|
college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my8 T; E2 d. b/ k/ d' [, f
parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work
# ?( _% d% k/ R& ~' L" Q4 Yout okay.”* c) ]" ^5 L! ^
) s/ N% Y3 R* h1 x( nHe didn’t actually want to leave Reed; he just wanted to quit paying tuition and taking
' n5 s" [ P5 W# U5 T) f% f/ qclasses that didn’t interest him. Remarkably, Reed tolerated that. “He had a very inquiring
7 b! v. b( |5 Z+ `4 R+ hmind that was enormously attractive,” said the dean of students, Jack Dudman. “He refused" J1 P/ z, j' R8 @$ }+ ~
to accept automatically received truths, and he wanted to examine everything himself.”
) E$ L7 S2 i9 t& q: W; v8 }# d7 E2 `Dudman allowed Jobs to audit classes and stay with friends in the dorms even after he
# U5 ?' @ I4 d( ~7 tstopped paying tuition.
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* ?$ S. ]: d" G& R“The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest( x# Z! P0 |9 p/ p. ?( @
me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting,” he said. Among them was a5 U( k$ b5 A( o. R: j
calligraphy class that appealed to him after he saw posters on campus that were beautifully
$ F# X3 A* A( bdrawn. “I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space
* X- [9 ~6 c# X& w! d3 {& u% t8 I8 Kbetween different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was- q# [/ z0 z" ~. u2 K% k6 A2 M) ^
beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it% d7 y0 Q/ J% J
fascinating.”% }6 A( C7 p3 g! c' N
6 O3 D) o! M1 T! D) \It was yet another example of Jobs consciously positioning himself at the intersection7 e+ b9 J( m$ T
of the arts and technology. In all of his products, technology would be married to great5 r: L0 p G4 H5 }
design, elegance, human touches, and even romance. He would be in the fore of pushing L. q% E* e! v$ M$ c7 z) w' G$ V
friendly graphical user interfaces. The calligraphy course would become iconic in that
# ^/ F% P, D a0 }% \regard. “If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have$ l9 P# Z! k) o/ M$ r
never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just
0 @% F! I; S$ D- c1 i0 mcopied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.”
+ k9 Y, ]/ Q& P% M/ d! G: m7 l6 a4 H; P. o; C3 v
In the meantime Jobs eked out a bohemian existence on the fringes of Reed. He went) t! v$ a* e2 I' s
barefoot most of the time, wearing sandals when it snowed. Elizabeth Holmes made meals7 j/ X! _' w' B( E) W$ N' |
for him, trying to keep up with his obsessive diets. He returned soda bottles for spare
* d4 [) w( X) b# `; t& pchange, continued his treks to the free Sunday dinners at the Hare Krishna temple, and) B7 W# ^( r7 j! A& ~
wore a down jacket in the heatless garage apartment he rented for $20 a month. When he* s% p z- C4 X" g* r: C$ C- x
needed money, he found work at the psychology department lab maintaining the electronic) `/ E; `( N m4 G1 c5 j
equipment that was used for animal behavior experiments. Occasionally Chrisann Brennan
2 s3 V' s# ]* p0 w6 Twould come to visit. Their relationship sputtered along erratically. But mostly he tended to5 r3 s2 l2 U7 @# l, e6 \2 m
the stirrings of his own soul and personal quest for enlightenment.
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2 B) _$ l% C# t3 |& w. k) q5 \' k* I/ |0 M8 x2 ? u
“I came of age at a magical time,” he reflected later. “Our consciousness was raised by
2 C5 ~8 I, q' {4 SZen, and also by LSD.” Even later in life he would credit psychedelic drugs for making
9 U$ W1 X+ [8 Zhim more enlightened. “Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important
8 z( S: a" c' v# B; L. d* l' Qthings in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t4 F0 D! v+ B! ]9 G' v
remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was / P4 G" @8 o! [* k
3 b+ a$ K6 a) x. e$ H
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important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the
. x a# `& i" W$ a; T( p2 w/ R: ^1 @stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”
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9 N! d6 D- {! `# F. o6 @3 T
* A0 H9 k8 e2 w; R- wCHAPTER FOUR7 R9 i Y7 Q$ |8 T$ R8 g' o
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5 k+ n4 l% D a; u# ]3 a4 g) C
* I$ ^2 I8 o- K1 H. E, ~, _
ATARI AND INDIA& {! C3 X: a! j" ~$ i, C/ f, V, h
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, ^( m W, k! Q9 ]
Zen and the Art of Game Design7 E h% \' G/ f! I5 k
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Atari. H: W6 y: g. y
5 f+ {) J5 ?! l( ?( R5 `% D* oIn February 1974, after eighteen months of hanging around Reed, Jobs decided to move
: M/ Z$ |" I( j& H6 bback to his parents’ home in Los Altos and look for a job. It was not a difficult search. At
3 X& w/ r% X) a6 Opeak times during the 1970s, the classified section of the San Jose Mercury carried up to
) @6 \+ F* l. i* `4 G' y, psixty pages of technology help-wanted ads. One of those caught Jobs’s eye. “Have fun,8 ]3 e9 F/ f3 A3 g7 E/ @; n/ f: B
make money,” it said. That day Jobs walked into the lobby of the video game manufacturer
, m; W; f8 T- L2 yAtari and told the personnel director, who was startled by his unkempt hair and attire, that4 {1 J/ M' v0 F( O% R
he wouldn’t leave until they gave him a job.
3 q A T9 y8 D2 i8 I4 R; V6 _* {; W9 W, b" |! F! V
Atari’s founder was a burly entrepreneur named Nolan Bushnell, who was a charismatic5 i6 |7 {, v" O, @. @$ |7 T0 v0 H7 F
visionary with a nice touch of showmanship in him—in other words, another role model$ l. J. i4 x, c ^/ K
waiting to be emulated. After he became famous, he liked driving around in a Rolls,
8 u: R5 |* Z; K. p8 Zsmoking dope, and holding staff meetings in a hot tub. As Friedland had done and as Jobs' p# a: V U2 R3 z
would learn to do, he was able to turn charm into a cunning force, to cajole and intimidate
( o$ B; X' X0 G, y0 [8 Sand distort reality with the power of his personality. His chief engineer was Al Alcorn,4 N& l. a. }) z+ R; Q
beefy and jovial and a bit more grounded, the house grown-up trying to implement the
/ W V& A u i, xvision and curb the enthusiasms of Bushnell. Their big hit thus far was a video game called
& j7 ]' B9 B: I, I/ {Pong, in which two players tried to volley a blip on a screen with two movable lines that% |- n$ M# x M+ s. O
acted as paddles. (If you’re under thirty, ask your parents.)
* R R- f' o; [2 B
; t8 F) [- D1 b: |When Jobs arrived in the Atari lobby wearing sandals and demanding a job, Alcorn was4 `- Y6 t% ~; ?" ^& g* C* y3 W9 n# S
the one who was summoned. “I was told, ‘We’ve got a hippie kid in the lobby. He says he’s
, D, K8 \8 a. N% f; `not going to leave until we hire him. Should we call the cops or let him in?’ I said bring8 U. Z; E' Q/ `, C5 H- g
him on in!”' A7 |% _0 Z0 @2 U. ], m4 Q
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Jobs thus became one of the first fifty employees at Atari, working as a technician for1 E$ a( s- w. z* Y1 n' s
$5 an hour. “In retrospect, it was weird to hire a dropout from Reed,” Alcorn recalled. “But + l- J) Q3 @8 r* X0 `) ?& z! t
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4 {- s" C% N3 s7 b, d0 c
+ y; y/ ?9 H1 I: f& i
7 d0 h* D) E+ s5 }+ fI saw something in him. He was very intelligent, enthusiastic, excited about tech.” Alcorn
! y. n( t( s5 z. e f, F8 ^assigned him to work with a straitlaced engineer named Don Lang. The next day Lang
0 N3 N; b9 T: |8 u6 B0 jcomplained, “This guy’s a goddamn hippie with b.o. Why did you do this to me? And he’s
% e# S2 {+ N w) d8 ~4 Fimpossible to deal with.” Jobs clung to the belief that his fruit-heavy vegetarian diet would
) `2 n j$ y5 r( K' m: d% \6 wprevent not just mucus but also body odor, even if he didn’t use deodorant or shower/ v! Y% g; ?1 Z" e, t
regularly. It was a flawed theory.
