|
college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my4 J, R: e$ r! b1 H7 m: h( i
parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work, a/ z; `8 ^( c- B
out okay.”
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He didn’t actually want to leave Reed; he just wanted to quit paying tuition and taking! ~0 {% C! R' P- t0 f& z$ a6 U
classes that didn’t interest him. Remarkably, Reed tolerated that. “He had a very inquiring! B( d0 N* o3 [
mind that was enormously attractive,” said the dean of students, Jack Dudman. “He refused$ w# T- k% Z8 T/ e: m& {3 Z
to accept automatically received truths, and he wanted to examine everything himself.”
' l1 V/ Z$ V) }; j" R* ^Dudman allowed Jobs to audit classes and stay with friends in the dorms even after he
) m7 E8 |$ L" \: |stopped paying tuition.5 F. N" Y }% ]/ x' P1 D" x* c
`9 N+ ]. z2 R A' [. D" O
“The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest
& i6 ~, f. j$ }' Lme, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting,” he said. Among them was a
% w3 \6 s! i7 O8 w7 {calligraphy class that appealed to him after he saw posters on campus that were beautifully
( W- e' d" a4 A% t: Xdrawn. “I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space, l- F5 U: \& M) @7 ?
between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was* w& o' i$ R; z# M5 r" Z$ X: C
beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it
+ T' l* U! J- Rfascinating.”$ f1 }1 c& x4 k( U
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It was yet another example of Jobs consciously positioning himself at the intersection6 Y% ]$ L" B R
of the arts and technology. In all of his products, technology would be married to great
' _. w% W9 A; b% P6 K& @* B& r( }design, elegance, human touches, and even romance. He would be in the fore of pushing
) x8 y M% g$ c' Y' efriendly graphical user interfaces. The calligraphy course would become iconic in that
) P9 K1 f4 P6 K! Y" ~regard. “If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have
& V! d9 H/ F: X3 f' i9 @2 M3 d+ ynever had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just
* V4 h* k5 I3 H$ h, ~+ H) Jcopied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.”7 Z0 t f0 t; G* m g6 g
+ e8 X+ J( I4 n# c; _; |/ u
In the meantime Jobs eked out a bohemian existence on the fringes of Reed. He went; g- w9 |' \% D: p0 n5 |
barefoot most of the time, wearing sandals when it snowed. Elizabeth Holmes made meals
$ k/ o# V8 X u# m( hfor him, trying to keep up with his obsessive diets. He returned soda bottles for spare
) d3 }% v6 R# wchange, continued his treks to the free Sunday dinners at the Hare Krishna temple, and( R3 _7 L+ h0 x/ R e. G$ l0 c
wore a down jacket in the heatless garage apartment he rented for $20 a month. When he9 O; j3 c( j* ]6 i" K2 m3 y
needed money, he found work at the psychology department lab maintaining the electronic
: u% F* T+ N, `) X N1 x7 Mequipment that was used for animal behavior experiments. Occasionally Chrisann Brennan
* t+ M) I- e/ k- F8 X) g! pwould come to visit. Their relationship sputtered along erratically. But mostly he tended to3 G: r; p, a4 m6 _9 v# O
the stirrings of his own soul and personal quest for enlightenment.1 p- b0 |1 [8 G6 c
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+ @3 t& _7 c: i8 C- z$ g4 l: |, a4 _3 @) T
9 W8 z. |0 i+ E/ L
“I came of age at a magical time,” he reflected later. “Our consciousness was raised by
" W( c' ^5 `/ I- W/ ?/ nZen, and also by LSD.” Even later in life he would credit psychedelic drugs for making
2 [) O' {- {% Xhim more enlightened. “Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important8 P! ^, R( \% l/ c. |$ v
things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t* F7 C) C9 q% X; @' z
remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was 9 X0 W, |0 {1 a/ w) y
7 k# i. Y* {+ u6 H" A1 U$ Z
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+ b, f( s1 _- h* T( Y! a/ X6 S
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! T( K4 Q2 q0 W$ H# u# p7 [1 N3 Y/ X* x7 z* D5 Q; D X) ?8 g+ O1 @
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. j! C% y) s" c8 w# t5 ^' {. d' vimportant—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the4 ]$ j" s. I r' V" o1 F+ E" V: }
stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”
! }1 _# ]# D0 U6 J$ e( q7 T: L- @! P% e1 n8 T' f$ R' m2 B: a) y; [
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! w* F) t5 @: h; |7 {8 w {1 j& ?. R( c2 }/ M
CHAPTER FOUR( H! p. ]) C/ S- V
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ATARI AND INDIA: f' I1 ^2 T" v& f; W4 ]% b( [
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! ^2 \) S" i0 M A& s9 WZen and the Art of Game Design
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Atari, |! d: H5 O# A, q
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In February 1974, after eighteen months of hanging around Reed, Jobs decided to move
o3 }' R' O. s) B/ Uback to his parents’ home in Los Altos and look for a job. It was not a difficult search. At
5 V2 t" _3 w* T+ O% ppeak times during the 1970s, the classified section of the San Jose Mercury carried up to
2 e6 U2 E) ]1 E7 bsixty pages of technology help-wanted ads. One of those caught Jobs’s eye. “Have fun,( ^5 Q1 E4 v6 o3 E3 `
make money,” it said. That day Jobs walked into the lobby of the video game manufacturer9 p) s, b. l/ E/ p: B+ Q" @/ @4 U
Atari and told the personnel director, who was startled by his unkempt hair and attire, that
. R9 y) t4 U& Q/ lhe wouldn’t leave until they gave him a job.
/ }' [+ Z! F2 w" b6 D3 i) \3 Y4 a* ?8 D: }: ^
Atari’s founder was a burly entrepreneur named Nolan Bushnell, who was a charismatic" O" B: {3 M! E/ [
visionary with a nice touch of showmanship in him—in other words, another role model
* I( @7 y' P! f4 U7 `. Bwaiting to be emulated. After he became famous, he liked driving around in a Rolls,4 _% s" J8 u$ Y g9 Q6 q
smoking dope, and holding staff meetings in a hot tub. As Friedland had done and as Jobs& g0 y( P7 |) x, W6 R" a9 _
would learn to do, he was able to turn charm into a cunning force, to cajole and intimidate* u2 J ~% U; {' Z
and distort reality with the power of his personality. His chief engineer was Al Alcorn,6 q9 @& v! g; M O. ]5 y( H5 F
beefy and jovial and a bit more grounded, the house grown-up trying to implement the! ~; Z4 ~: N$ b" b% i
vision and curb the enthusiasms of Bushnell. Their big hit thus far was a video game called0 I- ^( l2 T3 D4 N% _( N2 \
Pong, in which two players tried to volley a blip on a screen with two movable lines that6 k4 M7 W& d9 V5 Z' W
acted as paddles. (If you’re under thirty, ask your parents.)
) l9 T& e( @8 ?2 G. V0 t" ?0 K3 Z
& s: I( g/ a) m, kWhen Jobs arrived in the Atari lobby wearing sandals and demanding a job, Alcorn was( j/ _/ h# I, Z% ? c
the one who was summoned. “I was told, ‘We’ve got a hippie kid in the lobby. He says he’s- }8 m* D2 C, a: X! {
not going to leave until we hire him. Should we call the cops or let him in?’ I said bring
" ~1 s ?' P* ]. i8 Ihim on in!”
# j, J2 t' z, ~4 u9 f
6 E7 `% h/ z2 X1 W; zJobs thus became one of the first fifty employees at Atari, working as a technician for! X/ I0 U4 M' Y! I9 J3 ?
$5 an hour. “In retrospect, it was weird to hire a dropout from Reed,” Alcorn recalled. “But
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; B) V8 u6 ?8 v1 s( S7 s
& c1 n$ g0 `% P% B- E4 [4 HI saw something in him. He was very intelligent, enthusiastic, excited about tech.” Alcorn
3 A( B& I# L$ @assigned him to work with a straitlaced engineer named Don Lang. The next day Lang* I v) ~2 D$ g) Q: j, G
complained, “This guy’s a goddamn hippie with b.o. Why did you do this to me? And he’s B s6 Y$ l4 `% s
impossible to deal with.” Jobs clung to the belief that his fruit-heavy vegetarian diet would' u; I T4 @/ g2 K6 D9 E; ]
prevent not just mucus but also body odor, even if he didn’t use deodorant or shower
$ g: f0 g9 {7 e2 u3 @regularly. It was a flawed theory.
* O3 W6 N, l. S% u a
, i' A% F1 ]0 l n" |Lang and others wanted to let Jobs go, but Bushnell worked out a solution. “The smell
( p- Z2 B) s. V( B3 l: `. F! sand behavior wasn’t an issue with me,” he said. “Steve was prickly, but I kind of liked him.
