|
Baby You’re a Rich Man
Before and after he was rich, and indeed throughout a life that included being both broke and a
billionaire, Steve Jobs’s attitude toward wealth was complex. He was an antimaterialistic hippie
who capitalized on the inventions of a friend who wanted to give them away for free, and he was a
Zen devotee who made a pilgrimage to India and then decided that his calling was to create a
business. And yet somehow these attitudes seemed to weave together rather than conflict.
He had a great love for some material objects, especially those that were finely designed and
crafted, such as Porsche and Mercedes cars, Henckels knives and Braun appliances, BMW
motorcycles and Ansel Adams prints, Bösendorfer pianos and Bang & Olufsen audio equipment.
Yet the houses he lived in, no matter how rich he became, tended not to be ostentatious and were
furnished so simply they would have put a Shaker to shame. Neither then nor later would he travel
with an entourage, keep a personal staff, or even have security protection. He bought a nice car,
but always drove himself. When Markkula asked Jobs to join him in buying a Lear jet, he declined
(though he eventually would demand of Apple a Gulfstream to use). Like his father, he could be
flinty when bargaining with suppliers, but he didn’t allow a craving for profits to take precedence
over his passion for building great products.
Thirty years after Apple went public, he reflected on what it was like to come into money
suddenly:
I never worried about money. I grew up in a middle-class family, so I never thought I would starve. And
I learned at Atari that I could be an okay engineer, so I always knew I could get by. I was voluntarily
poor when I was in college and India, and I lived a pretty simple life even when I was working. So I
went from fairly poor, which was wonderful, because I didn’t have to worry about money, to being
incredibly rich, when I also didn’t have to worry about money.
I watched people at Apple who made a lot of money and felt they had to live differently. Some of
them bought a Rolls-Royce and various houses, each with a house manager and then someone to
manage the house managers. Their wives got plastic surgery and turned into these bizarre people. This
was not how I wanted to live. It’s crazy. I made a promise to myself that I’m not going to let this money
ruin my life.
He was not particularly philanthropic. He briefly set up a foundation, but he discovered that it
was annoying to have to deal with the
person he had hired to run it, who kept talking about “venture” philanthropy and how to
“leverage” giving. Jobs became contemptuous of people who made a display of philanthropy or
thinking they could reinvent it. Earlier he had quietly sent in a $5,000 check to help launch Larry
Brilliant’s Seva Foundation to fight diseases of poverty, and he even agreed to join the board. But
when Brilliant brought some board members, including Wavy Gravy and Jerry Garcia, to Apple
right after its IPO to solicit a donation, Jobs was not forthcoming. He instead worked on finding
ways that a donated Apple II and a VisiCalc program could make it easier for the foundation to do
a survey it was planning on blindness in Nepal.
His biggest personal gift was to his parents, Paul and Clara Jobs, to whom he gave about
$750,000 worth of stock. They sold some to pay off the mortgage on their Los Altos home, and
their son came over for the little celebration. “It was the first time in their lives they didn’t have a
mortgage,” Jobs recalled. “They had a handful of their friends over for the party, and it was really
nice.” Still, they didn’t consider buying a nicer house. “They weren’t interested in that,” Jobs said.
“They had a life they were happy with.” Their only splurge was to take a Princess cruise each
year. The one through the Panama Canal “was the big one for my dad,” according to Jobs, because
it reminded him of when his Coast Guard ship went through on its way to San Francisco to be
decommissioned.
With Apple’s success came fame for its poster boy.
Inc.
became the first magazine to put him
on its cover, in October 1981. “This man has changed business forever,” it proclaimed. It showed
Jobs with a neatly trimmed beard and well-styled long hair, wearing blue jeans and a dress shirt
with a blazer that was a little too satiny. He was leaning on an Apple II and looking directly into
the camera with the mesmerizing stare he had picked up from Robert Friedland. “When Steve Jobs
speaks, it is with the gee-whiz enthusiasm of someone who sees the future and is making sure it
works,” the magazine reported.
Time
followed in February 1982 with a package on young entrepreneurs. The cover was a
painting of Jobs, again with his hypnotic stare. Jobs, said the main story, “practically singlehanded
created the personal computer industry.” The accompanying profile, written by Michael
Moritz, noted, “At 26, Jobs heads a company that six years ago was located in a bedroom and
garage of his parents’ house, but this year it is expected to have sales of $600 million. . . . As an
executive, Jobs has sometimes been petulant and harsh on subordinates. Admits he: ‘I’ve got to
learn to keep my feelings private.’”
Despite his new fame and fortune, he still fancied himself a child of the counterculture. On a
visit to a Stanford class, he took off his Wilkes Bashford blazer and his shoes, perched on top of a
table, and crossed his legs into a lotus position. The students asked questions, such as when
Apple’s stock price would rise, which Jobs brushed off. Instead he spoke of his passion for future
products, such as someday making a computer as small as a book. When the business questions
tapered off, Jobs turned the tables on the well-groomed students. “How many of you are virgins?”
he asked. There were nervous giggles. “How many of you have taken LSD?” More nervous
laughter, and only one or two hands went up. Later Jobs would complain about the new generation
of kids, who seemed to him more materialistic and careerist than his own. “When I went to school,
it was right after the sixties and before this general wave of practical purposefulness had set in,”
he said. “Now students aren’t even thinking in idealistic terms, or at least nowhere near as much.”
His generation, he said, was different. “The idealistic wind of the sixties is still at our backs,
though, and most of the people I know who are my age have that ingrained in them forever.”
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
