Steve Jobs: One Last Thing Page #2

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In those early days,

Woz and Jobs took their creation

to the home-brew computer club,

an early computer club,

an early computer users' group

in silicon valley,

where it quickly attracted

attention from their peers.

I met both Steves,

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak

at a meeting

of the home-brew computer club

in Palo Alto.

Our first meeting

was really simple.

It was in the parking lot,

and I helped them

unload Woz's FIA and carried in what

I guess was the first Apple I

to show it off

to the assembled multitudes.

When that same first

Apple I was auctioned in 2010,

it attracted

even more attention.

It heralds

the home computing revolution.

This is the first computer

where you use a keyboard

and a screen

to enter and read data.

Selling

for 110,000.

From the hippie days

of 1970s California,

a handful of teenage geeks

emerged to change

how we work, play,

and communicate with each other.

Founders can be

divided into two camps.

There are hippies,

and there are nerds,

and Jobs was definitely

the hippie,

and Woz was the nerd.

And the hippie has

the grand vision,

and the nerd is able

to realize the vision.

The nerd knows everything

about women

but doesn't know any women.

You know,

Steve knew women.

So there's that distinction.

So they really

needed each other.

He knew how to beat it

out of Woz,

and he would do that,

and his contributions

at that time were saying,

"gosh. We could

sell these things."

I mean, which doesn't

sound like much,

but it's huge when you're

dealing with a guy in Woz

who never thought

about selling anything.

I wanted it to happen

so badly,

I gave this computer away.

I gave away the listings,

no copyright notices,

no nothing,

and then Steve Jobs came

and saw the interest,

and he said

"why don't we start

a company to make some money?"

And I said, "fine."

They did want

to start a business.

They raised money to

start a business.

They knew that they couldn't

do it on their own.

They sought out

older people to help,

and Steve Jobs in particular

was quite persuasive.

In Apple's earliest

days, the two Steves,

Jobs and Woz, took on an older

and more experienced partner.

Ronald Wayne now lives

and works near Las Vegas,

a fitting location for

a man who walked away

with nothing from

a $37 billion no-lose bet.

Wayne was invited to discuss

a business proposal

with Jobs and Woz.

That was the first time

I had met Steve Wozniak,

a fascinating guy

a fun guy to be with,

very... not only a fun guy

to be with,

the most gracious man

I've ever met in my life.

As far as Wozniak

was concerned,

the world was

a great big sand box

with a lot of toys

to play with.

But Ron's opinion

of Steve Jobs was not so hot.

I wouldn't put gracious

in his description.

He had the kind of manner,

the kind of approach to people

and environments that

were business directed, ok?

He was extremely serious.

Wayne acted as referee

in a minor difference of opinion

between the two equal partners.

Well, Steve Jobs was

so impressed

with my diplomacy

in that particular situation

that he immediately

came back and said,

"ok. What we're going

to do is form a company,"

with Woz and Jobs

getting 45% each,

and I would get 10%

as a tiebreaker

in the event

of any philosophical disputes

that might occur

in the future.

10% of Apple

today would be worth

$37,631,420,312.42,

but despite his share

in the company,

Ron was worried

that working with Jobs and Woz

might prove to be

too stressful.

At 40, I thought I was getting

a little old for that.

They were absolute whirlwinds.

It was like having

a tiger by the tail.

So Ron decided

to hand back his share

for nothing and walk

away with no regrets.

A lot of people

have the impression

that somehow or other I got

diddled out of something.

Well, I did not.

Nobody diddled me out of anything.

Wayne may not be bitter,

but he wasn't the only

early Apple employee

who made a life decision

most of us would regret.

The funny thing is that

Steve Jobs hired me,

and he said... he had hair just

down to his waist at the time,

and as I recall

he only ate fruit,

and he said,

"we don't have very much loot,

so we'd like to

pay you in stock."

I held out for the cash.

When Steve Jobs

first launched Apple,

the computer industry meant

mainframes and minicomputers.

Huge devices sat

in air conditioned rooms,

and users worked

on terminals.

It wasn't

a personal experience.

The Apple II was

the first computer

that looked like

a consumer electronic device.

It was actually designed,

and they thought

about the user experience

and that it was intended

really to be used

by a single person

in some interactive way

that was enjoyable

to the user, different.

Steve always

thought much more broadly

than just technology.

He was certainly

a techno-visionary,

but the key to his greatness is

to see how broad he thought.

He was obsessed with design,

with elegant design,

and he was obsessed

with the overall experience

of technology and the idea

of creativity generally.

So somehow he was able

to bring these things together

and create technology that

made peoples' eyes light up.

And I wait 8 hours

in a line,

and I'm hungry,

I am everything you imagine,

but I'm happy.

I wait for my iPad

and really, really,

really happy now.

Jobs drew on a diverse

range of influences to feed

his creativity, including

a class he dropped into

at college in Portland, Oregon,

in the early seventies.

Reed college has one

of the best calligraphy courses

in the U.S.

His teacher had a major impact

on his aesthetic

and the clean lines

of his products.

We had many very bright

students here,

d we had bright thinkers

and people that wanted

to change things

and improve the world.

But Palladino

witnessed first hand

the impact Jobs

had on his peers.

The other

students brought him to me

like they were bringing me

someone very special.

They really had

a high regard for him.

I guess they could see

the dynamics

already forming

in his thinking.

Jobs completed

the course in 1974

but returned to palladino

just two years later.

He was enthusing

about a machine he

had created in his garage

and seeking advice on a font.

He was interested in telling

me what he was doing

and how he was using

what he had learned in class,

but he wanted some help

with Greek letters

because he wanted

a Greek font,

and he couldn't find

satisfactory models to go from.

Before Steve started working

on computer typefaces,

they were in very bad condition,

and any improvement

would be a step forward.

The resulting fonts

appeared not just on Macs

but ultimately PCs, too,

dramatically improving

the user experience

but not for Robert.

I never touch computers.

I write everything by hand.

Getting letters in the mail

is getting to be very rare.

Dropping out of college,

Jobs went on the hippie trail,

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