6 N& |7 c2 u! X3 t5 RSo I asked him to go on the night shift. It was a way to save him.” Jobs would come in after8 ^, x! e! [) U; m) m
Lang and others had left and work through most of the night. Even thus isolated, he became
) c6 k% d: _; r3 F pknown for his brashness. On those occasions when he happened to interact with others, he! f3 ~) O7 Z+ J- r% ^2 {+ ^
was prone to informing them that they were “dumb shits.” In retrospect, he stands by that
7 ~# m! W3 r& Fjudgment. “The only reason I shone was that everyone else was so bad,” Jobs recalled.5 K0 A! o9 Z/ u7 V2 ?
4 K+ L6 {' l4 z, h% G7 C. b) DDespite his arrogance (or perhaps because of it) he was able to charm Atari’s boss. “He
& e9 X) w- G V' m# O. `, Twas more philosophical than the other people I worked with,” Bushnell recalled. “We used
) G4 K B* Q5 ?to discuss free will versus determinism. I tended to believe that things were much more/ O4 G& x0 I* v+ j; a
determined, that we were programmed. If we had perfect information, we could predict; k# k% x+ Y9 Y+ }2 }
people’s actions. Steve felt the opposite.” That outlook accorded with his faith in the power/ W8 h7 `7 d2 A4 C5 X
of the will to bend reality.
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Jobs helped improve some of the games by pushing the chips to produce fun designs,
/ t& ]# s) U& ~( i* s* Dand Bushnell’s inspiring willingness to play by his own rules rubbed off on him. In* x! F, {+ b. I
addition, he intuitively appreciated the simplicity of Atari’s games. They came with no
% q. ]) W! Q+ N& G9 o u Q8 T& ~ Y* Xmanual and needed to be uncomplicated enough that a stoned freshman could figure them& ~" m$ z' L5 ?0 M: g+ i+ E
out. The only instructions for Atari’s Star Trek game were “1. Insert quarter. 2. Avoid
# q; u% v S! `- @- NKlingons.”
1 `0 W D) h8 S; y9 z9 h3 R
+ H, h' q( Q3 g( G Q0 K6 B) aNot all of his coworkers shunned Jobs. He became friends with Ron Wayne, a
+ C7 a! ]& x8 V8 }draftsman at Atari, who had earlier started a company that built slot machines. It
# h+ X4 l1 [" b N9 ?- Psubsequently failed, but Jobs became fascinated with the idea that it was possible to start- u. Y+ p! z; r! W
your own company. “Ron was an amazing guy,” said Jobs. “He started companies. I had8 Z$ S! f/ I0 k8 z3 A9 W
never met anybody like that.” He proposed to Wayne that they go into business together;
7 u, x5 R2 w6 q1 Z) D G' v& W9 [9 b' {Jobs said he could borrow $50,000, and they could design and market a slot machine. But
1 e( Y h1 s3 i! j. n( ~1 XWayne had already been burned in business, so he declined. “I said that was the quickest5 w! E1 X6 [, N% W. h0 w1 q
way to lose $50,000,” Wayne recalled, “but I admired the fact that he had a burning drive to6 V* h" X) _9 e1 |) M& @; k
start his own business.”9 f) b+ t3 L+ X& V; D4 P
# D# M1 k1 m6 h( ROne weekend Jobs was visiting Wayne at his apartment, engaging as they often did in' n8 r* {4 n( ?! a8 I% v) @* _
philosophical discussions, when Wayne said that there was something he needed to tell0 |3 P, D& @2 `# e* B& h
him. “Yeah, I think I know what it is,” Jobs replied. “I think you like men.” Wayne said
6 @# [4 {1 t! n7 a* i/ tyes. “It was my first encounter with someone who I knew was gay,” Jobs recalled. “He8 f$ j( K( }2 p
planted the right perspective of it for me.” Jobs grilled him: “When you see a beautiful 7 M( s- v" s; E a& k* {; c5 _ u
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3 |# @# a* p- A. Kwoman, what do you feel?” Wayne replied, “It’s like when you look at a beautiful horse.5 Q$ R) @7 C; x6 R& L' P1 N) S/ D
You can appreciate it, but you don’t want to sleep with it. You appreciate beauty for what it9 {/ b- i. h; `
is.” Wayne said that it is a testament to Jobs that he felt like revealing this to him. “Nobody
% t1 k/ t9 R5 }at Atari knew, and I could count on my toes and fingers the number of people I told in my
, \% Q' W# d# T, y1 w1 ^whole life. But I guess it just felt right to tell him, that he would understand, and it didn’t- X5 ~% V$ `1 P2 _
have any effect on our relationship.”
! O5 k0 ~ q2 N/ S$ g) }7 |& y3 V& t. Z2 W! a0 U
India5 |$ [7 |% j4 n {
M3 R3 q7 _' l) O: Z. o
One reason Jobs was eager to make some money in early 1974 was that Robert- [) B. y4 e( E, j& O
Friedland, who had gone to India the summer before, was urging him to take his own% V5 z5 f/ o) D* T) ?4 j2 V1 U8 {
spiritual journey there. Friedland had studied in India with Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji),
; F8 M1 L. M4 O2 s& n8 Ywho had been the guru to much of the sixties hippie movement. Jobs decided he should do
2 H* s' |- E# y9 T2 q F/ C; s/ cthe same, and he recruited Daniel Kottke to go with him. Jobs was not motivated by mere" K) |0 l( |& s3 j
adventure. “For me it was a serious search,” he said. “I’d been turned on to the idea of, w7 W! _9 Q* d! W; v* C
enlightenment and trying to figure out who I was and how I fit into things.” Kottke adds( `, G2 z/ T; Y; ]
that Jobs’s quest seemed driven partly by not knowing his birth parents. “There was a hole& k' J6 ]2 I* x9 T. R+ E4 l! K! o# h
in him, and he was trying to fill it.”
# Q' B( H& o4 K( y% j3 b9 b/ c9 ?$ o8 @$ p( @* R9 i
When Jobs told the folks at Atari that he was quitting to go search for a guru in India,+ L7 j& [7 D' v6 ?
the jovial Alcorn was amused. “He comes in and stares at me and declares, ‘I’m going to2 `7 @0 y9 Q, F4 I8 }8 H# G6 O
find my guru,’ and I say, ‘No shit, that’s super. Write me!’ And he says he wants me to help/ @' D b$ i! t1 l' H
pay, and I tell him, ‘Bullshit!’” Then Alcorn had an idea. Atari was making kits and- Z1 Z* X- {5 B. ~ u8 q
shipping them to Munich, where they were built into finished machines and distributed by a/ M- w. E7 |" Y# K3 G( C8 ^/ r2 l
wholesaler in Turin. But there was a problem: Because the games were designed for the
1 y' L, h( [7 Z3 i/ CAmerican rate of sixty frames per second, there were frustrating interference problems in# j) X9 n: j# S, u* V1 {& D$ ^1 |( a! V' _
Europe, where the rate was fifty frames per second. Alcorn sketched out a fix with Jobs and
! x; O ]" M3 y4 Bthen offered to pay for him to go to Europe to implement it. “It’s got to be cheaper to get to
, ~1 B1 H! a! |. k% G- u$ BIndia from there,” he said. Jobs agreed. So Alcorn sent him on his way with the1 A F6 i% A" b
exhortation, “Say hi to your guru for me.”
* }/ L% g9 H5 F$ o( m' O0 l* A: D& |2 X+ x
Jobs spent a few days in Munich, where he solved the interference problem, but in the
% L. {' @: p" F s& X3 lprocess he flummoxed the dark-suited German managers. They complained to Alcorn that
h4 a8 i( I1 yhe dressed and smelled like a bum and behaved rudely. “I said, ‘Did he solve the problem?’- E" \# m0 T5 A7 a+ K4 m/ L+ m
And they said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘If you got any more problems, you just call me, I got more( z" D# k7 q, t( b; r
guys just like him!’ They said, ‘No, no we’ll take care of it next time.’” For his part, Jobs% R9 S4 l% I3 y V
was upset that the Germans kept trying to feed him meat and potatoes. “They don’t even
' i3 L* P# o3 N' Z; {9 j; Yhave a word for vegetarian,” he complained (incorrectly) in a phone call to Alcorn.
/ e% G4 T* K6 S/ j/ q7 p, l9 W4 U2 x. } W7 o0 ~
He had a better time when he took the train to see the distributor in Turin, where the
( {- c8 p. l0 |( kItalian pastas and his host’s camaraderie were more simpatico. “I had a wonderful couple of) u9 T1 k1 K2 o! s; y4 D
weeks in Turin, which is this charged-up industrial town,” he recalled. “The distributor8 h1 Z* C# b: z2 Y, l
took me every night to dinner at this place where there were only eight tables and no menu.
