Early Apple Employee Bill Fernandez Shares Details on Steve Jobs, Creation of the Apple II, and More

[japanime]

Jobs reportedly spent quite a bit of time over at Fernandez's house, which his mother had decorated in a "meticulous Japanese style" that Fernandez credits as an early influence on Jobs' interest in minimalist design.

I would love to see photographs of what that house looked like. Did she have tatami mats on the floor, folding screens dividing the rooms, giant fans hanging on the walls, and a koi pond in the back yard? Because, frankly, it's extremely unusual to find a house decorated that way (aside from tatami mats) here in Japan. In fact, such a place would look just as out of place in modern Japan as it would in Silicon Valley!

 

[Designer Dale]

I would love to see photographs of what that house looked like. Did she have tatami mats on the floor, folding screens dividing the rooms, giant fans hanging on the walls, and a koi pond in the back yard? Because, frankly, it's extremely unusual to find a house decorated that way (aside from tatami mats) here in Japan. In fact, such a place would look just as out of place in modern Japan as it would in Silicon Valley!

Think Japan circa 1970. Lots of clean minimal interior design from that period and culture would have appealed to him.

Dale

 

[69Mustang]

Startup I'm part of only gave stock to the initial four members. Apple gave stock to three people. I don't think it's weird to not give this guy any stock. You either pay someone in stock or cash (or a mix). The stock is worthless initially, but has the potential to become very valuable (or never become valuable at all), whereas the cash has relatively constant value. I figure Apple gave him a lot of cash. If he wasn't content with the money, he should have asked for more or left.

What I bolded from your quote is completely wrong. I would humbly suggest you read the full article at Tech Republic. It's long form, but well worth the read. Too often we use supposition to fill in blanks when we don't know something. That's pretty unfair, especially in this case. Management and salaried employees got stock, not just three. Bill didn't get stock because he was listed as a technician and paid hourly. So no, Apple didn't give him a lot of cash; just his hourly wage. As I said, it's a story well worth reading and it keeps us from revising history with guesses. What he did at the genesis of Apple should be known. IMO of course.

disclosure: I'm the person who suggested this story to MR. Seemed better than reading about inadequate robots.

 

[iosuser]

That was a good read. I thought I read that pretty quick, since my Air 2 only dropped 2% since I unplugged it and read the whole article. Turns out it's been more than one hour Am I a slow reader or what lol

 

[Truefan31]

Early Apple Employee Bill Fernandez Shares Details on Steve Jobs, Creation of...

I will have to disagree with some of the scathing comments above, from people who have never met Steve or ever even talked to him!



I have met Steve, and talked with him. I met him at Macworld Expo 2000 after he gave the keynote address...I broke through the crowds of media reporters, made my way to the front of the stage because I wanted to get a chance to meet him. When he was done talking to a reporter, he turned right around, and was right in front of me -- so...I introduced myself to him...



He was actually very friendly. He welcomed me to San Francisco, and said "I'm glad you could make it out here. This is a wonderful city." I told him that I was the Vice President of my local MUG and he told me "It's great to have young people like you who are interested in technology, We need more young people like you..." I told him about how we got my Dad his first computer, a Bondi Blue iMac and that he absolutely loves it. I told him about my computers, PowerMac G4 and that I was very impressed by the new designs since he became CEO.



Overall, he was more than kind, very friendly, and cordial. He even was smiling and joking around. Not a rude, arrogant man at all.



The thing is...Steve took business and his company seriously. He demanded excellence. He demanded things be done right, the right way. If it wasn't right, it wasn't right, and it wasn't good enough. He was brutal to employees, but only if they were not meeting expectations or performing up to exactly 100% -- because he demanded 100% at all times, and for the products that Apple developed to be on a level of sheer greatness...



And, that is why Apple is where it is today. If you accept mediocre and make mediocre products, you will be remembered as a mediocre company. And Steve wanted Apple to be remembered as the best there is...the best of the best.



So, please...do not go saying profane things about Steve. The truth is he was two different people entirely...the Steve at work at Apple and the man you meet on the street or at a coffee shop....Steve was not a bad person. I know this firsthand...he wasn't. So stop with all this.