9 ]9 P" W/ u* L% \7 O1 a" L4 \& d) p$ |" W
Lang and others wanted to let Jobs go, but Bushnell worked out a solution. “The smell: m* a7 N: J5 N$ ]' V# o, |# k
and behavior wasn’t an issue with me,” he said. “Steve was prickly, but I kind of liked him.( [% U( ?6 \4 x% a; L9 H
So I asked him to go on the night shift. It was a way to save him.” Jobs would come in after
5 n6 ^4 I7 U0 J) f! f1 vLang and others had left and work through most of the night. Even thus isolated, he became
6 N6 i- W5 T Y. V2 }" Gknown for his brashness. On those occasions when he happened to interact with others, he
0 |; M: T8 h* L6 }; Rwas prone to informing them that they were “dumb shits.” In retrospect, he stands by that. ]0 j+ e |, A/ H: y7 R* y& d* X1 v
judgment. “The only reason I shone was that everyone else was so bad,” Jobs recalled.
$ O" J2 [9 j5 i( A
+ v/ i. G0 B% f; x. WDespite his arrogance (or perhaps because of it) he was able to charm Atari’s boss. “He
' |( `. H$ z \; k5 dwas more philosophical than the other people I worked with,” Bushnell recalled. “We used
5 [* T, j$ C2 I f, ?to discuss free will versus determinism. I tended to believe that things were much more
. N* o5 Q0 o# |) r- k% k' @determined, that we were programmed. If we had perfect information, we could predict% J, D9 C Y# S7 n1 z" G
people’s actions. Steve felt the opposite.” That outlook accorded with his faith in the power. B& A. b) y; L" _1 f; q
of the will to bend reality.% X' y4 t6 {6 q$ W
' ^/ |8 j1 L% I1 Y# ~/ d
Jobs helped improve some of the games by pushing the chips to produce fun designs,0 v+ p* Q- U+ y# B' L8 O
and Bushnell’s inspiring willingness to play by his own rules rubbed off on him. In
/ c- Q1 c/ p5 \3 uaddition, he intuitively appreciated the simplicity of Atari’s games. They came with no5 J1 a4 L& I K; x. E7 q
manual and needed to be uncomplicated enough that a stoned freshman could figure them! V) |1 i2 T8 ~9 X( n# K
out. The only instructions for Atari’s Star Trek game were “1. Insert quarter. 2. Avoid
0 \/ n" O9 E& j! r5 JKlingons.”
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$ F) S7 X% {4 N/ t$ T9 G9 _Not all of his coworkers shunned Jobs. He became friends with Ron Wayne, a
& V0 d% Z; ^4 e) idraftsman at Atari, who had earlier started a company that built slot machines. It2 j1 k) V3 \# N/ w
subsequently failed, but Jobs became fascinated with the idea that it was possible to start$ ?/ S9 E9 C, j, c: w! M/ ]$ h
your own company. “Ron was an amazing guy,” said Jobs. “He started companies. I had
4 |3 M; v( k$ Gnever met anybody like that.” He proposed to Wayne that they go into business together;
1 B N* x* C" n8 d `1 }/ a9 jJobs said he could borrow $50,000, and they could design and market a slot machine. But5 _; V; ^$ X( ^* ]$ K
Wayne had already been burned in business, so he declined. “I said that was the quickest
& a& J* f/ w- O, s% X* M% mway to lose $50,000,” Wayne recalled, “but I admired the fact that he had a burning drive to
& o- i, E2 g# p) o# M! Ystart his own business.”
6 l' C+ s7 x8 ^ g2 M& J- v* d! H% s2 g! w, n7 C. A, o
One weekend Jobs was visiting Wayne at his apartment, engaging as they often did in
8 |& v. y2 P5 F( D- j, S+ M0 x, pphilosophical discussions, when Wayne said that there was something he needed to tell
- ?3 d' h8 O0 [) m% Zhim. “Yeah, I think I know what it is,” Jobs replied. “I think you like men.” Wayne said
# F0 V1 ]$ ?* a# W" qyes. “It was my first encounter with someone who I knew was gay,” Jobs recalled. “He
! r' b5 ]4 m1 x" y+ o# yplanted the right perspective of it for me.” Jobs grilled him: “When you see a beautiful $ l! u9 }. y3 D% e* J5 c
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woman, what do you feel?” Wayne replied, “It’s like when you look at a beautiful horse.
: h6 L! Y! k. r; MYou can appreciate it, but you don’t want to sleep with it. You appreciate beauty for what it
; K" ~1 G+ T8 X) \; @0 Lis.” Wayne said that it is a testament to Jobs that he felt like revealing this to him. “Nobody
( S* W2 B5 s V: eat Atari knew, and I could count on my toes and fingers the number of people I told in my
* E; X' R7 M0 q1 ~* Xwhole life. But I guess it just felt right to tell him, that he would understand, and it didn’t5 O5 V" C: F$ c/ {2 Q8 E
have any effect on our relationship.”6 d/ c o* H8 V, o5 j
4 C$ o; y, R3 ^1 Q4 O9 ?India! g+ y( V3 b0 R, d- g. o7 k/ L
0 |3 H2 K0 ~1 V+ |2 L# I
One reason Jobs was eager to make some money in early 1974 was that Robert
& t! i* o1 X. t/ y8 X4 e4 hFriedland, who had gone to India the summer before, was urging him to take his own3 j1 J' z) ~. E! e; p
spiritual journey there. Friedland had studied in India with Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji),
0 T8 X, W0 q, z6 V$ G5 _$ G, Y, ~$ |who had been the guru to much of the sixties hippie movement. Jobs decided he should do9 A. H, A3 G# ]6 D; R
the same, and he recruited Daniel Kottke to go with him. Jobs was not motivated by mere' \, F1 E- M9 d$ J: d
adventure. “For me it was a serious search,” he said. “I’d been turned on to the idea of% l0 J# J" ^7 N" X* E& Y
enlightenment and trying to figure out who I was and how I fit into things.” Kottke adds2 |4 f- M+ ?3 B2 m
that Jobs’s quest seemed driven partly by not knowing his birth parents. “There was a hole
- ^$ M( b! \5 H& _9 c1 min him, and he was trying to fill it.”
+ R; R4 U4 {8 E" w S; E( u
- a' s( \3 i6 ^When Jobs told the folks at Atari that he was quitting to go search for a guru in India,
7 A+ q! m9 {* Q" b# H% wthe jovial Alcorn was amused. “He comes in and stares at me and declares, ‘I’m going to) [$ I7 J: q$ p' l1 t( r
find my guru,’ and I say, ‘No shit, that’s super. Write me!’ And he says he wants me to help; _* h- ^. q, W' j5 G% b ^4 I
pay, and I tell him, ‘Bullshit!’” Then Alcorn had an idea. Atari was making kits and
- l( E ~& L/ |# O- S' m1 P8 ]shipping them to Munich, where they were built into finished machines and distributed by a+ o" K/ @& j2 x
wholesaler in Turin. But there was a problem: Because the games were designed for the9 d2 I4 v. D) c5 l- _: D. ]
American rate of sixty frames per second, there were frustrating interference problems in
" _$ `5 T U0 @) G! s7 g/ a$ LEurope, where the rate was fifty frames per second. Alcorn sketched out a fix with Jobs and, _: T6 H: h. ]! y1 b+ Q
then offered to pay for him to go to Europe to implement it. “It’s got to be cheaper to get to
% P% r+ \& I% LIndia from there,” he said. Jobs agreed. So Alcorn sent him on his way with the
( k8 ~' l, G6 v: x9 `exhortation, “Say hi to your guru for me.”
3 V- }! @5 [# I- ^) A* U
( D) h6 a. I8 _& E3 vJobs spent a few days in Munich, where he solved the interference problem, but in the% F* M! [" s3 Y6 i4 d8 \ l
process he flummoxed the dark-suited German managers. They complained to Alcorn that; I9 n9 G9 _3 O
he dressed and smelled like a bum and behaved rudely. “I said, ‘Did he solve the problem?’
$ J5 w, P) b. y6 ^/ hAnd they said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘If you got any more problems, you just call me, I got more
0 }. e/ w3 L( Y1 l0 A& `; Iguys just like him!’ They said, ‘No, no we’ll take care of it next time.’” For his part, Jobs3 Y( C& `; P+ o0 t' d6 j
was upset that the Germans kept trying to feed him meat and potatoes. “They don’t even
1 [0 c* }1 A, M; q- Q [; R, bhave a word for vegetarian,” he complained (incorrectly) in a phone call to Alcorn.+ H) p- e+ @2 J* r! w1 X
7 }% C7 M/ R0 |% @2 N3 z* o# ^He had a better time when he took the train to see the distributor in Turin, where the
# c* ?* |8 c2 b( u% wItalian pastas and his host’s camaraderie were more simpatico. “I had a wonderful couple of+ g9 T0 B2 @$ Y& C% ~& G4 q
weeks in Turin, which is this charged-up industrial town,” he recalled. “The distributor' g3 Z! \# c2 M8 T% }3 k5 T
took me every night to dinner at this place where there were only eight tables and no menu.
