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By Root 602 0

The Macintosh was a creative triumph but it took years longer than he had anticipated. He had planned for Next to release its first computer by spring 1987, within eighteen months of the company’s founding. But as 1987 began, they weren’t even close to completion. Steve’s ambitions were constantly aggrandizing. It wasn’t enough for the new machine to be distinguished by one particular breakthrough. Everything about it had to be a breakthrough. For the software, he was taking an entirely new approach, starting from scratch, trying to create the most elegant lines of software code ever written. The industrial design had to be like no computer ever created. It had to be as gorgeous and sleek as Steve’s black Porsche. Even the factory had to be beautiful, and it had to be as fully automated as any factory in the world. At first, the Next founders thought that they would hire a larger company to make the machines for them. But Steve had created a highly automated factory to build the Macintosh, and he had to do even better this time. The Next computer was going to be in the image of the Macintosh, but much, much better. Steve would take his earlier creation, with all of its flaws and compromises, and now, with the benefit of money and time, he would make it absolutely perfect. Unlike his years at Apple, this time there was no one else to answer to, not even a board of directors to provide oversight or serve as a voice for restraint. Steve was in complete control.

But time was passing, and the money, the $7 million that Steve had invested, was nearly gone. Seven million . . . in a little more than a year! The company was bleeding money. Steve still had a fortune left. He could easily put in more. But Next needed independent investors who would give it more credibility in the industry. At this point it had to look like a real business, not just the expensive frivolous hobby of some rich guy. Steve had thought that he could finance the company entirely on his own, which would let him keep total control. But now he realized that it was a good idea to bring in some “smart money.” He began talking with venture capitalists, the professional investors who specialize in risky technology startups. He was willing to sell a 10 percent ownership stake in Next for $3 million, but the investors thought that was too high a price for a company that still wasn’t close to actually shipping a product and beginning to bring in revenues.

Then Next received an unsolicited call from one of the most famous names in the computer business, H. Ross Perot, the legendary founder of Electronic Data Systems.

“You’d never guess who just called,” Steve told a colleague. “This is incredible.”

The irascible Texas mogul had seen video clips of Steve on a television documentary, The Innovators, and he was mightily impressed. Steve seemed like a brilliant iconoclastic entrepreneur, a visionary. He was sort of . . . a reincarnation of Ross himself! An image of Ross in his own youth! Only much taller and much better looking.

“If you ever need an investor, call me,” Ross said.

Steve badly needed an investor, especially one with that kind of prestige.

In January 1987 Ross’s limousine pulled up to the Next factory building in the working-class eastern side of San Francisco Bay, in a town called Fremont, not far from the state-of-the-art Macintosh factory Steve had created. The Next structure was still an empty shell. There was nothing to see, but they could imagine what would rise here with the help of Ross’s millions: the smooth hum of smart machines making other smart machines. In the center of the cold bare floor there was a long conference table with folding chairs and an overhead projector. A screen was attached to one of the narrow steel support columns. They were going to have lunch and then Steve would make his big presentation. But before they could sit down, Steve saw that something wasn’t exactly the way he wanted it.

Suddenly he began screaming at one of the Next employees, berating him, subjecting him to a brutal verbal assault while Ross and other