Steve Jobs: Billion Dollar Hippy Page #4

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But just before it was due

to be unveiled,

Microsoft suddenly announced

Windows I for the PC,

which Apple feared would be similar.

Jobs couldn't contain his fury.

Steve was saying, "How can

you do this to us?

"We trusted you, you betrayed us."

And I was impressed with

Bill Gate's demeanour

because Steve Jobs yelling at you

with his full force is kind of a...

a pretty frightening

thing for most people!

But he was kind of cool and calm.

Just looked Steve back in the eye

and said, "Well, Steve,

"you know, what you're saying is one

way of looking at it,

"but I look at it a different way.

"It's more like you had a rich

neighbour named Xerox

"and I broke into their house

to steal the television set

"and found you had

stolen it before I could."

Finally, after three years

and millions of dollars,

the Macintosh computer was ready.

It was the distillation

of Steve Jobs' vision

of what technology should be.

Easy to use, intimate,

intended to change

the lives of ordinary people.

The future of Apple rested on

this strikingly-designed beige box.

Computers before the Macintosh

kept us at arms length.

The only way we can control them

was through painstakingly moving

this crazy little cursor

on the screen

and it looked like an alien device

with these glowing green letters.

The Macintosh put it

on human scale.

COMPUTER:
Hello, I am Macintosh.

For the first time it was actually,

you know, intuitive.

If you were bright enough

to walk around unaided,

you could just turn it on

and use it.

The Macintosh would be a hit

with graphic designers

and create the desktop

publishing era.

Those of us who used Apples,

who got up early

because we were excited about

the fact

we were in a world full of glide

and flow and smoothness and pleasure,

were told that we were pretentious,

posing, bohemian arty types.

"It's all very well for you, but

I've got to do officey things",

were missing the point.

But however good it was,

the Mac cost $2,500,

over $1,000 more than an IBM PC.

Even so, Steve Jobs was in no doubt

it would take the world by storm.

Like all great entrepreneurs,

in Steve's mind,

"Why wouldn't everybody on

the planet immediately buy a Mac"?

So he had huge expectations.

Expectations that were about

to collide with the real world.

Then the sales numbers

started coming in

and, at best, they were

half of what we were expecting.

One of Steve's great strengths

is his strong will

and imposing his own

version of reality.

So in the face of depressing sales

numbers he wasn't really fazed.

Apple's new Macintosh factory

was running at 50% of capacity.

We did lose money and that was

a huge crisis for everybody.

Of course, that

engendered a panic at Apple.

You know, "What was the problem?

How can we fix it?"

And there, there was disagreement

between different people.

The most serious disagreement

was between Steve Jobs

and the man he had made

Chief Executive, John Sculley.

Steve has a tendency to be

binary about people

You know, sort of,

he flipped on John Sculley.

The two men were battling

over the future of Apple.

I was focused on

the cash-flow of the Apple II.

We had to have that coming in.

Steve wanted to drop

the price of the Macintosh,

and put more marketing

against the Macintosh.

I felt we couldn't afford that.

30-year-old Jobs had picked a fight

with a formidable foe.

Sculley came from PepsiCo,

a very political organisation,

and he was a skilful infighter

who knew how to play the games,

and Steve didn't.

I said, "Steve, I'm going

to the board of directors."

He didn't think I'd do that,

but I did,

and the board said,

"We agree with John.

"We don't agree with you, Steve."

They asked Steve to step down

from heading the Macintosh division.

Jobs had been forced

out of the company he had created.

It was a humiliating

taste of failure.

I got a phone call,

late at night and it was Steve.

He sounded really despondent

and very, very sad.

And I knew he was all alone

at his great big unfurnished mansion

up in Woodside.

I got in my car, drove up there,

and it was totally dark

and rather creepy,

and I found the house

and went in and climbed up

stairs by myself and found him

in his bedroom just laying down

and he was very, very sad.

And I just stayed there,

as a friend.

11 years later,

Jobs was still bitter.

What can I say?

I hired the wrong guy.

That was Sculley? Yeah,

and, er, he destroyed everything

I'd spent ten years working for.

Erm, starting with me,

but that wasn't the saddest part.

I'd have gladly left Apple if Apple

had turned out like I wanted it to.

Sacking Jobs seemed natural to the

man schooled in selling sugar water.

In hindsight, that was a terrible

decision. I was part of it.

Coming from my vantage point,

out of corporate America,

people were asked

to step down all the time

when there were disagreements

so I didn't appreciate what it

meant to be a founder of a business,

the visionary of the business.

I was focused on

how do we sell Apple computers,

he was focused on

how do we change the world?

Jobs severed all ties with Apple,

except one.

He kept a single share in the

company he had founded,

selling off the rest

for more than $100 million.

He hated the company. He couldn't see

that it would succeed without him.

He didn't want it

to succeed without him.

Over the next 11 years,

Jobs didn't relent.

Once again centre stage,

he set up a new company called Next,

building high spec computers.

With cases made of magnesium

and a price to match,

they didn't sell well.

Though one important computer

scientist was impressed.

Steve Jobs had arranged that,

whenever you get a Next machine,

there would be a message from him.

One of the things I remember he said

was that it's not just about personal

computing, which was the rage,

he said this should be about

interpersonal computing.

And I thought, yeah, that's...

Yeah, he's got it.

Jobs recognised technology was on

the cusp of allowing us

to communicate through computers.

And, in fact, the Next's powerful

operating system

helped Sir Tim Berners-Lee connect

computer users together.

I developed the World Wide Web

on this Next machine

in a couple of months,

whereas on another machine

it would've taken me a lot longer.

YOU ARE A TOY!

As well as high-tech,

Jobs invested in a struggling

computer animation company.

He ploughed $50 million into Pixar,

keeping it afloat

until it created the first

computer-animated feature film.

Toy Story was a blockbuster,

and taking Pixar public made

Steve Jobs super rich.

He did stay in there

and made the company successful,

and we made him

a billionaire in return.

Seems like a pretty good deal.

Now the hippy computer mogul

had become a Hollywood player.

Jobs had the world,

but he didn't have Apple.

They say that there are no second

acts in American life,

but there clearly are.

One of the astonishing things

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