8 }3 B% i0 b4 q' X8 [2 V: F1 g- uYou’d just tell them what you wanted, and they made it. One of the tables was on reserve
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: l5 Y6 p- ?" Q# ~4 P& {for the chairman of Fiat. It was really super.” He next went to Lugano, Switzerland, where, J3 B' X- [ l* Z7 z& C
he stayed with Friedland’s uncle, and from there took a flight to India.% f* {" o8 v/ P5 Z5 d0 T
; w1 D+ E& q( ]) J0 e% ^* b' A; X
When he got off the plane in New Delhi, he felt waves of heat rising from the tarmac,0 E& E/ R: k1 a* t. i$ \0 k2 c. w
even though it was only April. He had been given the name of a hotel, but it was full, so he
3 Y: j. @- g( E! Rwent to one his taxi driver insisted was good. “I’m sure he was getting some baksheesh,
( K' {. K A+ Y0 s c' Tbecause he took me to this complete dive.” Jobs asked the owner whether the water was3 Z" J: H7 ~( t
filtered and foolishly believed the answer. “I got dysentery pretty fast. I was sick, really4 V0 f3 }% H' ^; d4 F
sick, a really high fever. I dropped from 160 pounds to 120 in about a week.”2 A* o0 \/ ?5 }# o1 T6 J o
3 i) i) x7 a$ Y7 g) F" K" |Once he got healthy enough to move, he decided that he needed to get out of Delhi. So9 p! k1 L7 ~( g: ~( L! R
he headed to the town of Haridwar, in western India near the source of the Ganges, which
* B; _# `) m& b4 i Swas having a festival known as the Kumbh Mela. More than ten million people poured into# f0 P$ O. Z5 k3 B9 A c+ e/ X2 R; H* L
a town that usually contained fewer than 100,000 residents. “There were holy men all4 {" g) Q7 g/ @
around. Tents with this teacher and that teacher. There were people riding elephants, you
- Z/ w* M' q8 q# H: Pname it. I was there for a few days, but I decided that I needed to get out of there too.”4 L0 }: {; L9 m+ [: \
' ]9 F# v. g3 ~; ]( j9 y6 v
He went by train and bus to a village near Nainital in the foothills of the Himalayas.+ D1 B S' w* [
That was where Neem Karoli Baba lived, or had lived. By the time Jobs got there, he was- U. G4 Q% f W0 }" L2 I& v- E8 ]
no longer alive, at least in the same incarnation. Jobs rented a room with a mattress on the
* x& P g& \8 ^" ^% v) B6 ~) yfloor from a family who helped him recuperate by feeding him vegetarian meals. “There, U; p d& b `2 @) T8 ]
was a copy there of Autobiography of a Yogi in English that a previous traveler had left,
6 Y! Z+ V4 L0 A2 ?and I read it several times because there was not a lot to do, and I walked around from
9 x4 b/ L0 ^6 S! L0 Q) evillage to village and recovered from my dysentery.” Among those who were part of the
9 j T- V: [$ H* Q% kcommunity there was Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist who was working to eradicate" f4 c$ t2 G. w7 e7 Q7 a4 Q
smallpox and who later ran Google’s philanthropic arm and the Skoll Foundation. He
4 W, s2 B6 f# p M% c9 G/ Z) ^7 ?became Jobs’s lifelong friend.
3 u, D- k. L- t
0 d/ l0 ~+ m6 t1 W. w jAt one point Jobs was told of a young Hindu holy man who was holding a gathering of _" \$ @* L8 }/ d6 R. j% b
his followers at the Himalayan estate of a wealthy businessman. “It was a chance to meet a2 G* \* _. t4 ~0 }
spiritual being and hang out with his followers, but it was also a chance to have a good
0 N0 Q4 ~5 b7 K7 n! Imeal. I could smell the food as we got near, and I was very hungry.” As Jobs was eating,
5 C9 E$ k7 J+ ?( k1 K6 i* b$ b1 U$ Kthe holy man—who was not much older than Jobs—picked him out of the crowd, pointed4 h) s. }9 ?0 X2 p, U
at him, and began laughing maniacally. “He came running over and grabbed me and made a' h2 \* c, G8 r8 C% \, g; J
tooting sound and said, ‘You are just like a baby,’” recalled Jobs. “I was not relishing this
# n5 [- O" }' y5 H$ {: ]% S& Pattention.” Taking Jobs by the hand, he led him out of the worshipful crowd and walked
' {. {6 p0 ~. w4 U4 u( jhim up to a hill, where there was a well and a small pond. “We sit down and he pulls out9 D2 I; f* J& B1 T {
this straight razor. I’m thinking he’s a nutcase and begin to worry. Then he pulls out a bar5 \9 K: F8 I# W! q+ ?& E1 n
of soap—I had long hair at the time—and he lathered up my hair and shaved my head. He
4 f; e6 F2 B5 Z X8 Otold me that he was saving my health.”: o4 ^& t/ \. u3 J2 h
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Daniel Kottke arrived in India at the beginning of the summer, and Jobs went back to2 b6 ~- k) @" ~. u& ^( K
New Delhi to meet him. They wandered, mainly by bus, rather aimlessly. By this point Jobs, R" P+ R0 ^( {1 h
was no longer trying to find a guru who could impart wisdom, but instead was seeking
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) S" M( |* g# {4 Y7 [5 V3 F: ]( X6 g) N* q6 ^' {6 M
' A; a% h3 ?: U9 Lenlightenment through ascetic experience, deprivation, and simplicity. He was not able to! t/ E; M F+ l+ Y y2 R7 E) D
achieve inner calm. Kottke remembers him getting into a furious shouting match with a
6 p, j3 B3 X& t. C, |Hindu woman in a village marketplace who, Jobs alleged, had been watering down the
% w. m- u$ b5 R2 z% Y pmilk she was selling them.; r9 G8 E; R" {! ~& D
7 p& C8 w; `' ]Yet Jobs could also be generous. When they got to the town of Manali, Kottke’s
/ {; {0 U9 H3 f6 Z1 U2 H- n4 @sleeping bag was stolen with his traveler’s checks in it. “Steve covered my food expenses
+ S# j, l D/ d' e3 Z) X) Uand bus ticket back to Delhi,” Kottke recalled. He also gave Kottke the rest of his own
. D$ ` |' C7 |- ymoney, $100, to tide him over.
/ `. ]* Q) w. @8 x& S
$ t1 M# f2 x6 w. B O9 O* oDuring his seven months in India, he had written to his parents only sporadically,
6 g1 X. ]3 t! A, `getting mail at the American Express office in New Delhi when he passed through, and so
2 h2 R$ k& T7 l/ V3 uthey were somewhat surprised when they got a call from the Oakland airport asking them! c+ \. W; Q+ d
to pick him up. They immediately drove up from Los Altos. “My head had been shaved, I* R2 u1 U. z% t2 B. T' y: F+ F
was wearing Indian cotton robes, and my skin had turned a deep, chocolate brown-red from
4 Y2 h1 F2 Z8 S- xthe sun,” he recalled. “So I’m sitting there and my parents walked past me about five times
0 `. E' p# z3 Gand finally my mother came up and said ‘Steve?’ and I said ‘Hi!’”3 \% Q5 V. Q" O9 C* r
; U8 V* U/ G7 b- r- h4 B2 dThey took him back home, where he continued trying to find himself. It was a pursuit5 O. w P& R6 a8 }
with many paths toward enlightenment. In the mornings and evenings he would meditate( G% [( `4 o$ t
and study Zen, and in between he would drop in to audit physics or engineering courses at% H2 D% C" {/ s8 k
Stanford.
6 ?, |* k# e* |, w
% B) d. U) }( @7 l0 x0 L( b$ a7 D) A; UThe Search
+ C+ v a( T! a. p1 a
# z: Y5 D7 Q# s: c( xJobs’s interest in Eastern spirituality, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and the search for
! V( ~: a2 Q$ a$ N3 Z1 s8 \enlightenment was not merely the passing phase of a nineteen-year-old. Throughout his life
- W' f$ W o$ e2 P0 lhe would seek to follow many of the basic precepts of Eastern religions, such as the
: V/ z2 Z# g2 } }2 ^emphasis on experiential prajñā, wisdom or cognitive understanding that is intuitively n# q& S: L0 F8 O- G: B* w, \( |
experienced through concentration of the mind. Years later, sitting in his Palo Alto garden,
5 t) y: [9 o6 t$ {7 o: jhe reflected on the lasting influence of his trip to India:
/ L) n7 }. R7 z, Z; d* ~8 B( X& d3 f! a; }7 T6 g- L4 `+ Q
Coming back to America was, for me, much more of a cultural shock than going to9 m2 J& [# n% O3 k1 x1 \: H
India. The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do, they use" M+ Q4 r0 s/ i j2 _7 B1 h
their intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world.
' I/ ~8 E; |# h6 E O+ w6 XIntuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a
( M, m- Z2 t7 q1 `big impact on my work.
6 R! ]8 K8 C6 e9 s5 c
3 T* c! [' j1 N* b; yWestern rational thought is not an innate human characteristic; it is learned and is the4 {! P4 Z4 ]0 f$ h
great achievement of Western civilization. In the villages of India, they never learned it.
