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By Root 564 0

some of the other microcomputer companies who were wary that investors or directors would grab control or turn into bullies, the men at Apple recognized the help they could offer. More important than the injections of cash were the intangible benefits of the financier’s experience and reputation. They had monitored the growth of other small companies, had lived through dark days, were aware of some of the likely pitfalls, and could lend some weathered perspective to the pellmell pace of life in a start-up. They could offer advice about limiting the company’s tax liability, help sort out a distribution strategy, provide connections to people who could be helpful and help lure experienced managers. Recognizing this, Apple was careful to make life easy for its investors. It arranged board meetings to coincide with the day Rock traveled down the Peninsula to attend Intel’s board meetings while Scott often chauffeured Henry Singleton to and from the San Jose airport.

Though Apple’s early stock sales were wreathed in anonymity, the reputations of the early investors were too large to hide. Their interest in Apple was precisely the sort of thing that provided snippets of gossip for venture capitalists. It was just the stuff that would make the rounds at the monthly lunches of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists, or be shared among bankers in the first-class section of the wide-bodied jets plying between San Francisco and New York, or for others who would breakfast at Rickey’s Hyatt House on EI Camino Real in Palo Alto. The more industrious could ferret out the information by sorting through the files in the meanly furnished lobby of the California Department of Corporations office in San Francisco.

Investors who laid their money on the table were one sign of confidence. Stock analysts who put their opinions on paper were another. In the late seventies one of the most influential Wall Street electronics analysts was Ben Rosen. Rosen had followed the electronics industry for years. He was fond of gadgets. He spent several weeks a year industriously traipsing around trade shows, kept an eye on new products, wasn’t swept away by the accounts of senior managers, and would patiently solicit opinions of middle and junior managers.

Markkula and Scott were just two of the younger managers Rosen had run across. He had known them both while they were still at Fairchild and on one of his inspection tours of Intel had taught Markkula how to operate a programmable calculator. Apple’s managers took care of Rosen, who started using an Apple in April 1978. Rosen was given the sort of customer service reserved for sheikhs and princes. When he didn’t understand some feature of the Apple and couldn’t find an adequate explanation in the manual, he called Jobs or Markkula at home. Markkula even offered to sell Rosen some Apple stock but was politely rebuffed. However, he would visit Apple and was almost always given straight answers to straight questions. Scott said,“Ben always had the data two or three years in advance of what was actually going on.” The attention paid off.

Many of the journalists who followed the early years of the microcomputer industry were the people who had monitored the semiconductor industry and they had learned to trust Rosen. Among a crowd of men who made it their business to boost companies and tout stocks, Rosen they considered impartial. He always returned telephone calls, offered comprehensive reports on companies, and would provide pithy quotes based on shrewd observations which often wound up in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Business Week, Fortune, Forbes,and the news-weeklies. The reporters who trooped through Rosen’s New York office found that he was using an Apple. So Rosen became, in some ways, Apple’s most influential sponsor. Regis McKenna, Apple’s publicist, who was given an introduction to Time at a luncheon organized by Rosen, thought “Ben gave Apple real credibility,” while the venture-capitalist Hank Smith felt he was “one of Apple’s best salesmen.”

Apple’s select financial