Return to the Little Kingdom_ Steve Jobs and the Creation of Apple - Michael Moritz [102]
As the business plan took shape, Scott turned to familiar faces for help. Apple’s first receptionist, secretary, and general factotum was Sherry Livingston, a perky, bright woman who had worked for him at National Semiconductor. Uncertain about Apple’s prospects, Livingston was only convinced of its staying power after Markkula tugged open a drawer stuffed with orders. Gene Carter, who had been Scott’s boss for a while at Fairchild, was looking for a job and became head of Apple’s sales and distribution. When Scott wanted somebody to mind the books he turned to Gary Martin, a cheerful, gossipy accountant who had also worked for him at National. Martin took a look at the Apple II and thought, “Who the hell is going to want this thing? I felt so sorry for Scott I tried to buy him lunch.” Eventually, Martin decided to try Apple for a month, knowing that his boss at National had promised not to turn in his security badge.
Others came of their own accord. Wendell Sander, a shy engineer-cum-sleuth at Fairchild, had become intrigued by Apple after adding some memory chips of his own design to the Apple I. He wrote a Star Trek program to amuse his children, demonstrated it to Jobs while Apple was still in the garage, and eventually, after thirteen years with Fairchild, decided to let his passion guide his star. “If they had folded I could have got a job the next day. There wasn’t much personal risk apart from the chance of getting a bruised ego. My career would not have vanished.” Jim Martindale, a colleague of Jobs’s at Atari, was hired to look after production while Don Bruener, a high-school pal of Randy Wigginton’s, became a part-time technician. Jobs’s college friend Dan Kottke graduated from college and became Apple’s twelfth employee, and Elmer Baum started working in the final assembly area. Scarcely anybody considered that the decision to join Apple was risky. Instead they all seemed to feel that the greatest risk was to stay put and do nothing.
As the newcomers arrived, through the late spring and summer of 1977, they found themselves in a small business that had bound itself to some visible public promises. An advertisement in the February 16, 1977, issue of the Homebrew newsletter promised delivery of the Apple II no later than April 30, 1977. Markkula had also decided that Apple could save itself a lot of bother by offering Apple I owners a choice between a full refund or replacement with an Apple II. The arrival of age, or at least what passed for age in Silicon Valley, brought a sense of rigor to Apple. Blending experience with exuberance proved to be a troublesome task, but it was also a fortunate combination. Experience helped temper impulse and instill a sense of discipline while innocence inevitably questioned convention and authority.
Wozniak, Jobs, Holt, Markkula, and Scott were all alert to technical matters and tended to understand the size and implications of electrical problems that cropped up. But they also had serious differences and had to work through the clashes that occurred between men whom a Hollywood screenwriter might have labeled The Hobbyist, The Rejector, The Fixer, The Pacifier, and The Enforcer. At the outset, they shared none of the experience that comes from surviving mistakes and weathering trouble. Holt felt, “There wasn’t much trust at all. The question was not of trusting each other’s honesty but each other’s judgment. You might score seventy percent all round. It was a business not a family affair.”
Almost from the start Scott and Jobs irritated each other. Scott, in his curious position as corporate caretaker and the guardian of Apple’s internal affairs, became Jobs’s first encounter with an unbending authority.