The Second Coming of Steve Jobs - Alan Deutschman [13]
At thirty that destiny seemed uncertain for the first time. As he flirted with ideas of becoming an expatriate or an astronaut or a gardener, he also saw the impatience of his followers. His loyalists who remained at Apple were restless and unhappy there. The people he trusted were beginning to disperse, to move on. If he wanted them, he had to act.
• • •
THE FIRST PERSON he approached was Dan’l Lewin. In September 1985, on the Tuesday after Labor Day, at nine in the morning, he telephoned Dan’l. He said that he wanted to start a new company that would make great computers specifically geared for students at colleges and universities.
Higher education was Dan’l’s forte. At Apple he had put together a consortium of twenty-four elite universities, including all the Ivy League schools, which committed to buy Macintoshes and resell them to students, usually at a substantial discount from the prohibitively high list price. The program was a terrific success, helping to turn the Macintosh into a campus cult. So far it was the only conspicuous success for the machine.
Dan’l was interested. The team came together quickly: Susan for finance, Bud Tribble for software, George Crow and Rich Page for hardware. The following week, on the evening of Friday the thirteenth, the five recruits all came to Woodside. The iron gate was open. The front door was unlocked, as it always was. Even as a centimillionaire, Steve had no security at his house, where there was very little that anyone could possibly steal. An hour later Steve arrived, dressed in a suit. He had just told the Apple board about their new venture.
Apple sued him. The company filed legal papers alleging that Steve was the mastermind of a “nefarious plot” to steal its technology and undermine its business.
Steve hired a law firm from San Francisco. One of its attorneys drove to the house to talk with Steve’s five cofounders and gather facts for the defense. There were few facts to assemble. The Next colleagues had only the vaguest notion of what they were going to do.
“Do you have a business plan?” the lawyer asked.
No, they didn’t.
“What about equity? Are you getting stock in the new company?”
No. They hadn’t really talked about it.
“Do you know where you’re going to work?”
No. They were camped out on the floor of the unfurnished run-down house.
Dan’l Lewin thought he grasped what the lawyer was politely trying to tell them.
“You mean that we have a great case against Apple but we’re stupid?” he said.
• • •
THEY WEREN’T STUPID, but their decision to join the new company was undeniably an act of blind faith. They were committing to a risky new venture based on little more than their belief in the leadership of Steve Jobs, his creativity and his drive and his will.
The five of them had much in common. They were smart and idealistic, with softer-edged, lower-key personalities than Steve. They were young, mostly in their early thirties, roughly the same age as their leader. They had impressive academic credentials. Bud Tribble, the software guy, had a combined M.D.-Ph.D., a “mud phud,” as the degree was known. He had worked on the creation of the Macintosh during a three-year break from medical school. Susan Barnes had an MBA from Wharton, the business school known for its preeminence in finance, which was her role at the new company. The fancy academic credentials were important to Steve, even though he was the most celebrated college dropout in American business, a compelling argument against credentialism. His colleagues understood his psychology: they thought of him as a “brand-name shopper,” someone who demanded the highest quality but was insecure in his own judgment. Prestigious pedigrees offered a sense of comfort, safety, and reassurance. All he had to do was to tell people that Bud had an M.D.-Ph.D. and they would know that Bud was exceptionally smart.
Of the five disciples, Dan’l Lewin was the closest to Steve, a brother figure. They looked as though they could be brothers, both slender and tall with straight dark hair. Dan’l projected more