2 ]- L- e( B! P! TYou’d just tell them what you wanted, and they made it. One of the tables was on reserve
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9 `3 I1 X( [1 _2 E! [* ~2 P
% T/ E" R/ E0 S; E% vfor the chairman of Fiat. It was really super.” He next went to Lugano, Switzerland, where9 y& K4 f* n9 ^1 ~1 [7 F
he stayed with Friedland’s uncle, and from there took a flight to India.
) C. K; R% T2 s1 W4 z& {. \& O C" Y) G# l
When he got off the plane in New Delhi, he felt waves of heat rising from the tarmac,+ i% ?! j5 l: o+ |
even though it was only April. He had been given the name of a hotel, but it was full, so he ^7 M! @7 C/ Y
went to one his taxi driver insisted was good. “I’m sure he was getting some baksheesh,; o5 |8 E( A" s& v# f
because he took me to this complete dive.” Jobs asked the owner whether the water was9 l" x2 J0 Z, n, d& `
filtered and foolishly believed the answer. “I got dysentery pretty fast. I was sick, really. a4 n! w" N- r9 b- F5 Q# m
sick, a really high fever. I dropped from 160 pounds to 120 in about a week.”
5 b& o& f& p6 }; l
% E- d- K8 a' T0 ]! ?8 LOnce he got healthy enough to move, he decided that he needed to get out of Delhi. So
k! J" E1 [. Q# |9 A6 y: yhe headed to the town of Haridwar, in western India near the source of the Ganges, which
2 Z) B0 ^6 ]( [$ Q' qwas having a festival known as the Kumbh Mela. More than ten million people poured into# X" l; m! G; w/ j/ W2 U$ g
a town that usually contained fewer than 100,000 residents. “There were holy men all/ O3 `/ r) w5 l; m
around. Tents with this teacher and that teacher. There were people riding elephants, you
& X% s: ~! B' z+ t0 e- e: ?name it. I was there for a few days, but I decided that I needed to get out of there too.”7 N* x+ Y& j' W- ]; w5 x) V8 g# O; I
& W; @! i: D/ T9 hHe went by train and bus to a village near Nainital in the foothills of the Himalayas.
6 r6 |! n& H5 q! [' M( sThat was where Neem Karoli Baba lived, or had lived. By the time Jobs got there, he was5 O0 G! {2 q; s q, o- H0 o
no longer alive, at least in the same incarnation. Jobs rented a room with a mattress on the$ |. D0 t( Z7 d6 i/ o; ^8 A
floor from a family who helped him recuperate by feeding him vegetarian meals. “There' d2 s9 W5 {* C% e
was a copy there of Autobiography of a Yogi in English that a previous traveler had left,* L& y+ _, L$ {
and I read it several times because there was not a lot to do, and I walked around from
3 n* i+ L2 N( z1 U h4 j* qvillage to village and recovered from my dysentery.” Among those who were part of the- i+ I/ h0 h/ }5 q; s) V7 y; S
community there was Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist who was working to eradicate
% c1 W, F8 F+ G$ M8 ^smallpox and who later ran Google’s philanthropic arm and the Skoll Foundation. He1 L' m3 r6 D9 S3 |& V6 o! z- i9 R
became Jobs’s lifelong friend.7 {( S M \; f8 z2 m E
9 q3 e- ]7 {7 q
At one point Jobs was told of a young Hindu holy man who was holding a gathering of
% w0 H$ S* ?1 b$ Ehis followers at the Himalayan estate of a wealthy businessman. “It was a chance to meet a- s; n8 P- X) A6 P
spiritual being and hang out with his followers, but it was also a chance to have a good
+ H8 i$ Z) `& P. zmeal. I could smell the food as we got near, and I was very hungry.” As Jobs was eating,
3 p, N; t3 b v& |: C5 T8 x/ v! k zthe holy man—who was not much older than Jobs—picked him out of the crowd, pointed( w( B7 L) `8 ]- C% d( {
at him, and began laughing maniacally. “He came running over and grabbed me and made a! Z/ {0 `; K) z& C
tooting sound and said, ‘You are just like a baby,’” recalled Jobs. “I was not relishing this
5 b, h2 e* T+ Q1 r) Pattention.” Taking Jobs by the hand, he led him out of the worshipful crowd and walked
6 m1 v2 K6 Z5 E$ M6 Uhim up to a hill, where there was a well and a small pond. “We sit down and he pulls out
+ ^2 P! Z2 {" A+ ythis straight razor. I’m thinking he’s a nutcase and begin to worry. Then he pulls out a bar9 K/ t0 f+ S. U. o) f
of soap—I had long hair at the time—and he lathered up my hair and shaved my head. He
: [# }% I! c; G' W: ]5 R0 _told me that he was saving my health.”
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Daniel Kottke arrived in India at the beginning of the summer, and Jobs went back to
/ ?1 r4 Q/ m, x* ] m' l4 T% {$ fNew Delhi to meet him. They wandered, mainly by bus, rather aimlessly. By this point Jobs z6 x# j h; E% U
was no longer trying to find a guru who could impart wisdom, but instead was seeking ) B0 _; E/ Q# c" x# ]
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% }; Z3 U* b) ienlightenment through ascetic experience, deprivation, and simplicity. He was not able to
1 W. f8 X- F& p) ]/ Machieve inner calm. Kottke remembers him getting into a furious shouting match with a
, B& {+ \) j, tHindu woman in a village marketplace who, Jobs alleged, had been watering down the
6 v) s9 M' h2 p& C( n9 \milk she was selling them.; _) @2 G0 w$ J3 ?' ^6 u9 x; ]
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Yet Jobs could also be generous. When they got to the town of Manali, Kottke’s
% u! J3 f8 T% Tsleeping bag was stolen with his traveler’s checks in it. “Steve covered my food expenses7 A, t v9 K+ c
and bus ticket back to Delhi,” Kottke recalled. He also gave Kottke the rest of his own6 F% s& U2 T- j4 p+ [+ v/ [
money, $100, to tide him over.$ @& g N/ |2 U8 y3 \/ |
& p H0 \: W' ?8 l# TDuring his seven months in India, he had written to his parents only sporadically,
7 U+ L, e2 G: M% r# ]8 ~getting mail at the American Express office in New Delhi when he passed through, and so& [ a& o' S& i# J8 f( M
they were somewhat surprised when they got a call from the Oakland airport asking them' O# b8 I0 g e( |- q5 S# o
to pick him up. They immediately drove up from Los Altos. “My head had been shaved, I! N! k* V7 z5 f7 I
was wearing Indian cotton robes, and my skin had turned a deep, chocolate brown-red from( w/ J' i6 G" Z/ e0 y4 B# E6 l3 X
the sun,” he recalled. “So I’m sitting there and my parents walked past me about five times
/ t" i0 ~' N6 _# _, ^7 Vand finally my mother came up and said ‘Steve?’ and I said ‘Hi!’”
1 n( v4 Z6 i3 Y! o
0 c' h0 N0 h/ t$ |" @' qThey took him back home, where he continued trying to find himself. It was a pursuit+ C' u6 g9 b% y; q
with many paths toward enlightenment. In the mornings and evenings he would meditate1 W' n' S7 H7 u! B+ L0 Y
and study Zen, and in between he would drop in to audit physics or engineering courses at# G0 R% m3 T9 s1 r8 q9 D( |
Stanford.2 U3 P u' c2 O/ A! J
% v! q" n4 g a" _4 H( O
The Search
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Jobs’s interest in Eastern spirituality, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and the search for
% H3 y8 I" T1 M/ j$ Z* r4 benlightenment was not merely the passing phase of a nineteen-year-old. Throughout his life
& L! f" R s- ~he would seek to follow many of the basic precepts of Eastern religions, such as the
. ?$ c+ f2 Z4 V5 O Nemphasis on experiential prajñā, wisdom or cognitive understanding that is intuitively
, x2 M7 T; J. Z5 Hexperienced through concentration of the mind. Years later, sitting in his Palo Alto garden,
" A+ Y' ?6 T. q$ c, ^$ lhe reflected on the lasting influence of his trip to India:
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- G: I7 [/ U4 g& {% `3 p8 Z0 ?& aComing back to America was, for me, much more of a cultural shock than going to
' u! t0 B5 @$ p. n; ?! y. zIndia. The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do, they use2 ]- Z8 [) R+ b8 U8 d. B, ?" O0 z
their intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world.7 [* w) n& P0 t; L. g" R3 r/ p5 i
Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a
0 V% q6 V2 P9 j% [9 i- y. F6 V" ibig impact on my work. E5 Q; p4 ?: w, ` _9 {
1 `. t- Z: [* A% [% J8 S
Western rational thought is not an innate human characteristic; it is learned and is the+ y- k: a0 s3 ]1 V* k
great achievement of Western civilization. In the villages of India, they never learned it.! |* E8 ^( e, T4 r, c
They learned something else, which is in some ways just as valuable but in other ways is
- K- {+ v5 l! ^2 b7 V" V) p* enot. That’s the power of intuition and experiential wisdom.
