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“He went to change his shirt,” Lisa said.

“You let him?”

Steve reappeared only moments before the appointed time, and Lisa rushed to brief him about what he was supposed to say. Steve seemed completely distracted.

“Yeah yeah yeah,” he said dismissively.

The award was announced, and he went to the microphone.

“I’m Steve Jobs, and I am not the president of Apple Computer,” he said snidely.

The Pixar entourage was shocked. This is our world, they thought, and Steve is making nasty, arrogant remarks about the stupid old rivalries in his world. “I was embarrassed and appalled,” recalls Lisa MacKenzie. “We were trying to have this pride of association with Steve, but he was being a jerk and belittling Siggraph, this organization that we hold dear.” The Siggraph crowd wasn’t a bunch of college kids who saw Steve as a cult hero. It was filled with hot shot professors and hot shot Hollywood special-effects gurus. This was their cherished community, and Steve wasn’t really one of them.

“They weren’t going ’Ooh ooh, Steve,’” Lisa recalls. “They were saying ’What the hell is he doing here?’”

• • •

STEVE WAS DEEPLY MOODY and maddeningly erratic. He was as entirely unpredictable as a young child. He could be petulant, misbehaving as if he simply didn’t know better, or he could act with an unaffected charm that seemed wonderfully innocent, almost naive. And when the Good Steve reappeared, it was easy to forget the torments of the Bad Steve.

He acted just like a wide-eyed kid during an especially memorable business trip he took with Next’s top salesman, Todd Rulon-Miller. The two men were together in Detroit, making sales calls, when one of their appointments canceled. Suddenly and unexpectedly they had some free time in a very unfamiliar city. What should they do? They looked around and saw that they were in front of the world headquarters of General Motors.

Steve entered the impressive high-ceilinged lobby and walked up to the receptionist, who was licking envelopes, seemingly bored and distracted.

He said that he’d like to see Roger Smith, the chief executive officer.

Todd was astonished. This was like a scene from the wild gonzo documentary film Roger & Me, in which the liberal journalist Michael Moore, looking like a random crazy guy off the street, would appear at GM lobbies and ask to meet right away with the head of the nation’s biggest corporation. And, of course, the brazen filmmaker would be thrown out.

Now, in a moment of life imitating art, another seemingly random crazy guy was standing there, and the receptionist was visibly nervous. She called for the security guard.

“Sir?” asked the guard.

“Call Roger, he’ll take my call,” Steve insisted with easy confidence.

They gave him a telephone and dialed the number for Roger Smith’s assistant.

“Mr. Smith is busy,” she said.

“Tell him Steve Jobs is in the lobby. He’ll see me,” Steve said, winking at Todd.

A few moments later, they were escorted to the top floor, a palace of corporate baroque, where they waited uncomfortably in front of the armed guards and attack dogs.

Roger Smith came hustling down the hall.

“Steve, how are you!” he exclaimed.

They went to Roger’s private office, which was strewn with cardboard boxes. Roger had just turned sixty-five and announced his retirement. This was his final week on the job, and he was busy packing his books and personal belongings.

“We want to sell you computers,” Steve said enthusiastically.

Roger called in Bob Stempel, his successor as CEO, who talked business with Steve for three-quarters of an hour.

When the Next executives were back on the street, Todd said: “You’re amazing!”

“Huh?” Steve replied, as if he often dropped in unannounced on famous people.

“How did you get us in?”

“Oh, I met Roger before, twelve years ago.”

• • •

SOON AFTER THE GM VISIT, Steve’s innocence and exuberance didn’t play nearly as well during a sales call at Disney. Although the visit was intended as a fairly routine pitch, it wound up as an edgy confrontation with tough moguls who would play a vital and unexpected