There have been so many articles posted on Steve Jobs in the past week, I really thought I wasn’t going to add one here on my blog.
However, yesterday, John Lilly wrote a great piece on Steve Jobs yesterday, and I realized I might have a story worth telling after all. I find myself fortunate, in retrospect, to have joined Apple in 1996 as an intern, and then full time in 1997 just weeks before Steve Jobs took the helm as interim CEO.
A Tale of Two Meetings
As an outgoing intern of the Advanced Technology Group, I actually did attend the meeting that John describes in his blog post. However, as a full time engineer on WebObjects, I also had the opportunity to attend a different all hands that Steve Jobs called for the entire Rhapsody team (the codename of the project that became Mac OS X).
If you haven’t read John’s post, it’s definitely worth reading in tandem with this one. He does a great job capturing the insights from the ATG meeting. Instead, let me add to the story with my recollection of the Rhapsody meeting that happened the same week.
(Note: It has been over fourteen years since the meeting, so don’t take this as a literal play-by-play. I have no notes, so all quotes are from memory. But this is how I remember it.)
The “Michael Dell” Meeting
The mood of the Rhapsody team meeting was energetic, but mixed. More than any other group at Apple, the Rhapsody team required a combination of talent from both long time Apple engineers and newly merged NeXT engineers. There was a palpable sense of excitement in the room, as particularly the NeXT team had a huge amount of respect for the “incoming administration”. At the same time, there was an element of discontent around suddenly finding themselves part of a large company, and even some skepticism that Apple was salvageable.
Steve got on stage at the front of the room in Infinite Loop 4, and put a huge, larger
than life picture of Michael Dell on the wall. He repeated the news fodder that Michael Dell had been asked recently what he would do if he was running Apple Computer. (At the time, Dell was the ultimate success story in the PC industry.) Dell said that he would liquidate the company and return the cash to shareholders.
A few gasps, a few jeers and some general murmuring in the audience. But I don’t think they expected what he said next.
And you know what? He’s right.
The world doesn’t need another Dell or HP. It doesn’t need another manufacturer of plain, beige, boring PCs. If that’s all we’re going to do, then we should really pack up now.
But we’re lucky, because Apple has a purpose. Unlike anyone in the industry, people want us to make products that they love. In fact, more than love. Our job is to make products that people lust for. That’s what Apple is meant to be.
What’s BMW’s market share of the auto market? Does anyone know? Well, it’s less than 2%, but no one cares. Why? Because either you drive a BMW or you stare at the new one driving by. If we do our job, we’ll make products that people lust after, and no one will care about our market share.
Apple is a start-up. Granted, it’s a startup with $6B in revenue, but that can and will go in an instant. If you are here for a cushy 9-to-5 job, then that’s OK, but you should go. We’re going to make sure everyone has stock options, and that they are oriented towards the long term. If you need a big salary and bonus, then that’s OK, but you should go. This isn’t going to be that place.
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