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, A% H) j5 f) a) b6 Z7 e2 K1 I( v
7 D8 u( Y/ }3 l+ e' t5 O9 a3 CComing back after seven months in Indian villages, I saw the craziness of the Western+ ~ N6 Z. [: H- N9 r
world as well as its capacity for rational thought. If you just sit and observe, you will see
5 {6 @+ ^) H7 ohow restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does. S3 A+ B L4 l
calm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things—that’s when your intuition2 {% ^2 V1 G6 D. U' z
starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your* H6 o" k- s! _
mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much
! w/ i5 L" B2 N1 W) P: w! j/ Pmore than you could see before. It’s a discipline; you have to practice it.
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7 Q& N( F! n" h. f J- v% GZen has been a deep influence in my life ever since. At one point I was thinking about1 R# x4 ]# B' Y- w" j9 _
going to Japan and trying to get into the Eihei-ji monastery, but my spiritual advisor urged6 n y, R7 s, d7 f& f
me to stay here. He said there is nothing over there that isn’t here, and he was correct. I
; m7 E# r: s. Z. H: h5 M5 X" _* b8 m6 Vlearned the truth of the Zen saying that if you are willing to travel around the world to meet% d' x( i1 P. V5 q; V
a teacher, one will appear next door.+ J3 V# B1 L: }8 F& q! O* G& n" |7 M
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Jobs did in fact find a teacher right in his own neighborhood. Shunryu Suzuki, who* `; m" B9 }* A, E& K k7 D
wrote Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind and ran the San Francisco Zen Center, used to come to( X- K. o: }7 s+ I7 f( P5 X8 w0 o
Los Altos every Wednesday evening to lecture and meditate with a small group of* H% i: c; X J' `& b% N
followers. After a while he asked his assistant, Kobun Chino Otogawa, to open a full-time
' a% U9 ~7 C$ L, f: ]2 Z: @center there. Jobs became a faithful follower, along with his occasional girlfriend, Chrisann
2 {* [: \: C* ?Brennan, and Daniel Kottke and Elizabeth Holmes. He also began to go by himself on' _; R/ _9 n T9 D' W8 Z0 p0 Q, R
retreats to the Tassajara Zen Center, a monastery near Carmel where Kobun also taught.
G' `# B" q8 k' O6 i9 b- C8 S0 ?; {3 |) ?
Kottke found Kobun amusing. “His English was atrocious,” he recalled. “He would' H: i) \* b' a( P$ W7 U( J
speak in a kind of haiku, with poetic, suggestive phrases. We would sit and listen to him,# s, T9 V# j( L
and half the time we had no idea what he was going on about. I took the whole thing as a
4 ]* Q" ?' s, ], M9 Z+ }kind of lighthearted interlude.” Holmes was more into the scene. “We would go to Kobun’s
& M! P) x4 T* a$ f/ U$ d# m- dmeditations, sit on zafu cushions, and he would sit on a dais,” she said. “We learned how to
7 h! ]- f2 G9 Htune out distractions. It was a magical thing. One evening we were meditating with Kobun1 n& N. O9 n3 D: [: L5 p& r5 h; L
when it was raining, and he taught us how to use ambient sounds to bring us back to focus
- U* D+ l" K. W( Ton our meditation.”9 D6 H2 O& S5 O' X
1 ~& Y/ y6 j0 k1 @* uAs for Jobs, his devotion was intense. “He became really serious and self-important and
. M1 t6 k5 W3 U! W- e" t7 Tjust generally unbearable,” according to Kottke. He began meeting with Kobun almost
: Z. @! u; H: D' N/ A. D4 s- ?daily, and every few months they went on retreats together to meditate. “I ended up
; s& t+ K8 a' A; ^1 b6 }spending as much time as I could with him,” Jobs recalled. “He had a wife who was a nurse
$ t; G+ h7 M; E( y; W2 Cat Stanford and two kids. She worked the night shift, so I would go over and hang out with3 l: i a& c# A" G% M0 X+ I: v
him in the evenings. She would get home about midnight and shoo me away.” They
& o/ X0 g! ~, w* F2 f- Rsometimes discussed whether Jobs should devote himself fully to spiritual pursuits, but& h) o0 j6 C: C- i. j: y( _7 Y
Kobun counseled otherwise. He assured Jobs that he could keep in touch with his spiritual
5 r/ z% D; E/ ?. [+ C" L! k8 N* S5 @side while working in a business. The relationship turned out to be lasting and deep;
% o' Y2 C4 x! f' [% j) R( D9 h% Gseventeen years later Kobun would perform Jobs’s wedding ceremony. , F+ V$ k* `5 z. q
1 ]' B& m' ]% Y- P n2 W5 Z
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/ b( _. S! ]: Q; z! F E! oJobs’s compulsive search for self-awareness also led him to undergo primal scream/ a" q0 Z. K K9 I
therapy, which had recently been developed and popularized by a Los Angeles u8 b6 P# r3 J( k- m( W
psychotherapist named Arthur Janov. It was based on the Freudian theory that
0 h# `7 ?3 H8 f# z3 Gpsychological problems are caused by the repressed pains of childhood; Janov argued that! A: f+ k; h- `1 Z( l. \
they could be resolved by re-suffering these primal moments while fully expressing the9 u" z: O3 Y8 Z0 D7 ^# l
pain—sometimes in screams. To Jobs, this seemed preferable to talk therapy because it1 N* F$ Y* ?8 }6 ^" s3 n
involved intuitive feeling and emotional action rather than just rational analyzing. “This
* D+ b6 W) i4 |, `8 K+ cwas not something to think about,” he later said. “This was something to do: to close your
1 M6 k( W, O: \3 yeyes, hold your breath, jump in, and come out the other end more insightful.”# U+ _) T8 |* n7 X9 i5 z2 n0 ~* @
( ?! G$ w" C6 X. GA group of Janov’s adherents ran a program called the Oregon Feeling Center in an old3 f# @6 R. k: D9 ?
hotel in Eugene that was managed by Jobs’s Reed College guru Robert Friedland, whose, _: i: G x9 R, e
All One Farm commune was nearby. In late 1974, Jobs signed up for a twelve-week course
7 @. @9 I' O- r4 ~( Y3 m% e4 Eof therapy there costing $1,000. “Steve and I were both into personal growth, so I wanted
( [" J* |- ~: Q5 H& A! _to go with him,” Kottke recounted, “but I couldn’t afford it.”% f# {! t2 e# t- K! f/ @
2 W6 `1 I/ B9 T0 u9 z
Jobs confided to close friends that he was driven by the pain he was feeling about being
+ o7 r9 G2 i* z( k0 N. Hput up for adoption and not knowing about his birth parents. “Steve had a very profound
( I4 E& s/ y5 M/ Rdesire to know his physical parents so he could better know himself,” Friedland later said.! Q/ w. n# T- Q) K' _ F/ Y- j3 B
He had learned from Paul and Clara Jobs that his birth parents had both been graduate
+ C3 V8 d1 Y w6 j: jstudents at a university and that his father might be Syrian. He had even thought about
3 x7 U4 M. V2 c0 A4 ^+ Ohiring a private investigator, but he decided not to do so for the time being. “I didn’t want* M! \4 R% M2 M6 C
to hurt my parents,” he recalled, referring to Paul and Clara.
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7 W; A9 n7 `. D6 v& s7 @“He was struggling with the fact that he had been adopted,” according to Elizabeth
! I" V' `5 y4 bHolmes. “He felt that it was an issue that he needed to get hold of emotionally.” Jobs
$ _3 y5 A6 ~2 A- P" @admitted as much to her. “This is something that is bothering me, and I need to focus on it,”5 t! U- T3 o; N% _
he said. He was even more open with Greg Calhoun. “He was doing a lot of soul-searching
6 b! z5 u5 R8 A! P* C4 babout being adopted, and he talked about it with me a lot,” Calhoun recalled. “The primal( J- r4 C7 [1 R; t4 l* U
scream and the mucusless diets, he was trying to cleanse himself and get deeper into his* j, H `+ R' m7 `6 ]& j
frustration about his birth. He told me he was deeply angry about the fact that he had been
- q! V _! G6 zgiven up.”% V: r) |. x- I' p( L2 y- ?