0 q% {% ^; A. v- J7 @They learned something else, which is in some ways just as valuable but in other ways is
0 n+ m$ g3 d" Q- [4 Q# s5 ]! M6 ynot. That’s the power of intuition and experiential wisdom.
$ V) M; ?% H$ j6 j8 p1 q7 \" s6 T$ H7 a6 I" v1 j% S( n
" W+ b4 ~6 ]) w; @1 O: ]
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Coming back after seven months in Indian villages, I saw the craziness of the Western# y% Z1 ~/ e1 W
world as well as its capacity for rational thought. If you just sit and observe, you will see/ B- X, V+ \3 }! \; \
how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does
1 n9 ~9 d: `* W& D0 \) t2 G* Dcalm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things—that’s when your intuition
6 o7 p, h/ M8 i# V( ystarts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your
7 g' X1 x: Y) S4 Pmind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much+ n+ u) w) F" |# z* N( a$ K; \ \
more than you could see before. It’s a discipline; you have to practice it.' C8 \; D% X5 _$ V
) {1 a2 z# P; @9 m# I+ B; q
Zen has been a deep influence in my life ever since. At one point I was thinking about
8 ?. `' b1 s( ~4 t* Fgoing to Japan and trying to get into the Eihei-ji monastery, but my spiritual advisor urged
. ?. O' c0 l- K. O0 J2 @# }me to stay here. He said there is nothing over there that isn’t here, and he was correct. I
9 {5 x6 n) I" ^0 \learned the truth of the Zen saying that if you are willing to travel around the world to meet \4 }; A- q1 y( T+ l/ g
a teacher, one will appear next door.
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& f. n' [9 {; O' T3 W# N: J, k6 g8 t$ v U' z
) R; c2 X4 u/ h `' C7 `Jobs did in fact find a teacher right in his own neighborhood. Shunryu Suzuki, who
: b+ F1 C/ P7 twrote Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind and ran the San Francisco Zen Center, used to come to) N+ z# p0 d; k* W2 T/ w5 y
Los Altos every Wednesday evening to lecture and meditate with a small group of
- y0 t: f% e1 N; U$ ^followers. After a while he asked his assistant, Kobun Chino Otogawa, to open a full-time
4 i8 f+ c" P& lcenter there. Jobs became a faithful follower, along with his occasional girlfriend, Chrisann0 Y4 D" ?6 Z" j; M* C4 d1 l
Brennan, and Daniel Kottke and Elizabeth Holmes. He also began to go by himself on
4 g# e2 [' \0 ~" F- z% }retreats to the Tassajara Zen Center, a monastery near Carmel where Kobun also taught.
$ W: o3 K+ G7 W) v+ P# Q0 m* m# J2 K0 Y4 H/ a& x
Kottke found Kobun amusing. “His English was atrocious,” he recalled. “He would9 T; l: ]8 w7 t2 ^8 N: Q4 l4 n
speak in a kind of haiku, with poetic, suggestive phrases. We would sit and listen to him,) j, z2 `! l% c( N$ D* n3 l
and half the time we had no idea what he was going on about. I took the whole thing as a7 a2 j) [" Z# b$ b* Z, O
kind of lighthearted interlude.” Holmes was more into the scene. “We would go to Kobun’s
9 f, o$ w1 ~" l& hmeditations, sit on zafu cushions, and he would sit on a dais,” she said. “We learned how to$ p1 J: p+ { _
tune out distractions. It was a magical thing. One evening we were meditating with Kobun: L" N; R" p% m: U; ]2 G% C
when it was raining, and he taught us how to use ambient sounds to bring us back to focus
# m" d ?9 R# L. Z; k" {on our meditation.”
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/ q K2 Z' |1 E, PAs for Jobs, his devotion was intense. “He became really serious and self-important and3 P8 b3 G! f5 H0 @4 O; w* h/ x3 b
just generally unbearable,” according to Kottke. He began meeting with Kobun almost
# P2 ~) m' ~5 F2 X t& Xdaily, and every few months they went on retreats together to meditate. “I ended up+ ?' ^, i* i# V7 n; B; W; k# U
spending as much time as I could with him,” Jobs recalled. “He had a wife who was a nurse
/ U+ D0 j: D2 r+ m& Z0 ^at Stanford and two kids. She worked the night shift, so I would go over and hang out with" p: B% x2 b9 }) T5 V$ n" U
him in the evenings. She would get home about midnight and shoo me away.” They. R8 @3 m: X# Q& R3 L- \
sometimes discussed whether Jobs should devote himself fully to spiritual pursuits, but
2 _. n% d% K$ ^3 I; M0 a( ~6 mKobun counseled otherwise. He assured Jobs that he could keep in touch with his spiritual, K6 x3 W! s* F2 ^8 d3 `/ K1 n
side while working in a business. The relationship turned out to be lasting and deep;) u2 Z( ~, s$ j" L, _
seventeen years later Kobun would perform Jobs’s wedding ceremony.
4 ?& z+ K1 S' t* j. D1 h) {
7 ^ p. O6 P. m, X( b
; M/ k* k3 D7 m& F% f5 {: p& X n* V: @3 w. L% `& y8 o
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2 e: v! T; `* k% RJobs’s compulsive search for self-awareness also led him to undergo primal scream$ M6 l- y% S' B
therapy, which had recently been developed and popularized by a Los Angeles$ B9 b* d+ G% R) P; X2 h# Y
psychotherapist named Arthur Janov. It was based on the Freudian theory that
' b0 F* K# k; {4 apsychological problems are caused by the repressed pains of childhood; Janov argued that& w X1 ~+ D& W' y* R% q
they could be resolved by re-suffering these primal moments while fully expressing the: R2 d* Z- v1 D3 I% q
pain—sometimes in screams. To Jobs, this seemed preferable to talk therapy because it( v+ T( F- V _# K2 k+ S
involved intuitive feeling and emotional action rather than just rational analyzing. “This" `7 C& |7 S9 H$ c0 k# D
was not something to think about,” he later said. “This was something to do: to close your9 v0 [# C( o. z+ z
eyes, hold your breath, jump in, and come out the other end more insightful.”
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A group of Janov’s adherents ran a program called the Oregon Feeling Center in an old
2 U' A1 U$ d! _+ O* thotel in Eugene that was managed by Jobs’s Reed College guru Robert Friedland, whose4 G- Q' g- `2 A( c$ s
All One Farm commune was nearby. In late 1974, Jobs signed up for a twelve-week course
- D; [' C, V' m1 w/ _; Lof therapy there costing $1,000. “Steve and I were both into personal growth, so I wanted
6 k; Q, h( K$ v; G) I0 Zto go with him,” Kottke recounted, “but I couldn’t afford it.”
- H8 r! c/ x+ j1 Z$ }" J
2 c6 R- |6 Q2 S" @, `: `/ {- WJobs confided to close friends that he was driven by the pain he was feeling about being
d/ @" k' q! F& q% M4 Kput up for adoption and not knowing about his birth parents. “Steve had a very profound9 I1 ^8 F2 b1 D2 K' h
desire to know his physical parents so he could better know himself,” Friedland later said.
: |* y2 l7 D+ t( s9 eHe had learned from Paul and Clara Jobs that his birth parents had both been graduate
( `" h7 M" y6 c2 M/ Lstudents at a university and that his father might be Syrian. He had even thought about
- r" x, i V7 v$ ~hiring a private investigator, but he decided not to do so for the time being. “I didn’t want
3 E0 ?+ R% \% n8 l* Vto hurt my parents,” he recalled, referring to Paul and Clara.0 O- j, v3 F4 h5 f/ E& O/ K9 ~- E
9 Q9 n0 d4 D+ ^+ G“He was struggling with the fact that he had been adopted,” according to Elizabeth
6 K8 S% f* {( R' o& EHolmes. “He felt that it was an issue that he needed to get hold of emotionally.” Jobs
4 P" a0 `9 ?1 P4 c* z: nadmitted as much to her. “This is something that is bothering me, and I need to focus on it,”
/ L7 X% E" b# J* Whe said. He was even more open with Greg Calhoun. “He was doing a lot of soul-searching! Z F, ?! O. n0 T' c
about being adopted, and he talked about it with me a lot,” Calhoun recalled. “The primal
) _7 r' H" O! T, D$ {4 F# N; e- p6 ^scream and the mucusless diets, he was trying to cleanse himself and get deeper into his
& O" z5 h% m4 v( Hfrustration about his birth. He told me he was deeply angry about the fact that he had been1 u/ C% M7 [' o+ P" u
given up.”/ C7 y2 h+ f% }% i1 V7 G
( w' P8 r* r: y& l
John Lennon had undergone the same primal scream therapy in 1970, and in December
4 j; x0 l0 M& B/ gof that year he released the song “Mother” with the Plastic Ono Band. It dealt with
" {3 J: O/ R! |" G, j8 Q" `Lennon’s own feelings about a father who had abandoned him and a mother who had been! x& b5 e- x9 [
killed when he was a teenager. The refrain includes the haunting chant “Mama don’t go,
?+ H3 W" y u8 w2 n# e$ lDaddy come home.” Jobs used to play the song often.
