The Second Coming of Steve Jobs - Alan Deutschman [32]
In 1987, a high-ranking Apple executive named Larry Tesler called Steve, albeit accidentally. Larry wanted to offer a consulting contract to a Macintosh software developer named Steve Jasik. He looked through his phone directory, and his eyes fixed not on the correct number but on the very next number in the alphabetical listing. Unknowingly he dialed the digits for Steve Jobs, not Steve Jasik. He heard an answering machine tape:
“This is Steve. Leave a message.”
“Steve, I want to talk to you about a job.”
A while later, when Larry was out, there was a response from Steve Jobs.
“Larry, I got your message, and I have one question. Are you talking about you coming to Next or me going to Apple?”
In reality, Apple didn’t want him back. Many people argued that the Mac’s triumph came about because of the undoing of Steve’s worst decision. The Mac was saved by the phenomenon of “desktop publishing,” as artists and designers used the machine to print homemade newsletters and magazines and brochures with stylish graphics. And desktop publishing was only practical if you could open up the casing of your Macintosh and load in all kinds of extra memory cards and graphic boards and such. Steve had demanded that the Mac’s case be bolted closed. He viewed the Mac as his finished product, an artistic creation that shouldn’t be tampered with. Sculley turned it into the equivalent of a hot rod with an engine that could be souped up for better performance by kids who liked to tinker under the hood. That’s what proved to be the salvation of the computer and the company.
Steve’s bitterness toward John Sculley remained intense. Bob Metcalfe, a friend and neighbor of the two men, invited them to his big Christmas party at his mansion in Woodside. Steve and John both showed up, but they were so unhappy to be in each other’s presence that they spent the evening on opposite sides of the house. The tension between them was only exacerbated when Sculley published his book, Odyssey, a detailed account of their friendship, their falling out, and his own subsequent success.
With Sculley redeemed and Apple resurgent, the pressure intensified for Steve to unveil something great. His people felt the worsening stress. When Steve took them to a resort for another “off-site” retreat, he put a transparency on the overhead projector. It was a list of the problems they faced. At the top Steve had written: “Deep Shit.” That wasn’t all. He removed the transparency and replaced it with another one: “Ankle Deep Shit.”
His perfectionism raged. He was obsessed with minute details that no one else in the computer business was even slightly concerned about. Even the hidden electronic guts of the Next computer—the “motherboard”—had to have a clever, visually appealing design.
“Who’s ever going to see the inside?” one of the Next designers asked.
“I will,” Steve said.
Sometimes his quest for creativity had comical results, like when he searched for the most innovative designers of the day to create the shape and look of his new machine. He noticed a London firm that won a contest for its styling of a flashlight, and he hired the firm to build a prototype for the Next computer. When the work was completed, Steve and Bud Tribble flew to London. They sat in a conference room looking at a shrouded form on the table. These guys had the same sense of drama as Steve did! The British designers talked at length about the thinking that informed their approach. Then, finally, they pulled off the shroud and revealed . . . a computer in the shape of a human head! Steve was shocked, appalled. He had flown thirteen hours from San Francisco to London for . . . this?
Finally Steve ended his search for new talent and wound up rehiring the industrial designer of