6 t; o: O" R" q( W CJohn Lennon had undergone the same primal scream therapy in 1970, and in December
6 L' k- @1 l( q$ O" o& E- j: Mof that year he released the song “Mother” with the Plastic Ono Band. It dealt with
2 Y' w) l& y/ x" `Lennon’s own feelings about a father who had abandoned him and a mother who had been6 }. M0 ?7 ^6 [/ d
killed when he was a teenager. The refrain includes the haunting chant “Mama don’t go,
- v; k0 S2 f ?5 sDaddy come home.” Jobs used to play the song often.
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3 W/ E2 D$ x8 c6 I/ }/ s. O4 s( IJobs later said that Janov’s teachings did not prove very useful. “He offered a ready-
2 W o5 U/ B7 m4 G' w: i3 a" N. r7 imade, buttoned-down answer which turned out to be far too oversimplistic. It became
4 P# X" Y# p! v* K- K# \obvious that it was not going to yield any great insight.” But Holmes contended that it
8 |/ L0 _3 u% }9 ? D/ R! `made him more confident: “After he did it, he was in a different place. He had a very
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abrasive personality, but there was a peace about him for a while. His confidence improved
* n# U: Z2 L$ q2 W& eand his feelings of inadequacy were reduced.”0 S9 A" X( Y z* L+ c' e: ~7 L
, \- A* O+ I3 q! T
Jobs came to believe that he could impart that feeling of confidence to others and thus- W7 l0 S, w. F. r
push them to do things they hadn’t thought possible. Holmes had broken up with Kottke9 W, M7 g- h4 d! N. v
and joined a religious cult in San Francisco that expected her to sever ties with all past
, W9 i9 H& s; z6 g5 q; cfriends. But Jobs rejected that injunction. He arrived at the cult house in his Ford Ranchero1 L: @% Q- e+ t1 z$ f4 E* B% x6 W; X
one day and announced that he was driving up to Friedland’s apple farm and she was to
' Z% E2 h0 H3 v0 u( r: o+ |( g; r* E7 {come. Even more brazenly, he said she would have to drive part of the way, even though( M2 W! \, ~/ l4 q; D- z# C
she didn’t know how to use the stick shift. “Once we got on the open road, he made me get
% s& A* `5 @, q/ ^behind the wheel, and he shifted the car until we got up to 55 miles per hour,” she recalled.
; K. a- ^. R# u/ s0 ~“Then he puts on a tape of Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, lays his head in my lap, and goes
6 `. A' W1 \$ y; b: u! P5 A: vto sleep. He had the attitude that he could do anything, and therefore so can you. He put his
# v9 p: s: F" k. H" K4 N, m9 Klife in my hands. So that made me do something I didn’t think I could do.”
% w9 T4 o `* p' g) l" k8 y, @1 M: Z, C/ T1 A" H J) S0 y
It was the brighter side of what would become known as his reality distortion field. “If
) k: d6 x! _! w5 A3 gyou trust him, you can do things,” Holmes said. “If he’s decided that something should! C S. L, b3 X% q
happen, then he’s just going to make it happen.”5 d7 R) v v/ s. ?
1 [) [. c* t% \% g ?% k* c, J3 K
Breakout: l/ U- w1 j6 _9 n
% Y# P" t6 V& d! j: c6 ]3 u QOne day in early 1975 Al Alcorn was sitting in his office at Atari when Ron Wayne
# W- H* a. \* U9 O1 kburst in. “Hey, Stevie is back!” he shouted.
3 R: w) X4 A- Y- E8 b" o+ ?- H
; ?0 a( V( X7 j" S6 \) e) L5 ~“Wow, bring him on in,” Alcorn replied.# ^" p* |% r8 N' a/ k+ F$ i
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Jobs shuffled in barefoot, wearing a saffron robe and carrying a copy of Be Here Now,7 h6 V% E, [0 m& s+ \3 j5 g
which he handed to Alcorn and insisted he read. “Can I have my job back?” he asked." Z( [ X; V& m7 T' j4 w
: J0 q2 D8 S% V J1 }* c“He looked like a Hare Krishna guy, but it was great to see him,” Alcorn recalled. “So I/ D, Y/ e& G U* n
said, sure!”
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Once again, for the sake of harmony, Jobs worked mostly at night. Wozniak, who was9 j, N9 l& Z$ ^ R( y! `/ \
living in an apartment nearby and working at HP, would come by after dinner to hang out
) Q3 E! h4 \$ Q0 nand play the video games. He had become addicted to Pong at a Sunnyvale bowling alley,, `7 l$ K) m) L3 m6 o! r
and he was able to build a version that he hooked up to his home TV set.
. M6 O. }, f P9 [/ E5 \7 }
7 z, V7 ^+ M! _One day in the late summer of 1975, Nolan Bushnell, defying the prevailing wisdom
/ c3 ~( O* t, g$ a7 u( ^# othat paddle games were over, decided to develop a single-player version of Pong; instead of5 M. h- ~. g$ k* C
competing against an opponent, the player would volley the ball into a wall that lost a brick$ ]9 _" N' B% s' v
whenever it was hit. He called Jobs into his office, sketched it out on his little blackboard,, S* b1 |" K" `7 L3 Z9 _
and asked him to design it. There would be a bonus, Bushnell told him, for every chip; f! `+ H: {7 R; o- x8 y8 F5 w
fewer than fifty that he used. Bushnell knew that Jobs was not a great engineer, but he0 ~; a9 c; X' p$ @& d
assumed, correctly, that he would recruit Wozniak, who was always hanging around. “I" S9 b( X' D6 S& x
looked at it as a two-for-one thing,” Bushnell recalled. “Woz was a better engineer.” + h4 O5 W3 j1 p. ?, C4 H
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3 `- i4 A- J( ]2 N- H0 H9 rWozniak was thrilled when Jobs asked him to help and proposed splitting the fee. “This. ?3 q9 }! B! E1 Y9 C3 T
was the most wonderful offer in my life, to actually design a game that people would use,”( k5 N; w0 w4 z9 F/ i5 i
he recalled. Jobs said it had to be done in four days and with the fewest chips possible.
5 B ~' Y0 ?4 I0 m q* H+ `What he hid from Wozniak was that the deadline was one that Jobs had imposed, because) c6 W/ M( X) N
he needed to get to the All One Farm to help prepare for the apple harvest. He also didn’t
/ {( g- b; d* H* B# [0 V' D) Hmention that there was a bonus tied to keeping down the number of chips.' K% n c% q# x" z
+ u" u) c$ W) k) X' o7 Q- |9 I
“A game like this might take most engineers a few months,” Wozniak recalled. “I
3 E/ K' Y/ Z' Y8 X7 b$ l1 Gthought that there was no way I could do it, but Steve made me sure that I could.” So he. O; d$ k4 R( u* ^9 {* a4 J" v7 O
stayed up four nights in a row and did it. During the day at HP, Wozniak would sketch out
/ R5 i" x+ y, r. P! M5 y7 e" Qhis design on paper. Then, after a fast-food meal, he would go right to Atari and stay all3 B) Z/ r' s: `& C" E( B
night. As Wozniak churned out the design, Jobs sat on a bench to his left implementing it
- c8 d. [; C. X5 E5 Cby wire-wrapping the chips onto a breadboard. “While Steve was breadboarding, I spent/ ~) z$ G0 g4 u( x6 s% g. W% m4 N3 ~
time playing my favorite game ever, which was the auto racing game Gran Trak 10,”
! U7 b3 G( }3 M1 K/ ]% KWozniak said.! j/ X- x d: a, Z
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Astonishingly, they were able to get the job done in four days, and Wozniak used only
+ P( k( {+ P# D" F0 F* }forty-five chips. Recollections differ, but by most accounts Jobs simply gave Wozniak half, i; e1 ~% ]! v. e9 Z
of the base fee and not the bonus Bushnell paid for saving five chips. It would be another- v$ a! Q) {3 y& J3 e4 j- J
ten years before Wozniak discovered (by being shown the tale in a book on the history of+ e0 ^: [6 y% [2 C4 {! d
Atari titled Zap) that Jobs had been paid this bonus. “I think that Steve needed the money,3 q* p7 d0 ^" }; t! p( m( Q0 K( g
and he just didn’t tell me the truth,” Wozniak later said. When he talks about it now, there7 z, a5 l. d1 q; s4 U
are long pauses, and he admits that it causes him pain. “I wish he had just been honest. If3 \2 c" `& A! r' s; c
he had told me he needed the money, he should have known I would have just given it to
$ x- ^, p% A; c/ Q) b! p" U! {him. He was a friend. You help your friends.” To Wozniak, it showed a fundamental
$ b/ B3 p" H: R$ Odifference in their characters. “Ethics always mattered to me, and I still don’t understand
% ^& L {% k* I x w& nwhy he would’ve gotten paid one thing and told me he’d gotten paid another,” he said.
