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Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colorful Company [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)
by Owen W. Linzmayer
| Category:
Corporate history, IT, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Business |
| Market price: ¥ 228.00
MSL price:
¥ 208.00
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Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Definitive text about the history of Apple Computer as well as the fall and rise of Steve Jobs. |
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Author: Owen W. Linzmayer
Publisher: No Starch Press; 2 edition
Pub. in: January, 2004
ISBN: 1593270100
Pages: 323
Measurements: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00041
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- Awards & Credential -
One of the definitive and bestselling books about the history of Apple Computer. |
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- MSL Picks -
In Apple Confidential 2.0, Journalist Owen Linzmayer explores Apple's tumultuous history, from its legendary founding, through a series of disastrous executive decisions, to its recent return to profitability. Backed by exhaustive research, the book debunks many of the myths and half-truths surrounding Apple, the Macintosh, and its creators. Linzmayer looks into secret archives, interviews key players, and tells the real stories behind the hype.
This book combines gossip, history, trivia and the legends & lore of one of America's most fascinating companies. The story starts with the two Steve making and selling boxes to confuse the phone system into granting free calls. It chronicles the development of Apple computer from the first Apple through the Lisa, endless varieties of Macintosh and today's iPod. Throughout the story, the massive ups and colossal failures of this American institution are laid bare.
The layout is interesting as well. As characters are introduced, the reader frequently wonders "What happened to them?" More often than not, the question is answered in a sidebar. This showed that Apple wasn't just a great product developer, but also a great developer of Silicon Valley talent.
The book details the extremes of the players personalities:
- How Jobs agreed to split the proceeds of an Atari deal with Woz, only to keep 90% of the income himself.
- How Woz forced the company to go public early by sharing his stock with too many employees.
- How Gasse talked folks out of licensing the technology until it was too late.
- How several successive CEOs tried in vain to save the company.
The book also details some lesser known stories from Apple's storied past:
- How the 1984 commercial almost never made it.
- How the company decided to abandon Copland & Why!
- How the company got sued by Carl Sagan, and how they dug their ditch a little deeper.
There's a lot of "Hows" here, which really shows how deep the author gets into the company's history and soul. You come away with not just a knowledge of the people, but their personalities and why exactly things turned out the way they did.
This book is excellent reading for anyone interested in the world of technology, and an absolute must for fans of Apple. (From quoting Publisher and Therosen, USA)
Target readers:
Mac and apple fans, IT professionals, executives, managers, entrepreneurs, nonprofit and government leaders, and MBAs.
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Owen Linzmayer is a San Francisco-based freelance writer who has been covering Apple Computer for industry magazines since 1980. He is the author of four Macintosh-related books, has contributed to every major Macintosh publication, and currently writes a monthly column for MacAddict magazine.
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From the Publisher:
Apple Confidential examines the tumultuous history of America's best-known Silicon Valley start-up - from its legendary founding almost 30 years ago, through a series of disastrous executive decisions, to its return to profitability, and including Apple's recent move into the music business. Linzmayer digs into forgotten archives and interviews the key players to give readers the real story of Apple Computer, Inc. This updated and expanded edition includes tons of new photos, timelines, and charts, as well as coverage of new lawsuit battles, updates on former Apple executives, and new chapters on Steve Wozniak and Pixar.
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Chapter 1, The Forgotten Founder
Thanks to a never-ending campaign by Apple's powerful public relations machine to protect the myths surrounding the company's origin, almost everyone believes that Apple was started in a garage by "the two Steves," Stephen Gary Wozniak, 25, and Steven Paul Jobs,21. Actually, the operation began in a bedroom at 11161 Crist Drive in Los Altos (the house number changed to 2066 when the land was annexed from the county to the city in late 1983), where Jobs-after having dropped out of Reed College in Portland, Oregon-was living with his adoptive parents, Paul R. (a machinist at Spectra Physics)and Clara (a payroll clerk at Varian). That mere semantic distinction can be forgiven. When the bedroom became too crowded, the operation did indeed move to the garage.