I respect your experience but u also said he was brutal to his employees. He didn't offer employee #1, his childhood friend and man responsible for hooking him up with woz any stock options? That's brutal. I know he's a business guru but again that's a messed up move. If it wasn't messed up woz wouldn't have to give him his own shares.

I respect Apple as much as the next person but jobs was definitely messed up here. There's demanding perfection which is fine but at least appreciate and show gratitude for people there on ground zero. He's also the same guy that disowned his daughter in the beginning and thought he didn't have to bathe because of his diet.

 

[sittnick]

Get that motherboard away from that staticky sweater!

I cringed when I saw the picture accompanying the article. Those motherboards weren't cheap, and holding it with your oily hands against a staticky sweater is risking real problems. Next he'll be petting his Persian cat with it!

 

[WigWag Workshop]

That was a good read. I thought I read that pretty quick, since my Air 2 only dropped 2% since I unplugged it and read the whole article. Turns out it's been more than one hour Am I a slow reader or what lol

I was in another boring meeting so I used the text-to-speech to "read" the article and my battery only dropped about 2% also.

 

[pocket3d]

I will have to disagree with some of the scathing comments above, from people who have never met Steve or ever even talked to him!

I have met Steve, and talked with him. I met him at Macworld Expo 2000 after he gave the keynote address...I broke through the crowds of media reporters, made my way to the front of the stage because I wanted to get a chance to meet him. When he was done talking to a reporter, he turned right around, and was right in front of me -- so...I introduced myself to him...

He was actually very friendly . . .

Good story, thanks for telling it.

 

[Poisonivy326]

I will have to disagree with some of the scathing comments above, from people who have never met Steve or ever even talked to him!

I have met Steve, and talked with him. I met him at Macworld Expo 2000 after he gave the keynote address...I broke through the crowds of media reporters, made my way to the front of the stage because I wanted to get a chance to meet him. When he was done talking to a reporter, he turned right around, and was right in front of me -- so...I introduced myself to him...

He was actually very friendly. He welcomed me to San Francisco, and said "I'm glad you could make it out here. This is a wonderful city." I told him that I was the Vice President of my local MUG and he told me "It's great to have young people like you who are interested in technology, We need more young people like you..." I told him about how we got my Dad his first computer, a Bondi Blue iMac and that he absolutely loves it. I told him about my computers, PowerMac G4 and that I was very impressed by the new designs since he became CEO.

Overall, he was more than kind, very friendly, and cordial. He even was smiling and joking around. Not a rude, arrogant man at all.

The thing is...Steve took business and his company seriously. He demanded excellence. He demanded things be done right, the right way. If it wasn't right, it wasn't right, and it wasn't good enough. He was brutal to employees, but only if they were not meeting expectations or performing up to exactly 100% -- because he demanded 100% at all times, and for the products that Apple developed to be on a level of sheer greatness...

And, that is why Apple is where it is today. If you accept mediocre and make mediocre products, you will be remembered as a mediocre company. And Steve wanted Apple to be remembered as the best there is...the best of the best.

So, please...do not go saying profane things about Steve. The truth is he was two different people entirely...the Steve at work at Apple and the man you meet on the street or at a coffee shop....Steve was not a bad person. I know this firsthand...he wasn't. So stop with all this.

This isn't a slight on your experience. I'm glad you had a positive interaction with him. But you only knew him on a superficial level -- the employees at Apple who had to see him every day might have a very different experience.

IMO it was crappy to refuse to give stock options to Employee #4. It was nice of Woz to donate some stock options but the fact that he had to do that is just sort of messed up.

 

[imageWIS]

lol man jobs was likely a douchebag. Didn't offer growth or stock to your middle school friend and first employee?

Not likely, he WAS a douchebag.

 

[bretm]

It would have been really fun to work for those companies back then. Too bad it can never happen again. You can't just build smartphones in your garage. It requires million dollar factory lines with immensely small parts. There are all of these agreements that must be signed and most minimum orders are incredibly huge. There will never be another Wozniak-like character tinkering in a garage because the barrier to entry for technology is too high. You can't compete. You'd have to invent something completely different from silicon that you could easily produce yourself. Good luck with that! The industry is moving towards nano-scale graphene and I'd like to see anyone make that in their garage.

But all that tech just becomes commodity building blocks for something bigger. People invent stuff all the time with existing tech. Your argument back then would have been that you can't build stuff in your garage cuz transistors are so small and you can't build those in a garage...