. O+ T `9 a5 ~& A- c“But, you know, people are different.”+ n7 I9 u( r0 i4 @& \
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When Jobs learned this story was published, he called Wozniak to deny it. “He told me
; ~. @' ^' H+ j, ]8 h' fthat he didn’t remember doing it, and that if he did something like that he would remember
5 A1 \; j, F3 A9 y5 { E) vit, so he probably didn’t do it,” Wozniak recalled. When I asked Jobs directly, he became
2 m% ~3 V: P; |$ E9 [unusually quiet and hesitant. “I don’t know where that allegation comes from,” he said. “I9 T3 \8 R+ i! [* G! z4 S/ L
gave him half the money I ever got. That’s how I’ve always been with Woz. I mean, Woz
. o6 u: v( x9 K' h0 Dstopped working in 1978. He never did one ounce of work after 1978. And yet he got7 d$ b% D$ N7 I& ]9 D: g
exactly the same shares of Apple stock that I did.”: { U7 o1 Y3 i# \5 x
7 s f! }( \" s' l/ a+ ^) PIs it possible that memories are muddled and that Jobs did not, in fact, shortchange/ o K E& R; h
Wozniak? “There’s a chance that my memory is all wrong and messed up,” Wozniak told" Y5 w6 s0 ~$ l: x h5 V# `
me, but after a pause he reconsidered. “But no. I remember the details of this one, the $350
7 g- r) N$ m- Q5 J& Y' wcheck.” He confirmed his memory with Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn. “I remember
/ `: \% l6 W: a. a' q/ _8 qtalking about the bonus money to Woz, and he was upset,” Bushnell said. “I said yes, there
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: Z! I9 k' U' R* U: J# ewas a bonus for each chip they saved, and he just shook his head and then clucked his5 y2 u5 `& L0 X" t) k5 r0 q$ n
tongue.”: y v9 J3 @" f$ f+ E3 Q, A
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Whatever the truth, Wozniak later insisted that it was not worth rehashing. Jobs is a
$ R' }% y0 |& [/ Icomplex person, he said, and being manipulative is just the darker facet of the traits that
K( z7 M1 u0 {make him successful. Wozniak would never have been that way, but as he points out, he. V- K9 c! u8 `9 ?
also could never have built Apple. “I would rather let it pass,” he said when I pressed the$ R5 N* D, D' S; ^
point. “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
! B. K& ^3 r* k0 [4 M: M( rappreciated the user-friendliness of Atari’s insert-quarter-avoid-Klingons games. “That
4 l: Y/ {4 ^( C4 o. l. a! usimplicity rubbed off on him and made him a very focused product person,” said Ron# m$ w! x. T6 ?% u6 L& A- c
Wayne. Jobs also absorbed some of Bushnell’s take-no-prisoners attitude. “Nolan wouldn’t- d3 ^! Q. _2 T
take no for an answer,” according to Alcorn, “and this was Steve’s first impression of how
. O7 W! |2 Y% H9 kthings got done. Nolan was never abusive, like Steve sometimes is. But he had the same. A+ F; `' Y/ b# `& V# s
driven attitude. It made me cringe, but dammit, it got things done. In that way Nolan was a
% q+ ^' I U: b. h% ]mentor for Jobs.”- J9 V& U3 h+ m3 c8 F7 r8 O
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Bushnell agreed. “There is something indefinable in an entrepreneur, and I saw that in
. o9 R5 H& X5 T6 ^ `. E* I7 jSteve,” he said. “He was interested not just in engineering, but also the business aspects. I+ D D% c# m7 {& g2 [$ l
taught him that if you act like you can do something, then it will work. I told him, ‘Pretend" t- @5 {7 K6 M+ n& R# Q( z1 z
to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.’”
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8 O' g+ F- |, WTHE APPLE I+ g5 J- V* H; P+ u, ^
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% d3 N2 @4 y: [, ATurn On, Boot Up, Jack In . . .
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Daniel Kottke and Jobs with the Apple I at the Atlantic City computer fair, 1976
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0 N4 [0 j* q8 X. K$ J2 d/ G8 _错误!超链接引用无效。* `$ @1 X" W7 e& t: j& ?
. _1 l; i/ b, EIn San Francisco and the Santa Clara Valley during the late 1960s, various cultural currents/ p+ w; N( I! _% w0 Q( x
flowed together. There was the technology revolution that began with the growth of" S) V/ i- C0 t4 e; z
military contractors and soon included electronics firms, microchip makers, video game! Z0 q; u. K, s7 z5 I& |1 I% u5 X
designers, and computer companies. There was a hacker subculture—filled with wireheads,, K% v& v, |+ u5 l; n' N: a9 u
phreakers, cyberpunks, hobbyists, and just plain geeks—that included engineers who didn’t% r, P" ]# S( b
conform to the HP mold and their kids who weren’t attuned to the wavelengths of the
) f& p4 r" Q$ esubdivisions. There were quasi-academic groups doing studies on the effects of LSD;4 A* D# g" \" X+ Q1 b
participants included Doug Engelbart of the Augmentation Research Center in Palo Alto,
+ K. \" i% V+ \% z3 r/ zwho later helped develop the computer mouse and graphical user interfaces, and Ken* _- m* l7 V& E' D+ V
Kesey, who celebrated the drug with music-and-light shows featuring a house band that
4 e" C1 Y8 g4 Z$ l! m6 `. qbecame the Grateful Dead. There was the hippie movement, born out of the Bay Area’s: H! o5 e s# N& G
beat generation, and the rebellious political activists, born out of the Free Speech/ x$ D% U1 U$ g( T; \
Movement at Berkeley. Overlaid on it all were various self-fulfillment movements pursuing
n' v+ F9 Y: F' ~% h" A% Bpaths to personal enlightenment: Zen and Hinduism, meditation and yoga, primal scream2 _ A7 J" [) V( s; [! g
and sensory deprivation, Esalen and est.
- ~/ O/ V' N1 M! M& _" F% }, X" hThis fusion of flower power and processor power, enlightenment and technology, was5 G. p9 x# a/ {; ]6 A) E8 L# [0 ?
embodied by Steve Jobs as he meditated in the mornings, audited physics classes at4 v: K Q' ]$ `5 h
Stanford, worked nights at Atari, and dreamed of starting his own business. “There was just
4 z: g6 U* m! l6 b, `6 |something going on here,” he said, looking back at the time and place. “The best music 1 J* G4 G# \6 y w c
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came from here—the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin—and so
9 m2 A7 L! k1 x* |# e5 }did the integrated circuit, and things like the Whole Earth Catalog.”
- ~4 D4 k" f4 ^5 O( [1 k$ f3 d1 a; {. dInitially the technologists and the hippies did not interface well. Many in the% e% c8 D9 g& F
counterculture saw computers as ominous and Orwellian, the province of the Pentagon and6 ~1 ^( V d1 E' t% Z0 i
the power structure. In The Myth of the Machine, the historian Lewis Mumford warned that& o N3 h: H' a* Z3 w& D
computers were sucking away our freedom and destroying “life-enhancing values.” An
}' m, K8 i; X) U' ^. {injunction on punch cards of the period—“Do not fold, spindle or mutilate”—became an9 k2 f$ H1 ]5 L% O! p
ironic phrase of the antiwar Left.6 P- e6 w) K8 e' y" ~
But by the early 1970s a shift was under way. “Computing went from being dismissed as3 P6 X& B& M, s
a tool of bureaucratic control to being embraced as a symbol of individual expression and+ Y. e; X6 Q; | y) l9 X* E
liberation,” John Markoff wrote in his study of the counterculture’s convergence with the
9 p9 |( _4 a' J3 mcomputer industry, What the Dormouse Said. It was an ethos lyrically expressed in Richard9 @! s& a6 V* V/ G, `. M& f, O
Brautigan’s 1967 poem, “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace,” and the7 ]% p, g1 z! o- l) q. f
cyberdelic fusion was certified when Timothy Leary declared that personal computers had; X0 ^: f7 x6 w
become the new LSD and years later revised his famous mantra to proclaim, “Turn on, boot
+ _1 r3 o+ w8 \$ D; Mup, jack in.” The musician Bono, who later became a friend of Jobs, often discussed with9 J& X/ H5 s! h+ K' d
him why those immersed in the rock-drugs-rebel counterculture of the Bay Area ended up
$ K8 `( M9 \$ n) t( c& zhelping to create the personal computer industry. “The people who invented the twenty-first7 C% w) j7 H2 w; [. I0 ]% ^
century were pot-smoking, sandal-wearing hippies from the West Coast like Steve, because
2 a; r4 P" F h+ g2 K% Gthey saw differently,” he said. “The hierarchical systems of the East Coast, England,# z* m% ], W! e* D
Germany, and Japan do not encourage this different thinking. The sixties produced an
2 [8 J+ \- r- u" z0 j: Ranarchic mind-set that is great for imagining a world not yet in existence.”( e0 ]9 \7 k( ?6 j1 m8 ^! U% i6 v% |
One person who encouraged the denizens of the counterculture to make common cause
; j9 ~8 @& O( \1 j- L; D8 rwith the hackers was Stewart Brand. A puckish visionary who generated fun and ideas over- c/ p! V: M1 I
many decades, Brand was a participant in one of the early sixties LSD studies in Palo Alto.. X3 {" `/ j# j* l% p: V
He joined with his fellow subject Ken Kesey to produce the acid-celebrating Trips Festival,9 @3 Q" |9 o9 W2 N, s6 J
appeared in the opening scene of Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and worked
3 d+ }( ]7 W1 Q+ J3 {with Doug Engelbart to create a seminal sound-and-light presentation of new technologies
a; ~4 r9 ^! A' q* N) Zcalled the Mother of All Demos. “Most of our generation scorned computers as the
* x9 o0 m3 _4 H) dembodiment of centralized control,” Brand later noted. “But a tiny contingent—later called) V2 r( T$ @9 E2 s8 B9 |! k
hackers—embraced computers and set about transforming them into tools of liberation.