The bigger story here is that the two Steves weren't alone in forming Apple. Just as Soviet propagandists doctored photos to remove party members who had fallen out of favor, Apple suffers from a convenient case of institutional amnesia by routinely ignoring the fact that when Apple was originally founded as a partnership on April Fools' Day 1976, there were three founders: Woz, Jobs, and a fellow by the name of Ronald Gerald Wayne, 41.
Jobs was freelancing at Atari in the early 1970s when founder Nolan Kay Bushnell hired Wayne as chief draftsman (badge #395) for the video game maker. Despite the difference in their ages, Jobs and Wayne became casual friends and would often have philosophical discussions on the ethics of making money. Desiring a tie-breaker in any potential conflicts with Woz, Jobs enticed Wayne to become a partner in Apple by offering him 10 percent interest in the company.
"Either I was going to be bankrupt or the richest man in the cemetery," Wayne recalls thinking. Since Apple was far from a sure thing, Wayne retained his day job at Atari and worked nights on the original Apple logo and documentation for the Apple I. Meanwhile, Jobs was hustling up customers. At a Homebrew Computer Club meeting (the club met monthly at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center auditorium in Palo Alto), Jobs gave a demonstration of the Apple I to Paul Jay Terrell, who operated the Byte Shop-arguably the first retail computer store chain in the country, which opened its doors on December 8, 1975(Terrell's birthday). Terrell was intrigued and asked Jobs to keep in touch.
The next day, a barefooted Jobs dropped in on Terrell at his store in Mountain View and exclaimed, "I'm keeping in touch." To Jobs' utter amazement, Terrell agreed to buy 50 computers for $500 each, cash on delivery. There was only one catch to the $25,000 order: Terrell wanted fully assembled computers.
The trio had originally planned to produce bare circuit boards for $25each and sell them for $50 to hobbyists who would populate them with the necessary chips and other parts. They didn't have the money necessary to buy all of the parts required to build 50 complete computers, but Jobs was undaunted. On April 6, he obtained a three-month $5,000 loan from Elmer and Allen J. Baum (one of Woz's co-workers at Hewlett-Packard), then convinced suppliers to extend 30days' credit on $15,000 worth of parts.
The young, ambitious Jobs had no qualms about going into debt to fulfill the Byte Shop order, but the seasoned Wayne was anxious. He wasn't convinced Terrell would pay for the computers, and the partnership agreement meant that he had unlimited personal liability for any debts incurred by Apple. Just four years prior, Wayne underwent the emotionally painful experience of folding Siand, his own Las Vegas-based engineering firm.
Wayne didn't want to risk another financial failure, so on April 12-less than two weeks after Apple's founding-he renounced his 10 percent interest for a one-time payment of $800. "I had already learned what gave me indigestion," explained Wayne years later. "If Apple had failed, I would have had bruises on top of bruises. Steve Jobs was an absolute whirlwind and I had lost the energy you need to ride whirlwinds." Freed from the financial liabilities of the partnership agreement, Wayne spent his free time consulting on projects such as designing an enclosure for the Apple I.
Meanwhile, Woz and Jobs got part-time assembly help from Bill Fernandez, who had originally introduced Jobs to Woz in 1968, as well as from Daniel G. Kottke, who had met Jobs at Reed College and had made a spiritual journey to India with him in 1974.
Everyone worked furiously to build the computers by hand. Terrell was a bit dismayed when Jobs showed up on the 29th day to deliver a batch of motherboards stuffed with components. When Terrell asked for "fully assembled" computers, he meant the whole works: a case, power supply, monitor, and keyboard. Nonetheless, Terrell kept his word and handed over the cash, allowing Apple to pay off its parts suppliers in the nick of time.
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| View all 16 comments |
The New York Times Book Review (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
The Apple story… in all its drama. |
Bityard (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
Apple Confidential 2.0 is by far one of the best books I have read on the subject. |
macteens.com (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
Linzmayer's entertaining and irreverent sense of humor makes it a real treat for anybody even remotely interested in the Mac. |
Technology & Society (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
A frank and honest portrayal of the company and its cast of characters over the past 3 decades. |
View all 16 comments |
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