 

[unknwntrr]

Woz giving out some stock was his way of peaceful protest to Jobs. Jobs didn't give them stock, because of the Lisa family drama.

 

[robeddie]

I will have to disagree with some of the scathing comments above, from people who have never met Steve or ever even talked to him!

I have met Steve, and talked with him. I met him at Macworld Expo 2000 after he gave the keynote address...I broke through the crowds of media reporters, made my way to the front of the stage because I wanted to get a chance to meet him. When he was done talking to a reporter, he turned right around, and was right in front of me -- so...I introduced myself to him...

He was actually very friendly. He welcomed me to San Francisco, and said "I'm glad you could make it out here. This is a wonderful city." I told him that I was the Vice President of my local MUG and he told me "It's great to have young people like you who are interested in technology, We need more young people like you..." I told him about how we got my Dad his first computer, a Bondi Blue iMac and that he absolutely loves it. I told him about my computers, PowerMac G4 and that I was very impressed by the new designs since he became CEO.

Overall, he was more than kind, very friendly, and cordial. He even was smiling and joking around. Not a rude, arrogant man at all.

The thing is...Steve took business and his company seriously. He demanded excellence. He demanded things be done right, the right way. If it wasn't right, it wasn't right, and it wasn't good enough. He was brutal to employees, but only if they were not meeting expectations or performing up to exactly 100% -- because he demanded 100% at all times, and for the products that Apple developed to be on a level of sheer greatness...

And, that is why Apple is where it is today. If you accept mediocre and make mediocre products, you will be remembered as a mediocre company. And Steve wanted Apple to be remembered as the best there is...the best of the best.

So, please...do not go saying profane things about Steve. The truth is he was two different people entirely...the Steve at work at Apple and the man you meet on the street or at a coffee shop....Steve was not a bad person. I know this firsthand...he wasn't. So stop with all this.

We're talking about two differnt things. He denied stock options to a longtime friend who was instrumental in tbe creation of Apple. Thats a royally dickish move.
Yet ... snce he was polite to you on a single suoerficial chance encounter, you declare him to be a good guy.
Thats great you met him once, and a fine little story to tell, but hardly makes you a judge of who the real Steve Jobs was.

 

[RobertMartens]

I have met Steve, and talked with him. I met him at Macworld Expo 2000 after he gave the keynote address...I broke through the crowds of media reporters, made my way to the front of the stage because I wanted to get a chance to meet him. When he was done talking to a reporter, he turned right around, and was right in front of me -- so...I introduced myself to him...

I had a very similar experience in 2002 at the Tokyo Expo. (One of his last)

I told him that I ran a Mac Lab at a Tokyo International School. He and his colleagues were quite pleased to hear that. He even teased me about something I said. But in a very pleasant way.

On another note, I must say, I shook his hand just 10 minutes before he was to make a 90 minute presentation in front of about 5000 people and he was cool as a cuke.

I was impressed and also very happy I met him before the black cloud came to settle over his health. I saw him again at the WWDC 2006 in SF. His weight was all anyone could talk about. But he was still charming despite it all.

----------

Thats great you met him once, and a fine little story to tell, but hardly makes you a judge of who the real Steve Jobs was.

Actually it gives him more cred than you who only have dumb media accounts to shape your image.

----------

I would love to see photographs of what that house looked like. Did she have tatami mats on the floor, folding screens dividing the rooms, giant fans hanging on the walls, and a koi pond in the back yard? Because, frankly, it's extremely unusual to find a house decorated that way (aside from tatami mats) here in Japan. In fact, such a place would look just as out of place in modern Japan as it would in Silicon Valley!

Funny, I had the exact same cynical reaction when I read about the 'meticulous' Japanese decor.

----------

Think Japan circa 1970. Lots of clean minimal interior design from that period and culture would have appealed to him.

Dale

Are you explaining to us what Japan circa 1970 was like, or what his house was like?

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

...There will never be another Wozniak-like character tinkering in a garage because the barrier to entry for technology is too high. You can't compete. You'd have to invent something completely different from silicon that you could easily produce yourself. Good luck with that! The industry is moving towards nano-scale graphene and I'd like to see anyone make that in their garage.

Samsung?