4 D) T0 i/ \' ^$ d% ]5 t9 B4 ?0 O# d7 w0 `
Jobs later said that Janov’s teachings did not prove very useful. “He offered a ready- ]! ?3 d4 `9 Q$ h" T
made, buttoned-down answer which turned out to be far too oversimplistic. It became4 }. `% x% I& B3 u6 g. Y
obvious that it was not going to yield any great insight.” But Holmes contended that it
r+ E0 ^# A+ d- c8 S" V* Rmade him more confident: “After he did it, he was in a different place. He had a very
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4 K5 o4 R7 ]0 S3 F. p6 l, {0 {9 z8 L# a+ J# j
+ G' r- p" A0 o+ i w$ H& D
2 F. ?1 |! r2 G" t( U& j9 h3 [
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abrasive personality, but there was a peace about him for a while. His confidence improved
2 I1 }- }$ v9 s4 j/ \& `1 k! Cand his feelings of inadequacy were reduced.”8 h, i# E/ g& x& e3 V0 V; r
2 I% s3 C( E% }1 m. Z
Jobs came to believe that he could impart that feeling of confidence to others and thus$ z5 s3 X( |+ l" @9 v! N" j7 n
push them to do things they hadn’t thought possible. Holmes had broken up with Kottke8 k# t' R# U2 U9 k& x' D
and joined a religious cult in San Francisco that expected her to sever ties with all past
* F! `% X- o! m* t9 O% q# W, u& ffriends. But Jobs rejected that injunction. He arrived at the cult house in his Ford Ranchero) e, _* z* [+ d# {
one day and announced that he was driving up to Friedland’s apple farm and she was to
! m9 f6 b. R/ S( Q8 }, ccome. Even more brazenly, he said she would have to drive part of the way, even though
% }! P$ `& T. B+ I1 a1 {6 wshe didn’t know how to use the stick shift. “Once we got on the open road, he made me get
1 `4 u# T9 Y' r0 N d* ^+ }' \( Y1 X% mbehind the wheel, and he shifted the car until we got up to 55 miles per hour,” she recalled./ Q+ J1 w& y; X: n# J# Z- l: B
“Then he puts on a tape of Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, lays his head in my lap, and goes
- h5 }* e2 e3 g" B. x& O% t: F0 bto sleep. He had the attitude that he could do anything, and therefore so can you. He put his
% Z4 i) A/ r& A. f- B4 Dlife in my hands. So that made me do something I didn’t think I could do.”
4 J0 Y3 Q% a! J$ D) T' E' H, g
It was the brighter side of what would become known as his reality distortion field. “If
& U% e- B. B8 F0 a6 Y" x2 u* gyou trust him, you can do things,” Holmes said. “If he’s decided that something should
3 I( m2 k0 ?* @2 f3 B1 O+ O6 ]happen, then he’s just going to make it happen.”
: d) c7 r" p# _! r( u+ k% ~
" I3 H/ {6 T$ q0 _4 L+ fBreakout$ v9 G* v# r# H! b+ m
5 S: @) c; f# \; nOne day in early 1975 Al Alcorn was sitting in his office at Atari when Ron Wayne5 B, E9 e* y4 O+ @& P, T, E% t
burst in. “Hey, Stevie is back!” he shouted.2 J8 }1 q. S V+ S
! L+ `' q* O) }- |/ A x“Wow, bring him on in,” Alcorn replied.
! n- L0 y2 M; J9 j. Q% v, E2 v8 z& v h
Jobs shuffled in barefoot, wearing a saffron robe and carrying a copy of Be Here Now,
5 I/ L3 u+ \8 t' m4 Q: ]* |which he handed to Alcorn and insisted he read. “Can I have my job back?” he asked.$ S- \% G4 J, i0 ]# v. C
8 R$ E! C5 n8 K! O" N# N
“He looked like a Hare Krishna guy, but it was great to see him,” Alcorn recalled. “So I0 b- z: n6 f# A/ _3 x0 ?
said, sure!”, ^/ M. l9 `0 Q1 v
$ P. \7 H7 E% W% ?8 V! B, W ?Once again, for the sake of harmony, Jobs worked mostly at night. Wozniak, who was
# @: J% h9 q. s, l* _% \3 lliving in an apartment nearby and working at HP, would come by after dinner to hang out6 U; _6 l9 l, |% j' V! F# w6 }, m0 Y
and play the video games. He had become addicted to Pong at a Sunnyvale bowling alley,
! U; x! p- F* f) P: H/ Yand he was able to build a version that he hooked up to his home TV set.
) H, e; H6 J$ s
2 r* \, L- j4 A6 s: h8 TOne day in the late summer of 1975, Nolan Bushnell, defying the prevailing wisdom
: C! E/ s; N5 [6 {! ?! Pthat paddle games were over, decided to develop a single-player version of Pong; instead of
' o5 k e% `7 p& Bcompeting against an opponent, the player would volley the ball into a wall that lost a brick
- Q1 ]; D1 A# G; |. g3 Dwhenever it was hit. He called Jobs into his office, sketched it out on his little blackboard,2 w: ?1 y. K7 N" {
and asked him to design it. There would be a bonus, Bushnell told him, for every chip4 h4 w' O# l6 _8 k6 E
fewer than fifty that he used. Bushnell knew that Jobs was not a great engineer, but he+ E8 H- s' \1 y
assumed, correctly, that he would recruit Wozniak, who was always hanging around. “I( c" ~& u7 }& w- V1 k
looked at it as a two-for-one thing,” Bushnell recalled. “Woz was a better engineer.”
4 F5 Y7 w* ?# |. N$ j s/ S2 A/ W8 [- q7 O J5 e4 z
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* E6 d: T5 q9 ]0 ]Wozniak was thrilled when Jobs asked him to help and proposed splitting the fee. “This
4 v e N" X0 W' u& \0 Wwas the most wonderful offer in my life, to actually design a game that people would use,”* Z' A u$ s4 w( l6 b+ z
he recalled. Jobs said it had to be done in four days and with the fewest chips possible.
) i* A; Z% ]: T$ v" ]( BWhat he hid from Wozniak was that the deadline was one that Jobs had imposed, because" j! h& g8 K W6 w& a
he needed to get to the All One Farm to help prepare for the apple harvest. He also didn’t
7 x; h& ?3 E- _, Imention that there was a bonus tied to keeping down the number of chips.
! n. J7 V9 v0 U- E- u, R7 k
. e) }/ L3 K' k0 Q1 ^“A game like this might take most engineers a few months,” Wozniak recalled. “I
+ r. |4 I6 h! z Nthought that there was no way I could do it, but Steve made me sure that I could.” So he
M8 v. Z3 F/ \( J9 ustayed up four nights in a row and did it. During the day at HP, Wozniak would sketch out% H- s/ P* _& @3 O0 ]1 Z
his design on paper. Then, after a fast-food meal, he would go right to Atari and stay all
6 u1 ?0 w5 b& z# r; S9 Inight. As Wozniak churned out the design, Jobs sat on a bench to his left implementing it
+ B. Z, W; w9 _1 D' |7 Dby wire-wrapping the chips onto a breadboard. “While Steve was breadboarding, I spent
* v4 d0 e1 G1 o; Ytime playing my favorite game ever, which was the auto racing game Gran Trak 10,”7 x2 v" ~' C6 i- i( @3 Q2 ?
Wozniak said. N9 ]0 [) _9 i' a; b9 H& K$ @
2 ~, v: B4 e: @5 B7 X) Q. ~- TAstonishingly, they were able to get the job done in four days, and Wozniak used only
r% `! x" i% Mforty-five chips. Recollections differ, but by most accounts Jobs simply gave Wozniak half* y; F! [1 X' E9 ~& l& G0 r' c" m
of the base fee and not the bonus Bushnell paid for saving five chips. It would be another
5 [9 N; |9 q5 z8 F9 w/ M4 a& Cten years before Wozniak discovered (by being shown the tale in a book on the history of* ?* c5 q: w; B& C6 z4 H
Atari titled Zap) that Jobs had been paid this bonus. “I think that Steve needed the money,
; [/ l7 T) B, q# X7 U7 K: h& _and he just didn’t tell me the truth,” Wozniak later said. When he talks about it now, there+ d X* I$ O, w0 s& J: ^8 i
are long pauses, and he admits that it causes him pain. “I wish he had just been honest. If
8 T/ n( r/ i: {% P1 J! z/ Vhe had told me he needed the money, he should have known I would have just given it to1 y) e0 ~6 O" w3 b
him. He was a friend. You help your friends.” To Wozniak, it showed a fundamental
. d/ _7 R+ Q) V6 ~% Ldifference in their characters. “Ethics always mattered to me, and I still don’t understand
/ E: s- a4 \, M( s0 y5 f) ~: |, L" {- ewhy he would’ve gotten paid one thing and told me he’d gotten paid another,” he said.: t9 V7 o# l3 q) m: H: W
“But, you know, people are different.”- O8 Z; P. L/ H) c3 y8 J$ n
( w. s' s# K1 s0 ]) M! nWhen Jobs learned this story was published, he called Wozniak to deny it. “He told me
- U% v2 h# p! @& e( M8 O& C# ]that he didn’t remember doing it, and that if he did something like that he would remember' y2 S% d8 S1 S! p* ?8 x
it, so he probably didn’t do it,” Wozniak recalled. When I asked Jobs directly, he became9 j% Z; K& [, c# A* C* S
unusually quiet and hesitant. “I don’t know where that allegation comes from,” he said. “I. H6 g1 g9 n, m1 K# E& ?7 S5 J
gave him half the money I ever got. That’s how I’ve always been with Woz. I mean, Woz
: k" L I* R, |% q- s$ wstopped working in 1978. He never did one ounce of work after 1978. And yet he got
- g9 }$ W/ o5 bexactly the same shares of Apple stock that I did.”