o5 b, w9 u& G/ xThat turned out to be the true royal road to the future.”
( _0 b: \& {, J1 A4 L7 A- bBrand ran the Whole Earth Truck Store, which began as a roving truck that sold useful
+ W, l8 T% m8 j2 {" ?0 Vtools and educational materials, and in 1968 he decided to extend its reach with the Whole
4 o9 q" a! J7 S0 C0 fEarth Catalog. On its first cover was the famous picture of Earth taken from space; its
1 f% ]7 w- n1 O' k6 U t9 o9 Lsubtitle was “Access to Tools.” The underlying philosophy was that technology could be
9 i, Y% z4 w" K, l$ Lour friend. Brand wrote on the first page of the first edition, “A realm of intimate, personal
9 e& u# i# \: |# }/ apower is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own0 w, |6 H0 V0 i% W# ]4 h# u
inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested.% T$ m3 b+ b' X5 [
Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the Whole Earth Catalog.”
5 a3 c9 D9 {; m* v' k VBuckminster Fuller followed with a poem that began: “I see God in the instruments and( o9 C' X1 ~ X/ i& E* v% V) ^2 F
mechanisms that work reliably.” 5 Y* C. b; O Y; X
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) s" n3 q( r5 N7 O4 Z+ @6 P) tJobs became a Whole Earth fan. He was particularly taken by the final issue, which came q# Z! |1 z$ d' M; {+ Q2 ^" k
out in 1971, when he was still in high school, and he brought it with him to college and8 y2 a3 ~# W& Z* a9 H1 Q
then to the All One Farm. “On the back cover of their final issue” Jobs recalled, “was a0 x5 e3 F0 \0 U% Z: G! N
photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking
2 x }/ E) y. }* V1 {! Y4 {on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: ‘Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.’”
6 }2 ^9 _& K, O7 rBrand sees Jobs as one of the purest embodiments of the cultural mix that the catalog; k2 _& Y) ]: k9 Z; M: g
sought to celebrate. “Steve is right at the nexus of the counterculture and technology,” he
+ V8 ] X; P+ {" D5 z& X4 n) nsaid. “He got the notion of tools for human use.”
4 T( _ e0 z$ p: G% gBrand’s catalog was published with the help of the Portola Institute, a foundation
4 T e$ n1 x0 g( |, v1 E6 b9 Fdedicated to the fledgling field of computer education. The foundation also helped launch
- A" [0 S, S% Z* {* qthe People’s Computer Company, which was not a company at all but a newsletter and8 ~4 b2 s+ {; k$ G2 _. D% e
organization with the motto “Computer power to the people.” There were occasional
4 e! q5 e0 P3 ]Wednesday-night potluck dinners, and two of the regulars, Gordon French and Fred Moore,. C* d. G, x5 O B/ W
decided to create a more formal club where news about personal electronics could be4 P+ }6 G( [' E) E. r* v w" U
shared.
+ G3 }; F4 n2 V2 ?$ |/ ` @They were energized by the arrival of the January 1975 issue of Popular Mechanics,
" N8 b1 v4 r& W) T! ^& K& kwhich had on its cover the first personal computer kit, the Altair. The Altair wasn’t much—
. l8 ]0 m3 I1 N( fjust a $495 pile of parts that had to be soldered to a board that would then do little—but for) ~# [1 I! X2 v* E% s( A/ c
hobbyists and hackers it heralded the dawn of a new era. Bill Gates and Paul Allen read the6 g2 b2 I+ O9 h( |' A4 k
magazine and started working on a version of BASIC, an easy-to-use programming
: f4 j6 Z& G) l- e( y; x% Tlanguage, for the Altair. It also caught the attention of Jobs and Wozniak. And when an {9 u ]5 O) j* I
Altair kit arrived at the People’s Computer Company, it became the centerpiece for the first
2 w8 R; O9 Y. A3 j: V- hmeeting of the club that French and Moore had decided to launch.
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The group became known as the Homebrew Computer Club, and it encapsulated the Whole1 u( z3 r b1 r9 U$ f
Earth fusion between the counterculture and technology. It would become to the personal
; p* L9 X2 g! M- Vcomputer era something akin to what the Turk’s Head coffeehouse was to the age of Dr.
) ], e/ }! `& W' wJohnson, a place where ideas were exchanged and disseminated. Moore wrote the flyer for; o( G( w; n, @ @( A+ c; W0 Z
the first meeting, held on March 5, 1975, in French’s Menlo Park garage: “Are you
9 t; M( E, i- @5 u& ~building your own computer? Terminal, TV, typewriter?” it asked. “If so, you might like to
6 G3 G0 L. W' c0 S) t! Q# T+ ncome to a gathering of people with like-minded interests.”* {8 i& j. Y9 ^, w7 {
Allen Baum spotted the flyer on the HP bulletin board and called Wozniak, who agreed
" F) r2 C! T" ~: O: e( Rto go with him. “That night turned out to be one of the most important nights of my life,”. C! W- I6 v; h, p
Wozniak recalled. About thirty other people showed up, spilling out of French’s open
9 L) U, u3 p( Y2 m1 u3 c. K; [garage door, and they took turns describing their interests. Wozniak, who later admitted to
+ e! H5 h' O# H0 wbeing extremely nervous, said he liked “video games, pay movies for hotels, scientific6 ]" O: ?5 J" H+ a6 c; k" d
calculator design, and TV terminal design,” according to the minutes prepared by Moore.9 }3 o, K3 G9 W1 i( ~8 L
There was a demonstration of the new Altair, but more important to Wozniak was seeing& ]6 j8 m/ P2 Q% v8 B/ L' ^
the specification sheet for a microprocessor.1 m7 K ?$ S' p
As he thought about the microprocessor—a chip that had an entire central processing
, l4 A3 X! e/ r! }) c6 C+ p4 kunit on it—he had an insight. He had been designing a terminal, with a keyboard and
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6 A( @+ X" Z6 v$ m/ f8 z! cmonitor, that would connect to a distant minicomputer. Using a microprocessor, he could
" ?) P$ S3 I% S( Vput some of the capacity of the minicomputer inside the terminal itself, so it could become" c. ^0 b# l& d. Q
a small stand-alone computer on a desktop. It was an enduring idea: keyboard, screen, and
- E; m/ P" D" ?& rcomputer all in one integrated personal package. “This whole vision of a personal computer* V1 C6 g# X K. }
just popped into my head,” he said. “That night, I started to sketch out on paper what would, M D- O3 o2 m- w
later become known as the Apple I.”
; R7 f% j& {& X8 rAt first he planned to use the same microprocessor that was in the Altair, an Intel 8080.
