For those reasons I went to Microsoft. And you know what? I felt great going into work every day. That's way more important than a billion dollars.
Also, I'm a somewhat high net worth individual (nothing remotely in the Steve Jobs range). I'm lucky to be where I am, but the price of being a billionaire seems much too high for me.
You appear to be at peace with your decision. It is a much deserved peace.
I really appreciate your comment. One friend of mine was interviewed and they asked about her experiences working with Steve, and she said something like, "you'll probably find that some people who've worked with him don't want to talk about it." Ouch.
See my reply to enraged_camel for some related thoughts...
Is it, though? I mean, don't get me wrong, happiness is very important, but we're talking about literally a billion dollars. You can use that type of money to do a shit ton of things, and virtually guarantee that your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren etc. live very, very comfortable lives. Personally, given the choice, I'd gladly choose half a decade (or whatever) of absolute misery working for an asshole boss if it will net me a billion dollars in the end. Because for me, my own happiness is not more important than the happiness and comfort of those around me and those who come after me.
I think that is naive. I've met quite a few people with large trust funds, and in every case I thought "Man, I am so glad I'm not them." Human joy and self-worth does NOT come about from being "comfortable".
Besides the billion dollars or the fame, there is another question I've asked myself a few times when I've been in a speculative mood.
Steve was famous for his "bozo bit". You could be his greatest hero one day, and the next day he would flip the bozo bit on you and you were the scum of the earth.
When he told me "you couldn't possibly program these microcomputers, they are completely different from the mainframes you've worked on," what if I had pushed back and shown him they weren't so different and I could do a great job with them?
There's a possibility he would have learned from that experience, realized he was mistaken in his snap judgment, and improved his relations with other people he worked with.
Of course that may be wishful thinking. And being Steve, he probably still would have had a bozo bit. But maybe he wouldn't have flipped it so often! :-)
It is not.
The same way as winning big in lottery usually leads to misery, the same way huge inheritances do not really make people happy.
It is better for your descendants to earn their wealth themselves (whatever that wealth would be).
It only really takes about $50mm for that. (I guess it does depend a bit on the number of progeny you choose to have)
> ersonally, given the choice, I'd gladly choose half a decade (or whatever) of absolute misery working for an asshole boss
Some people quite literally kill themselves under such circumstances, so it really is a ymmv situation. (and I probably lean towards your side of the specrum)
Many of us would. But that's hindsight.
The reality is, of those who try, most wind up working for the asshole boss with nothing to show for it at the end.
Besides, Ferrari dealership owners, exotic dancers and cocaine dealers have kids too! They could use some of your money for their support!
It's just that you still don't want to hand over the money on a silver platter, it's better for people's character and pride to do some work to get it (e.g. build and sell a Ferrari to you)...
In fact, they had everything they needed to build a consumer computer. It was all better than what Apple had.
The thing we lacked was vision. We coulda been billionaires! We lacked a Steve Jobs.
But there's an enormous gap between that and knowing what to build, how to pull it all together to make a product, and sell that product. That takes vision.
Going a little off topic, I've always felt someone could make a decent sci-fi story from that: what would the world look like if everyone had the ability to irrecoverably alter a single decision from their past? Would it be wasted on trivial matter? Would it drive people crazy to have such uncertain power and never know if/when they should use it? Would people not use it out of principle?
To make up for it, you now have to go write that story.
You already have the title:
What If?
Can you share who is this early employee? Couldn't find him using Google.
http://tradertim.blogspot.com/2007/07/lonesome-tale-of-burre...
> My understanding is that after the Macintosh-crazed 80s, he ran into some issues. Suffice it to say that I see him on the street at least a couple of times a month.
Might as well have said nothing at all.
Do we have any concrete reason to believe that was the case, or at least someone's anecdotal comments supporting it?
But from talking with friends who did work closely with Steve, what I can say for sure is that it seems like a real possibility that working with him could have had a very bad effect on my own mental health.
Maybe I missed an insanely great opportunity.
Maybe I dodged a bullet.
Who really knows? :-)
But it can be tempting!
In my case, I had the opportunity to be the first programmer at Apple. I told the story on Reddit a few years ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/h4n5w/
As you can imagine, I have wondered "what if?" more than a few times. :-)
But "what if?" can work both ways. I could have become a billionaire and one of the most famous people in Silicon Valley. Or Steve could have driven me from the mild depression I'd occasionally experienced into full-blown mental illness, as happened with one of Apple's earliest employees. You just don't know which way it could have turned out.
The other story on the front page today about Regis McKenna reminds me of one of the more remarkable coincidences I've encountered.
As I told in the Reddit story, when I walked out of Apple's answering service in 1976 I thought to myself, "Those guys are flakes! They're never going to make it."
It was one of those things that sticks in your mind. I remember vividly to this day exactly where I was walking and the exact words that were in my head.
A couple of years ago I was reading Michael Moritz's Return to the Little Kingdom and ran across this:
At first there was great uncertainty at the Regis McKenna Agency about Apple's prospects. The account executive, Frank Burge, explained, "People who knew Markkula and Apple wondered whether they would make it. We kept saying 'These guys are flakes. They’re never going to make it.'"
Other than "these" vs. "those", it's the exact same words I was thinking.
It was definitely a strange feeling to run across that quote!