 

[krravi]

So Apple employee #1, didn't get stocks? What does that say about Steve?

 

[MellowFuzz]

Maybe Apple should hire Fernandez back...

Bingo.

 

[azentropy]

With no prospects for advancement, Fernandez left Apple just 18 months after he started working for the company.

I'm confused... The timeline doesn't quite fit. Apple was founded April 1, 1976 and incorporated January 3, 1977. It didn't IPO until December 12, 1980. So if he only worked for 18 months it still was 2 1/2 years after he left before IPO. He knew 2 1/2 years before IPO that he wasn't going to get shares???

 

[dukeblue219]

I'm confused... The timeline doesn't quite fit. Apple was founded April 1, 1976 and incorporated January 3, 1977. It didn't IPO until December 12, 1980. So if he only worked for 18 months it still was 2 1/2 years after he left before IPO. He knew 2 1/2 years before IPO that he wasn't going to get shares???

Nobody "gets shares" from an IPO. The incorporation is what creates the initial batch of stock, with the insiders holding it however they decide, often based on how much capital they've invested. The corporation can then issue more shares to employees as needed. They're still valuable, but privately held and difficult or impossible to trade. The IPO is when those shares become available to the public for open trading.

 

[Iconoclysm]

lol man jobs was likely a douchebag. Didn't offer growth or stock to your middle school friend and first employee?

That sort of thing wasn't really common back then...and he was very young with probably little idea about it himself.

----------

Yeah what was I thinking. That must be it. Thank you so much for your wonderful insight to point that out. After reading it, I feel so much smarter now.

And you think Jobs was the tool? Really?

 

[laurim]

Maybe Apple should hire Fernandez back...

I was taught all that stuff in the early days of web design before people knew to click on links so you had to practically say CLICK THIS, STUPID. There was "mystery meat navigation" no nos and "affordance clues" and making buttons look like buttons. Then gradually, more sophisticated websites pushed the boundaries and stopped with the "click here" language and clunky huge buttons. Nowadays, most people have enough experience with computers, applications and websites that you no longer need to jump through hoops to hit people over the head with THIS IS A BUTTON!!! clues. Yes, you still have to design layouts that make sense to people and stick to normal paradigms (e.g. there's a File menu on the top left and it has SAVE and OPEN commands in it or if your logo is at the top of the page then clicking on it brings you to the home page) but you can have a nicer-looking screen that we used to and people can still know what to do.

 

[Iconoclysm]

I'm confused... The timeline doesn't quite fit. Apple was founded April 1, 1976 and incorporated January 3, 1977. It didn't IPO until December 12, 1980. So if he only worked for 18 months it still was 2 1/2 years after he left before IPO. He knew 2 1/2 years before IPO that he wasn't going to get shares???

You can still receive private shares in a company and it is quite common

 

[laurim]

I would love to see photographs of what that house looked like. Did she have tatami mats on the floor, folding screens dividing the rooms, giant fans hanging on the walls, and a koi pond in the back yard? Because, frankly, it's extremely unusual to find a house decorated that way (aside from tatami mats) here in Japan. In fact, such a place would look just as out of place in modern Japan as it would in Silicon Valley!

How about back in the '70s when this was?

 

[Iconoclysm]

We're talking about two differnt things. He denied stock options to a longtime friend who was instrumental in tbe creation of Apple. Thats a royally dickish move.
Yet ... snce he was polite to you on a single suoerficial chance encounter, you declare him to be a good guy.
Thats great you met him once, and a fine little story to tell, but hardly makes you a judge of who the real Steve Jobs was.

Again, giving people stock options wasn't really a "thing" until the '90s. I'm going to bet that's around when you were born so you're not really wrapping your head around the rest of it.

 

[azentropy]

Nobody "gets shares" from an IPO. The incorporation is what creates the initial batch of stock, with the insiders holding it however they decide, often based on how much capital they've invested. The corporation can then issue more shares to employees as needed. They're still valuable, but privately held and difficult or impossible to trade. The IPO is when those shares become available to the public for open trading.

You can still receive private shares in a company and it is quite common

Except the article specifically mentioned the IPO and stock options. "and started inching its way towards an IPO" and "and wasn't offered stock options". Again they were at least 2 1/2 years away from IPO when he left.