5 |' a; F C1 pBut each of those “cost almost more than my monthly rent,” so he looked for an alternative.+ }$ f1 o! O6 F* T* k! j8 F- K
He found one in the Motorola 6800, which a friend at HP was able to get for $40 apiece.3 T" b: b7 N, g4 u* v
Then he discovered a chip made by MOS Technologies that was electronically the same but
9 t! m0 ~6 H' K) {! b4 s; xcost only $20. It would make his machine affordable, but it would carry a long-term cost.' T5 O9 V$ F8 B2 t0 P8 I0 B8 @5 e
Intel’s chips ended up becoming the industry standard, which would haunt Apple when its
2 _, C3 o" L8 a& i2 ^/ qcomputers were incompatible with it.
4 Z3 h! E* G% j$ [9 \After work each day, Wozniak would go home for a TV dinner and then return to HP to
/ I2 | |3 W1 K/ G# s2 }moonlight on his computer. He spread out the parts in his cubicle, figured out their
/ ]% A G* q; x8 f' splacement, and soldered them onto his motherboard. Then he began writing the software
! x' U; A) L. _' ~ F! J' X" ?that would get the microprocessor to display images on the screen. Because he could not& k, i+ F; T( q. e D4 \3 R
afford to pay for computer time, he wrote the code by hand. After a couple of months he/ K0 D o7 K# g+ o4 I% @1 y) d( w
was ready to test it. “I typed a few keys on the keyboard and I was shocked! The letters
: h* T5 K& g: _were displayed on the screen.” It was Sunday, June 29, 1975, a milestone for the personal- I# d& ^7 n) _ O$ z5 w: w8 k6 l
computer. “It was the first time in history,” Wozniak later said, “anyone had typed a2 [, R- D% \0 P
character on a keyboard and seen it show up on their own computer’s screen right in front6 M2 d1 U7 a* m X+ i: j
of them.”
6 c! j( n% `- _8 e% dJobs was impressed. He peppered Wozniak with questions: Could the computer ever be
' h F! E. \) E, nnetworked? Was it possible to add a disk for memory storage? He also began to help Woz* D1 u9 d# [2 I; @" [2 K
get components. Particularly important were the dynamic random-access memory chips.
9 {; }9 P8 U( z6 lJobs made a few calls and was able to score some from Intel for free. “Steve is just that sort( c2 a' G# n2 v
of person,” said Wozniak. “I mean, he knew how to talk to a sales representative. I could
& {9 t+ S W3 W6 X, b: K" Fnever have done that. I’m too shy.”' p! C1 p5 @ F; c4 M" Q8 v* x9 v& J
Jobs began to accompany Wozniak to Homebrew meetings, carrying the TV monitor and
. `! {- F* A( A e) u" R( M8 dhelping to set things up. The meetings now attracted more than one hundred enthusiasts and. l3 H, g/ |' ?' _- o8 A
had been moved to the auditorium of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Presiding
$ k% l7 X) K+ pwith a pointer and a free-form manner was Lee Felsenstein, another embodiment of the+ I2 D b' A2 e
merger between the world of computing and the counterculture. He was an engineering. f, F4 d0 G" D" z+ H
school dropout, a participant in the Free Speech Movement, and an antiwar activist. He had$ A) U& \4 E- S1 ]! w2 }' ^/ l
written for the alternative newspaper Berkeley Barb and then gone back to being a
5 B: I0 I% p+ Z& T& L+ W& Mcomputer engineer.
( U2 Y0 U& Z1 z6 j/ y& u4 n% e3 a) DWoz was usually too shy to talk in the meetings, but people would gather around his1 w/ _. u4 m2 F% ^. |4 S
machine afterward, and he would proudly show off his progress. Moore had tried to instill
1 p. z* \7 ?1 {& ain the Homebrew an ethos of swapping and sharing rather than commerce. “The theme of1 t2 j) O. ?6 S# |
the club,” Woz said, “was ‘Give to help others.’” It was an expression of the hacker ethic8 l" }# @6 d5 R1 N
that information should be free and all authority mistrusted. “I designed the Apple I7 @( q- k& Y3 f: {7 Y
because I wanted to give it away for free to other people,” said Wozniak. / C2 z0 {- y6 K5 E% ?- h. v( n
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This was not an outlook that Bill Gates embraced. After he and Paul Allen had) R: E# o4 j" j! `8 P4 L: X
completed their BASIC interpreter for the Altair, Gates was appalled that members of the ~4 \. s. J4 C
Homebrew were making copies of it and sharing it without paying him. So he wrote what
" p* h' M @- e; N. K' E2 X0 kwould become a famous letter to the club: “As the majority of hobbyists must be aware,
4 A( \( }# L0 A9 Y. cmost of you steal your software. Is this fair? . . . One thing you do is prevent good software) K: w5 v% x, X7 E8 g% V
from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? . . . I would
% x+ }/ H J9 D% E7 _appreciate letters from anyone who wants to pay up.”
: B5 a5 H; f, f4 t) @" S3 b0 z( Q; Q9 SSteve Jobs, similarly, did not embrace the notion that Wozniak’s creations, be it a Blue
- Q) y1 B. g, v C8 M! b) \2 wBox or a computer, wanted to be free. So he convinced Wozniak to stop giving away copies& x6 M/ \$ u7 `! e
of his schematics. Most people didn’t have time to build it themselves anyway, Jobs
/ Y: }, N$ Z* ?( C- m* P, H' Xargued. “Why don’t we build and sell printed circuit boards to them?” It was an example of
. \+ [5 `% T% M: M! jtheir symbiosis. “Every time I’d design something great, Steve would find a way to make+ l% G" Y. z% \7 I( |
money for us,” said Wozniak. Wozniak admitted that he would have never thought of doing) S& m. ]1 t4 V3 f6 i3 H* p7 r
that on his own. “It never crossed my mind to sell computers. It was Steve who said, ‘Let’s
9 O( q* u% D# l% k9 a/ Nhold them in the air and sell a few.’”
$ y4 |" G! c2 EJobs worked out a plan to pay a guy he knew at Atari to draw the circuit boards and then2 g8 k; g1 N8 L2 z+ Y
print up fifty or so. That would cost about $1,000, plus the fee to the designer. They could
: l4 U8 R5 o: l$ M4 e: U; ]sell them for $40 apiece and perhaps clear a profit of $700. Wozniak was dubious that they
+ U/ I& T! S# W+ hcould sell them all. “I didn’t see how we would make our money back,” he recalled. He
e% S# D0 V* y4 z$ Nwas already in trouble with his landlord for bouncing checks and now had to pay each
' H% H+ L( G, L! Hmonth in cash.
2 W2 r0 H- W$ [/ m' MJobs knew how to appeal to Wozniak. He didn’t argue that they were sure to make7 l# _+ Y. e8 J0 K
money, but instead that they would have a fun adventure. “Even if we lose our money,
- v1 z1 L& X# _5 `. V7 cwe’ll have a company,” said Jobs as they were driving in his Volkswagen bus. “For once in0 r T0 {& w/ @% p) H7 p5 y9 A: P
our lives, we’ll have a company.” This was enticing to Wozniak, even more than any
6 {: L0 v' e( m1 {prospect of getting rich. He recalled, “I was excited to think about us like that. To be two* W) T) R; r4 Y
best friends starting a company. Wow. I knew right then that I’d do it. How could I not?”
6 p$ u. U; R$ L$ Q2 F J4 h LIn order to raise the money they needed, Wozniak sold his HP 65 calculator for $500,% `0 H7 J a5 ~/ A( [
though the buyer ended up stiffing him for half of that. For his part, Jobs sold his
6 i' b; }3 O0 e2 m+ C" [8 JVolkswagen bus for $1,500. But the person who bought it came to find him two weeks later
2 R$ ^4 D' b \# ~# [0 nand said the engine had broken down, and Jobs agreed to pay for half of the repairs.
' y" @2 L" Y$ A6 C% D* ADespite these little setbacks, they now had, with their own small savings thrown in, about
6 A) b% O4 Q5 @% M9 R# z/ ~. V+ u4 h! {$1,300 in working capital, the design for a product, and a plan. They would start their own- R/ c. ]/ k& Z1 X ~$ A
computer company.# t$ Y0 H: c! e/ H' B7 Y
: w% P4 s" n6 g9 }5 ?错误!超链接引用无效。
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Now that they had decided to start a business, they needed a name. Jobs had gone for8 A9 I2 |: W$ y9 k) U5 K
another visit to the All One Farm, where he had been pruning the Gravenstein apple trees,
6 s2 C& \- D4 b1 c# Zand Wozniak picked him up at the airport. On the ride down to Los Altos, they bandied
; D+ ^) S$ y4 y0 D3 D& H# Maround options. They considered some typical tech words, such as Matrix, and some/ `1 g* m0 j2 D5 w- F
neologisms, such as Executek, and some straightforward boring names, like Personal
8 J L. B- T# g, c X9 HComputers Inc. The deadline for deciding was the next day, when Jobs wanted to start
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