! i) W" Y7 B" w3 j0 e' C
9 @' N- s6 w1 ~) x9 K- fIs it possible that memories are muddled and that Jobs did not, in fact, shortchange
4 t7 N$ f/ {+ iWozniak? “There’s a chance that my memory is all wrong and messed up,” Wozniak told
" |, b a, m+ V* Z4 ~# d8 nme, but after a pause he reconsidered. “But no. I remember the details of this one, the $3509 T5 Y" ^( a* v
check.” He confirmed his memory with Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn. “I remember& E- l: Z3 n8 _ n
talking about the bonus money to Woz, and he was upset,” Bushnell said. “I said yes, there " ?: D2 L2 n( H9 d
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+ C" E/ x. C+ V' \" t: L0 m: Y5 [! [4 Q2 i# Q9 a
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was a bonus for each chip they saved, and he just shook his head and then clucked his4 W9 u; j+ s j" V6 x
tongue.”
% }& G3 M; u0 Y+ h( S: V6 i& c& s
Whatever the truth, Wozniak later insisted that it was not worth rehashing. Jobs is a
) y: _& F6 H, ^$ y, [) zcomplex person, he said, and being manipulative is just the darker facet of the traits that
* {! m! a9 l; Q. c; \9 O9 V! Qmake him successful. Wozniak would never have been that way, but as he points out, he
4 }. P, u* O. E* ~/ _5 Falso could never have built Apple. “I would rather let it pass,” he said when I pressed the
/ `4 p0 Q: ^2 F' L- [point. “It’s not something I want to judge Steve by.”3 `( K2 }9 B; e0 p* {6 ^
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The Atari experience helped shape Jobs’s approach to business and design. He* O1 }, r9 }# }8 o$ A
appreciated the user-friendliness of Atari’s insert-quarter-avoid-Klingons games. “That0 y. }( y+ c, c P# D1 L
simplicity rubbed off on him and made him a very focused product person,” said Ron" M7 Q3 Z. @* j4 X* L/ {) [
Wayne. Jobs also absorbed some of Bushnell’s take-no-prisoners attitude. “Nolan wouldn’t
9 \, o& _: |1 {. d3 v9 Ltake no for an answer,” according to Alcorn, “and this was Steve’s first impression of how
u1 E4 Q' U4 M/ |things got done. Nolan was never abusive, like Steve sometimes is. But he had the same/ [/ M: _/ m2 d/ L* V4 j
driven attitude. It made me cringe, but dammit, it got things done. In that way Nolan was a
- s6 d% j# t5 V% e9 n2 b& `mentor for Jobs.”0 K n% W0 i+ n+ i, o
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Bushnell agreed. “There is something indefinable in an entrepreneur, and I saw that in
+ s: R# x$ C1 _4 x) G3 n# ^1 eSteve,” he said. “He was interested not just in engineering, but also the business aspects. I# n9 ^5 e* I9 W0 g& @& F2 j3 b
taught him that if you act like you can do something, then it will work. I told him, ‘Pretend
& Y5 q0 [, _1 R( f+ B9 r) N; Fto be completely in control and people will assume that you are.’”9 W9 j2 z0 p5 A ^0 \* {2 |$ t$ E
5 z0 ]! v- W+ y* G5 w+ L) ?3 r; k" x$ P- ^: Z$ e" Q
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! b# E4 F, z: Z0 H- D/ L8 sCHAPTER FIVE
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- _. g H) i8 W/ X) u# BTHE APPLE I+ y/ W& o" S' }. t# X. P2 r6 H
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Turn On, Boot Up, Jack In . . . $ y# J9 c1 b6 _. C7 c; X) s* b: O
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Daniel Kottke and Jobs with the Apple I at the Atlantic City computer fair, 1976+ W/ V8 V/ G5 K6 W
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错误!超链接引用无效。/ p6 D9 E5 w1 r: p5 n3 P" a
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In San Francisco and the Santa Clara Valley during the late 1960s, various cultural currents
( q7 j7 E3 D$ _flowed together. There was the technology revolution that began with the growth of" w: a" I* S4 J- h
military contractors and soon included electronics firms, microchip makers, video game
3 R6 E* e) }) W) O a% R- l: Cdesigners, and computer companies. There was a hacker subculture—filled with wireheads,$ `0 F; E( q) b# k& J2 z
phreakers, cyberpunks, hobbyists, and just plain geeks—that included engineers who didn’t' f7 N, q' L3 n% M8 Q; w
conform to the HP mold and their kids who weren’t attuned to the wavelengths of the! T) {8 p: T1 Z& f% |( Q. A
subdivisions. There were quasi-academic groups doing studies on the effects of LSD;3 a' f8 R9 @8 m; V4 x \& D
participants included Doug Engelbart of the Augmentation Research Center in Palo Alto,& f/ _9 K* k& D4 d$ B% Q% Y6 L7 m/ i6 w# T
who later helped develop the computer mouse and graphical user interfaces, and Ken# Z" f8 V( d+ L0 C
Kesey, who celebrated the drug with music-and-light shows featuring a house band that
% s+ N3 h2 c+ Z& ?0 Z, G9 N$ o) [became the Grateful Dead. There was the hippie movement, born out of the Bay Area’s/ v( L$ J+ {8 I, @
beat generation, and the rebellious political activists, born out of the Free Speech+ E8 M7 n) q3 ]* L' z
Movement at Berkeley. Overlaid on it all were various self-fulfillment movements pursuing1 [: Z2 y+ H9 D; W6 }
paths to personal enlightenment: Zen and Hinduism, meditation and yoga, primal scream
! O7 |/ o( z# G7 O4 \and sensory deprivation, Esalen and est.) I0 m) { |2 C' S
This fusion of flower power and processor power, enlightenment and technology, was. {0 h' N! T8 d L
embodied by Steve Jobs as he meditated in the mornings, audited physics classes at2 U7 ]. x3 l) N
Stanford, worked nights at Atari, and dreamed of starting his own business. “There was just+ L( K# q( x, Y' j1 Q" z5 W" g
something going on here,” he said, looking back at the time and place. “The best music
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$ { ]/ a4 j/ _) xcame from here—the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin—and so) v+ q# Y! g( g' E2 |) Q4 n
did the integrated circuit, and things like the Whole Earth Catalog.”/ c# V* P D8 V v. I
Initially the technologists and the hippies did not interface well. Many in the$ h) |2 I, }) j) } f/ B; o& a
counterculture saw computers as ominous and Orwellian, the province of the Pentagon and
1 t4 u$ u2 k3 U! F, w: e, wthe power structure. In The Myth of the Machine, the historian Lewis Mumford warned that* h6 V; {3 s; `4 v! M
computers were sucking away our freedom and destroying “life-enhancing values.” An
5 Z! n, b- N* F+ F; }( i3 Minjunction on punch cards of the period—“Do not fold, spindle or mutilate”—became an
, c1 V% ~0 g3 o* v; `/ }1 n9 Dironic phrase of the antiwar Left.
