your software. Is this fair? . . . One thing you do is prevent good software
% G7 r- o3 [+ c' Ifrom being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? . . . I would
+ i7 Z: k9 E. i- tappreciate letters from anyone who wants to pay up.”
, X+ @1 R. @& G2 sSteve Jobs, similarly, did not embrace the notion that Wozniak’s creations, be it a Blue( D- ~, G b; P9 k# r
Box or a computer, wanted to be free. So he convinced Wozniak to stop giving away copies) W+ L; O2 e7 u, f }4 g0 B! D
of his schematics. Most people didn’t have time to build it themselves anyway, Jobs& N1 W3 T$ R. B" M
argued. “Why don’t we build and sell printed circuit boards to them?” It was an example of% f1 @$ E' x L {. {+ d* x
their symbiosis. “Every time I’d design something great, Steve would find a way to make5 R% \' [) z6 b. Z6 I
money for us,” said Wozniak. Wozniak admitted that he would have never thought of doing- h4 a, N! C- a2 r
that on his own. “It never crossed my mind to sell computers. It was Steve who said, ‘Let’s
; |# x$ T4 W2 dhold them in the air and sell a few.’”
7 ]% A* A& u$ R7 L' pJobs worked out a plan to pay a guy he knew at Atari to draw the circuit boards and then
* U+ X9 V x3 [- X" [print up fifty or so. That would cost about $1,000, plus the fee to the designer. They could U( l8 }9 P& m6 N# H# G4 u8 P
sell them for $40 apiece and perhaps clear a profit of $700. Wozniak was dubious that they0 Y; x; Y: `1 @+ o
could sell them all. “I didn’t see how we would make our money back,” he recalled. He; t& p* T5 [* u$ P# J5 m
was already in trouble with his landlord for bouncing checks and now had to pay each
2 O0 `5 u/ i" T: s1 X, B! b8 emonth in cash.
. R- n/ x: g) M; a8 k& i7 N; `Jobs knew how to appeal to Wozniak. He didn’t argue that they were sure to make: y0 P) W0 ~/ T* I* G! W+ e* F
money, but instead that they would have a fun adventure. “Even if we lose our money, S5 @' y) G, n& @, H. H" ~$ X
we’ll have a company,” said Jobs as they were driving in his Volkswagen bus. “For once in3 V1 Z0 e' R0 e& S
our lives, we’ll have a company.” This was enticing to Wozniak, even more than any
4 E! F& I! k3 i+ y3 f1 d' ]prospect of getting rich. He recalled, “I was excited to think about us like that. To be two
; R7 ?- ]+ u& a1 v) ]0 ~best friends starting a company. Wow. I knew right then that I’d do it. How could I not?”
$ Q2 _$ [0 h) z, z! uIn order to raise the money they needed, Wozniak sold his HP 65 calculator for $500,
/ t. H3 q _1 w3 I% I6 ethough the buyer ended up stiffing him for half of that. For his part, Jobs sold his
- b9 x( e! m3 I; p9 Z2 b3 x1 gVolkswagen bus for $1,500. But the person who bought it came to find him two weeks later3 L4 m* u* [+ _
and said the engine had broken down, and Jobs agreed to pay for half of the repairs.. ]: j9 y, ^# ?; F4 t
Despite these little setbacks, they now had, with their own small savings thrown in, about$ v; y" i* O3 U: u3 m8 S4 W4 N
$1,300 in working capital, the design for a product, and a plan. They would start their own
! {) u( B/ j4 Ocomputer company.
/ n8 E' `1 Y' f: M1 c% V/ h0 `+ y$ }- q3 D. M( P
错误!超链接引用无效。
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' U& C5 `- @; S/ P! ^4 W* E; ?Now that they had decided to start a business, they needed a name. Jobs had gone for
0 ~6 l9 v* ^( b) P5 fanother visit to the All One Farm, where he had been pruning the Gravenstein apple trees,
# _$ R) v- ]; F6 w- _# }' h8 fand Wozniak picked him up at the airport. On the ride down to Los Altos, they bandied
' T! E7 B% J8 `, D- b8 waround options. They considered some typical tech words, such as Matrix, and some
$ d5 E4 r) v5 E9 I4 V1 D5 Tneologisms, such as Executek, and some straightforward boring names, like Personal
$ p9 @) o* [$ k" dComputers Inc. The deadline for deciding was the next day, when Jobs wanted to start * e$ w' `+ w# v4 b% k) j+ R% K
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