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There are so many things that might have happened but for one key decision. You can't spend the rest of your life wondering "what if?" But it can be tempting!

There are so many things that might have happened but for one key decision. You can't spend the rest of your life wondering "what if?" 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/ 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!

zuck9 11y ago
> full-blown mental illness, as happened with one of Apple's earliest employees Can you share who is this early employee? Couldn't find him using Google.
- Stratoscope 11y ago
  As you can guess, I was trying to be discreet. But it is rather public information at this point (it's even on his Wikipedia page). So here you go... http://tradertim.blogspot.com/2007/07/lonesome-tale-of-burrell-smith.html http://tradertim.blogspot.com/2007/07/lonesome-tale-of-burre...
  - gaur 11y ago
    Wow, there was essentially no information in that blogpost. Here are the relevant sentences: > 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.
    - nostrademons 11y ago
      According to his Wikipedia page, he ended up co-founding Radius, which IPOed in 1990, and is now retired in Palo Alto. So he's pretty far from homeless, which is what that quote sorta implies. The blog itself acknowledges that - I dunno why it's trying to make the comparison.
jccc 11y ago
I've heard about Burrell Smith and mental illness, but I've never heard the suggestion that Steve Jobs was a driving influence that exasperated it. It also never occurred to me to make that connection, although it seems like an obvious one now having heard it. Do we have any concrete reason to believe that was the case, or at least someone's anecdotal comments supporting it?
- Stratoscope 11y ago
  Of course I don't know, and I could be making a completely unwarranted connection. And it goes without saying that anyone else's mental health challenges are none of my business in the first place! 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? :-)
tomcam 11y ago
You made the right choice. I have talked to lots of people who worked at Apple in the early days, including some key people from the first dozen or so employees. I never met anyone who said it was enjoyable working with Jobs. (Lots of people said they grew a lot, learned a lot, and so on, but never anything along the lines of "I felt great going in to work every day". 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.
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  >>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. 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.
  - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
    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. 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.
  - Stratoscope 11y ago
    That's a very valid point! 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! :-)
stordoff 11y ago
> But "what if?" can work both ways. 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?
- Stratoscope 11y ago
  Oh man. You have really complicated all our lives now! To make up for it, you now have to go write that story. You already have the title: What If?
WalterBright 11y ago
In the late 1970s, I worked at a small company called Aph. They did contract work developing single board computers. I did a couple myself. They built all their own tools, software, assemblers, etc., all of which were first class. One employee (the famous Hal Finney) even wrote a Basic interpreter in assembler. 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.
- Jeema101 11y ago
  That's the thing: how many others tried and failed that have all but been forgotten? Small successes and small failures accumulate exponentially over time. Maybe in some parallel universe those guys became the multi-billion-dollar company and Apple never went anywhere...
  - WalterBright 11y ago
    My takeaway is to not underestimate the value of a great leader. There's lots of talent, I know easily a dozen just among my friends who could have built a competitive computer and the software for it. I built two single board computers myself of my own design, and I didn't even know electronics (the components were designed to almost fall together). 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.

zuck9 11y ago

> full-blown mental illness, as happened with one of Apple's earliest employees Can you share who is this early employee? Couldn't find him using Google.

Stratoscope 11y ago
As you can guess, I was trying to be discreet. But it is rather public information at this point (it's even on his Wikipedia page). So here you go... http://tradertim.blogspot.com/2007/07/lonesome-tale-of-burrell-smith.html http://tradertim.blogspot.com/2007/07/lonesome-tale-of-burre...
- gaur 11y ago
  Wow, there was essentially no information in that blogpost. Here are the relevant sentences: > 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.
  - nostrademons 11y ago
    According to his Wikipedia page, he ended up co-founding Radius, which IPOed in 1990, and is now retired in Palo Alto. So he's pretty far from homeless, which is what that quote sorta implies. The blog itself acknowledges that - I dunno why it's trying to make the comparison.

jccc 11y ago

I've heard about Burrell Smith and mental illness, but I've never heard the suggestion that Steve Jobs was a driving influence that exasperated it. It also never occurred to me to make that connection, although it seems like an obvious one now having heard it. Do we have any concrete reason to believe that was the case, or at least someone's anecdotal comments supporting it?

Stratoscope 11y ago
Of course I don't know, and I could be making a completely unwarranted connection. And it goes without saying that anyone else's mental health challenges are none of my business in the first place! 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? :-)

tomcam 11y ago

You made the right choice. I have talked to lots of people who worked at Apple in the early days, including some key people from the first dozen or so employees. I never met anyone who said it was enjoyable working with Jobs. (Lots of people said they grew a lot, learned a lot, and so on, but never anything along the lines of "I felt great going in to work every day". 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.

enraged_camel 11y ago
>>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. 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.
- PhantomGremlin 11y ago
  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. 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.
- Stratoscope 11y ago
  That's a very valid point! 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! :-)

stordoff 11y ago

> But "what if?" can work both ways. 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?

Stratoscope 11y ago
Oh man. You have really complicated all our lives now! To make up for it, you now have to go write that story. You already have the title: What If?

WalterBright 11y ago

In the late 1970s, I worked at a small company called Aph. They did contract work developing single board computers. I did a couple myself. They built all their own tools, software, assemblers, etc., all of which were first class. One employee (the famous Hal Finney) even wrote a Basic interpreter in assembler. 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.

Jeema101 11y ago
That's the thing: how many others tried and failed that have all but been forgotten? Small successes and small failures accumulate exponentially over time. Maybe in some parallel universe those guys became the multi-billion-dollar company and Apple never went anywhere...
- WalterBright 11y ago
  My takeaway is to not underestimate the value of a great leader. There's lots of talent, I know easily a dozen just among my friends who could have built a competitive computer and the software for it. I built two single board computers myself of my own design, and I didn't even know electronics (the components were designed to almost fall together). 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.