. b2 Q8 Y- z. b3 V# s2 CBut by the early 1970s a shift was under way. “Computing went from being dismissed as
# g, e" b- `# ?9 ~0 G, ^a tool of bureaucratic control to being embraced as a symbol of individual expression and9 I/ y$ D- a- x' Q
liberation,” John Markoff wrote in his study of the counterculture’s convergence with the
' \9 n8 T# {4 R1 P9 mcomputer industry, What the Dormouse Said. It was an ethos lyrically expressed in Richard
4 ^2 P1 y- e7 Q& jBrautigan’s 1967 poem, “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace,” and the! M/ ? l; o$ J2 G
cyberdelic fusion was certified when Timothy Leary declared that personal computers had
9 N6 N4 j$ d* f& B% G; d1 |become the new LSD and years later revised his famous mantra to proclaim, “Turn on, boot# d' z; S4 A5 h# K. K( k& _( @0 z5 U* J
up, jack in.” The musician Bono, who later became a friend of Jobs, often discussed with3 K/ ^$ J+ A# b
him why those immersed in the rock-drugs-rebel counterculture of the Bay Area ended up. ]2 t" }; F8 d0 O+ ~
helping to create the personal computer industry. “The people who invented the twenty-first5 ~( F7 y6 E% l% G9 R/ I4 d5 |7 {5 y
century were pot-smoking, sandal-wearing hippies from the West Coast like Steve, because
. w) Z b. r! zthey saw differently,” he said. “The hierarchical systems of the East Coast, England,
, p+ a& p) | k/ [5 `Germany, and Japan do not encourage this different thinking. The sixties produced an% F; l: }0 B* J: C4 Q
anarchic mind-set that is great for imagining a world not yet in existence.”
8 z' \7 _' o. x5 }7 _One person who encouraged the denizens of the counterculture to make common cause
" _" c' N* v, B- qwith the hackers was Stewart Brand. A puckish visionary who generated fun and ideas over
2 r2 B: @# Y6 T* J) X. ~many decades, Brand was a participant in one of the early sixties LSD studies in Palo Alto.3 t+ ~1 P+ D; q" c, f' a4 t3 [
He joined with his fellow subject Ken Kesey to produce the acid-celebrating Trips Festival,
. `3 `$ s& w. F* Happeared in the opening scene of Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and worked
: Q! o6 d B' }' N2 G1 {3 Cwith Doug Engelbart to create a seminal sound-and-light presentation of new technologies
- n6 }3 @6 s) w i7 }called the Mother of All Demos. “Most of our generation scorned computers as the1 L0 u$ Z! u; m7 R9 P7 }$ Q0 M: T: k
embodiment of centralized control,” Brand later noted. “But a tiny contingent—later called
* D6 _* d0 R# a2 f% @hackers—embraced computers and set about transforming them into tools of liberation.
3 F3 a$ R- ]5 T1 u8 q' zThat turned out to be the true royal road to the future.”
( z2 ^- ~, t: I& W+ K* i6 kBrand ran the Whole Earth Truck Store, which began as a roving truck that sold useful) R& ]" X* F6 c/ w% D$ ~& G2 }! R
tools and educational materials, and in 1968 he decided to extend its reach with the Whole0 Q- X5 ~, J& ]4 U/ m7 }
Earth Catalog. On its first cover was the famous picture of Earth taken from space; its
- m7 F: b- y' i- E, L5 |% psubtitle was “Access to Tools.” The underlying philosophy was that technology could be
; f) u- A3 \! kour friend. Brand wrote on the first page of the first edition, “A realm of intimate, personal8 S; @8 G5 ?6 ?. o' C
power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own
) Y) R9 k7 |1 Z' a1 f8 ?inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested.. Q6 |# W, ]9 a
Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the Whole Earth Catalog.”4 ]- o# h: e; r6 B
Buckminster Fuller followed with a poem that began: “I see God in the instruments and* W. C# M8 _; f1 Q2 p. u
mechanisms that work reliably.” 1 z1 E r I+ I4 P8 `
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' p8 x- ] B8 m( YJobs became a Whole Earth fan. He was particularly taken by the final issue, which came E. q2 G. V$ n8 ?" c5 L1 R
out in 1971, when he was still in high school, and he brought it with him to college and- t7 Y- c; i r* H8 g
then to the All One Farm. “On the back cover of their final issue” Jobs recalled, “was a0 ?! E b. E2 C4 Q/ ], h& C# E1 h5 c
photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking
# I. E2 {3 _9 [on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: ‘Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.’”1 U Y$ k5 n6 L5 V* I& M3 x
Brand sees Jobs as one of the purest embodiments of the cultural mix that the catalog9 F5 V0 C1 ~% v. u3 s: ~; y
sought to celebrate. “Steve is right at the nexus of the counterculture and technology,” he5 z8 j8 E( j$ {; @+ `, X
said. “He got the notion of tools for human use.”
' D. u9 j4 K% uBrand’s catalog was published with the help of the Portola Institute, a foundation% G8 \) ^* a, ?) @9 k
dedicated to the fledgling field of computer education. The foundation also helped launch2 m, S. F! y5 r1 ]" S
the People’s Computer Company, which was not a company at all but a newsletter and% F& L& }" h: O) m7 Q4 N
organization with the motto “Computer power to the people.” There were occasional
3 Q* S9 l/ l0 J" y1 MWednesday-night potluck dinners, and two of the regulars, Gordon French and Fred Moore,+ a! M$ Z$ l" _3 S" F. U
decided to create a more formal club where news about personal electronics could be2 g9 v4 G( h1 N
shared." S2 k$ R+ }% `% F6 ]
They were energized by the arrival of the January 1975 issue of Popular Mechanics,) t: P% q$ R7 F E' j7 p u% f& Z' ^
which had on its cover the first personal computer kit, the Altair. The Altair wasn’t much—
6 [# E9 b# i4 p& xjust a $495 pile of parts that had to be soldered to a board that would then do little—but for
, _, c2 N+ \, D7 Z% \hobbyists and hackers it heralded the dawn of a new era. Bill Gates and Paul Allen read the- F/ P- H8 O+ D+ f" T
magazine and started working on a version of BASIC, an easy-to-use programming
6 F2 t6 q- b* }- {; nlanguage, for the Altair. It also caught the attention of Jobs and Wozniak. And when an2 j# u; K2 V1 n/ k- |8 ~# a
Altair kit arrived at the People’s Computer Company, it became the centerpiece for the first
' W( Q8 G& z0 x0 E3 E4 Gmeeting of the club that French and Moore had decided to launch.- t% K3 U* I" @) K& M( ^' ]
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$ j2 e+ w# k) Y, fThe group became known as the Homebrew Computer Club, and it encapsulated the Whole
- b+ ^. v# \3 b& T3 Y4 R2 B' tEarth fusion between the counterculture and technology. It would become to the personal5 @# ]8 z+ }& P; L( K
computer era something akin to what the Turk’s Head coffeehouse was to the age of Dr.! s4 I7 D) |1 i6 h2 D2 ]
Johnson, a place where ideas were exchanged and disseminated. Moore wrote the flyer for+ M. P S& k$ O, {+ Y3 `/ Q
the first meeting, held on March 5, 1975, in French’s Menlo Park garage: “Are you
( R! {7 M; D3 C$ P3 |2 U4 mbuilding your own computer? Terminal, TV, typewriter?” it asked. “If so, you might like to
) r$ m6 \# e$ s0 l D5 Ncome to a gathering of people with like-minded interests.”/ i% U1 _- Y6 v' G" S& D
Allen Baum spotted the flyer on the HP bulletin board and called Wozniak, who agreed* h4 _. T" f1 B9 q J' i. p
to go with him. “That night turned out to be one of the most important nights of my life,”5 C7 M8 K2 t8 n* J9 e( s$ u: _, Z
Wozniak recalled. About thirty other people showed up, spilling out of French’s open
8 q( D7 ~( i/ ?garage door, and they took turns describing their interests. Wozniak, who later admitted to1 J# k8 M* C! C( P- q' m) E4 o
being extremely nervous, said he liked “video games, pay movies for hotels, scientific- Q2 m% m6 e: _
calculator design, and TV terminal design,” according to the minutes prepared by Moore.
) G1 k( |5 m% x1 QThere was a demonstration of the new Altair, but more important to Wozniak was seeing$ T5 E& f/ j/ q" ~$ m
the specification sheet for a microprocessor.9 ?! A p( f0 ?' @
As he thought about the microprocessor—a chip that had an entire central processing3 t; N v/ M8 T2 _( i
unit on it—he had an insight. He had been designing a terminal, with a keyboard and
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# f. d/ ?( D: l% m7 ?5 H6 x+ J) umonitor, that would connect to a distant minicomputer. Using a microprocessor, he could
, ]- R8 A; ]2 Y0 V4 a% eput some of the capacity of the minicomputer inside the terminal itself, so it could become1 K) F& U1 N& }3 W4 D( T' W0 A% b
a small stand-alone computer on a desktop. It was an enduring idea: keyboard, screen, and4 Q7 l& {& p2 u7 \' c* X
computer all in one integrated personal package. “This whole vision of a personal computer7 D9 h; C: z h/ `5 W; h( Q
just popped into my head,” he said. “That night, I started to sketch out on paper what would& v. i* {: Z1 B5 u
later become known as the Apple I.”
6 h! r7 T: R8 l6 F5 [6 @9 l) UAt first he planned to use the same microprocessor that was in the Altair, an Intel 8080.& L; q+ k% ]+ @. [0 P, ?- n- d" p
But each of those “cost almost more than my monthly rent,” so he looked for an alternative.- ?! y/ g( [3 L* b! f' `
He found one in the Motorola 6800, which a friend at HP was able to get for $40 apiece.
; e2 ^8 Y, E+ `9 ZThen he discovered a chip made by MOS Technologies that was electronically the same but% c9 A7 i- v$ i1 H7 Q
cost only $20. It would make his machine affordable, but it would carry a long-term cost.& @9 K, _' R) N. {3 `
Intel’s chips ended up becoming the industry standard, which would haunt Apple when its
, a( F- j" A& H) y! ?% a& ]computers were incompatible with it.
7 @* y7 c8 J- sAfter work each day, Wozniak would go home for a TV dinner and then return to HP to- t( h, M5 r& }) g$ p8 c2 n2 k
moonlight on his computer. He spread out the parts in his cubicle, figured out their. e' D3 ^# a) C! o
placement, and soldered them onto his motherboard. Then he began writing the software% U# g) [6 x' I* X3 Z1 t: D
that would get the microprocessor to display images on the screen. Because he could not
# X- v7 N( a$ Y. j+ fafford to pay for computer time, he wrote the code by hand. After a couple of months he
. [, G% k" b6 @; Pwas ready to test it. “I typed a few keys on the keyboard and I was shocked! The letters2 N1 F( o/ a8 b: ~) ]% i
were displayed on the screen.” It was Sunday, June 29, 1975, a milestone for the personal
8 X& _2 E5 H( v/ L# o3 tcomputer. “It was the first time in history,” Wozniak later said, “anyone had typed a
/ T* D+ P# z% M5 ycharacter on a keyboard and seen it show up on their own computer’s screen right in front! ^3 ? `7 w6 T5 o) v! W
of them.”
0 w& ^7 P4 i# rJobs was impressed. He peppered Wozniak with questions: Could the computer ever be# t" K5 E2 A$ J }- {6 a
networked? Was it possible to add a disk for memory storage? He also began to help Woz
' \) i% T L. P& I9 X4 kget components. Particularly important were the dynamic random-access memory chips.( F6 w- N- ?9 M
Jobs made a few calls and was able to score some from Intel for free. “Steve is just that sort
8 o! w1 s7 P8 c9 ^; c) R$ xof person,” said Wozniak. “I mean, he knew how to talk to a sales representative. I could I! t7 D7 W8 o0 j6 }
never have done that. I’m too shy.”
5 L6 F; \3 e; n# BJobs began to accompany Wozniak to Homebrew meetings, carrying the TV monitor and0 ^! Y: U$ f- T5 U* w) T: }4 F: e; w
helping to set things up. The meetings now attracted more than one hundred enthusiasts and- m" ~) w7 |. b' E3 Z1 A
had been moved to the auditorium of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Presiding# V0 S$ I, x' E2 @% Z1 ~
with a pointer and a free-form manner was Lee Felsenstein, another embodiment of the$ j9 R+ L6 Z4 C" N7 R5 ]1 ?# M) _
merger between the world of computing and the counterculture. He was an engineering% b# f1 H) t6 p7 q6 c
school dropout, a participant in the Free Speech Movement, and an antiwar activist. He had8 _$ f% P3 b$ Y3 {% `
written for the alternative newspaper Berkeley Barb and then gone back to being a
6 B1 I/ I$ O# g0 q% j" i6 y; d- A8 vcomputer engineer.
6 B$ ~$ C- u7 o0 J" _) KWoz was usually too shy to talk in the meetings, but people would gather around his7 X6 b: E0 |% F d1 y' N
machine afterward, and he would proudly show off his progress. Moore had tried to instill
0 k) s6 R( g3 n# S* {7 h# ain the Homebrew an ethos of swapping and sharing rather than commerce. “The theme of+ i2 R. v8 ^) v7 i; z
the club,” Woz said, “was ‘Give to help others.’” It was an expression of the hacker ethic
( E* p- l2 H! s% @. \. C) E4 bthat information should be free and all authority mistrusted. “I designed the Apple I+ |* T& w/ c! f7 S5 z3 J
because I wanted to give it away for free to other people,” said Wozniak.
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This was not an outlook that Bill Gates embraced. After he and Paul Allen had- D1 P' A8 \. X, E& M, K8 h; m/ i2 V
completed their BASIC interpreter for the Altair, Gates was appalled that members of the2 S8 N$ ^2 H7 H% r7 O0 w
Homebrew were making copies of it and sharing it without paying him. So he wrote what1 v2 Y" e/ W. _- S |9 Z6 s3 S5 P
would become a famous letter to the club: “As the majority of hobbyists must be aware,2 h, U9 s( p) B* V
most of you steal your software. Is this fair? . . . One thing you do is prevent good software
- S, k3 Q7 u: [/ I, d& Cfrom being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? . . . I would
9 V6 s; J! w+ Happreciate letters from anyone who wants to pay up.”
. i. B9 T" ~7 h! hSteve Jobs, similarly, did not embrace the notion that Wozniak’s creations, be it a Blue7 p2 z) U3 {- a/ ?: d+ b2 c
Box or a computer, wanted to be free. So he convinced Wozniak to stop giving away copies
5 _, Q2 k1 R8 r2 r" t; R1 Z6 Hof his schematics. Most people didn’t have time to build it themselves anyway, Jobs2 ?' V8 t. e7 U$ E& z( O; I
argued. “Why don’t we build and sell printed circuit boards to them?” It was an example of
# u8 _8 D9 u3 v* K w. ntheir symbiosis. “Every time I’d design something great, Steve would find a way to make1 Q' a/ l- `" _: y& S/ d! H2 {" p
money for us,” said Wozniak. Wozniak admitted that he would have never thought of doing% d7 L* x5 y. t
that on his own. “It never crossed my mind to sell computers. It was Steve who said, ‘Let’s9 {+ m9 o2 f' }8 u: Q2 c2 r: D3 J& I
hold them in the air and sell a few.’”6 G) C; x1 R6 b. g& D
Jobs worked out a plan to pay a guy he knew at Atari to draw the circuit boards and then1 Y+ [) F) W" l8 C
print up fifty or so. That would cost about $1,000, plus the fee to the designer. They could+ ?# p: v- u- E M2 U% w
sell them for $40 apiece and perhaps clear a profit of $700. Wozniak was dubious that they# A) E+ k% U; l& U, c% i2 R! e2 K3 ^
could sell them all. “I didn’t see how we would make our money back,” he recalled. He- w& G7 u, g" F y, e) A. G$ C
was already in trouble with his landlord for bouncing checks and now had to pay each
# S. E9 w4 k( W! b$ ~! z8 {, mmonth in cash.0 `% D: H' X) [ r/ J, G4 E
Jobs knew how to appeal to Wozniak. He didn’t argue that they were sure to make; }$ U! j. u$ e. N3 z
money, but instead that they would have a fun adventure. “Even if we lose our money,
. c% E9 |" M2 X0 c: lwe’ll have a company,” said Jobs as they were driving in his Volkswagen bus. “For once in
& D" |8 g x; Your lives, we’ll have a company.” This was enticing to Wozniak, even more than any
^3 K2 L" O: j. h2 g yprospect of getting rich. He recalled, “I was excited to think about us like that. To be two
O( A0 M. t2 o' }% Wbest friends starting a company. Wow. I knew right then that I’d do it. How could I not?”
+ d# b D4 G j9 f* _# @. UIn order to raise the money they needed, Wozniak sold his HP 65 calculator for $500,
( ~+ n' i4 @0 n1 y. i" qthough the buyer ended up stiffing him for half of that. For his part, Jobs sold his5 n/ P' s6 p/ ~7 V$ G: J
Volkswagen bus for $1,500. But the person who bought it came to find him two weeks later$ ]. w! d3 N/ L5 J4 E: A
and said the engine had broken down, and Jobs agreed to pay for half of the repairs.8 r: |& S/ B* I: ^6 z" F. R) `' P
Despite these little setbacks, they now had, with their own small savings thrown in, about
* L' T o" x+ b8 b- k0 ~! p- T$ E$1,300 in working capital, the design for a product, and a plan. They would start their own# A) x' K' }4 H: [
computer company.
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% Z8 m o8 | g+ T1 q错误!超链接引用无效。
" w: w' h E& L3 G/ o
/ h* T# r/ [. cNow that they had decided to start a business, they needed a name. Jobs had gone for
; ] r% Z* r( Z) e5 | U- R) manother visit to the All One Farm, where he had been pruning the Gravenstein apple trees,
' T4 ~# E2 g4 \) Q! ~( fand Wozniak picked him up at the airport. On the ride down to Los Altos, they bandied
) i. w! L0 n9 b5 @3 x, qaround options. They considered some typical tech words, such as Matrix, and some) Z3 S0 G" J: g0 L
neologisms, such as Executek, and some straightforward boring names, like Personal& ^' e& ]2 d5 }9 j* V1 }
Computers Inc. The deadline for deciding was the next day, when Jobs wanted to start
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