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Many remember Perot as the goofy rich guy who ran for president in 92, but what many don’t know is that he funded NeXT computer - Steve Jobs’ post-Apple venture

by gdubs 7y ago

Many remember Perot as the goofy rich guy who ran for president in 92, but what many don’t know is that he funded NeXT computer - Steve Jobs’ post-Apple venture that was later acquired by Apple and transformed computing for the next decade. Interface Builder and the NextStep core libraries were arguably one of the biggest catalysts of the iPhone App ecosystem. In many ways iOS exists because of NeXT. So while it was considered by many to be a failed company, behind the scenes its technology has continued to be influential. Perot deserves credit for seeing the magic there, and staking a significant chunk of change on it.

jasode 7y ago
>, but what many don’t know is that he funded NeXT computer - Steve Jobs’ post-Apple venture Ross Perot also tried to buy an early Microsoft in 1979 when it only had 28 employees: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920614&slug=1497096 http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=199... Some accounts said one reason Ross Perot's enthusiastic investment in NeXT happened was because he regretted missing out on Microsoft and didn't want to repeat the same mistake.
lizknope 7y ago
Nothing you said is wrong except that NeXTSTEP was first ported to Mac hardware and became Mac OS X which in turn led to iOS.
- armadsen 7y ago
  OP didn't say otherwise.
steve19 7y ago
I remember him as the guy who did everything he could to save employees stuck in Iran, two of whom were imprisoned, during the revolution. He didnt go rescue them himself, but he funded the rescue and was personally invested in the rescue. Not many CEOs would do much more than pay some K&R firm to negotiate a ransom/bribe, while simultaneously getting the lawyers to work out how little each life is worth they need to settle with the families. RIP Mr. Perot
- tunap 7y ago
  He also flew into Iran during that time to visit the imprisoned employees to assure them he was doing everything in his power to get them out. If he had been spotted, he surely would have been arrested, too. On Wings Of Eagles https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Wings_of_Eagles https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Wings_of_Eagles
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
twoodfin 7y ago
I was curious enough to play out how much that chunk ended up being worth. Perot reportedly acquired 16% of NeXT for his $20M investment[1]. I don't know the details of the cash/stock split but Apple ultimately acquired NeXT for $350M after paying off its debts[2]. That's $56M for Perot if he maintained that 16% stake. If he kept it all in Apple stock (unlikely I know, but fun to play this out) he'd have had about 2.3 million shares of Apple at the time. AAPL has split 28X since then[3], so if he held it, today he'd own 64.4 million shares. Total present-day value, not counting significant dividends in the meantime: $12.9 billion. Really, it doesn't matter if he kept it. By the uncaring math of Wall Street, that $20M investment ultimately generated $12.9 billion worth of value. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/30/business/company-news-perot-reportedly-invests-in-next.html https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/30/business/company-news-per... [2] https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-acquires-next-jobs/ https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-acquires-next-jobs/ [3] https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/10/apples-stock-split-history.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/10/apples-stock-split...
- microtherion 7y ago
  That assumes that NeXT did not undergo any dilution post-1987. Not sure this was the case — IIRC, they had to raise several more rounds of investment.
  - ccozan 7y ago
    Yes, but even so, the (fictional) RoI on the start money is a few orders of magnitude. Which is not quite ordinary.
    - microtherion 7y ago
      Sure, but how much was Perot being lucky vs. him being smart? If Apple had gone with acquiring Be instead of NeXT (which I think was a distinct possibility), Perot's investment could quite possibly have ended up a write-off.
      - 7y ago
walrus01 7y ago
It really glosses over and ignores the actual history of OSX by going directly from describing NeXT, to iphone stuff. The first releases of OSX were basically NeXT with a weird half baked apple GUI on top of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Server_1.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Server_1.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Public_Beta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Public_Beta As OSX has evolved as its own product, of course it's been diverging from its roots, but even as recently as v10.4 or v10.5 it was blindingly obvious where it came from, when you started poking around under the hood of the OS.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  > it was blindingly obvious where it came from Why so many APIs in the Apple ecosystem start with NS
  - dlivingston 7y ago
    Oh man, I hadn't made that connection before but it's so obvious now
    - cpeterso 7y ago
      Firefox has its own historical code with NS- prefixes inherited from Netscape. The joke now is that NS standards for "namespace". :)
- saagarjha 7y ago
  It's still quite obvious where it comes from. Many of Cocoa's controls can trace their way back to NeXTSTEP.
B1FF_PSUVM 7y ago
EDS - a large company in the 1990s - should also get a mention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Data_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Data_Systems
- adventured 7y ago
  And Perot Systems, which was sold for $3.9 billion to Dell. It had 20,000 employees and $2.8 billion in revenue by 2008, before the acquisition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perot_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perot_Systems
  - chiph 7y ago
    The Perovians were known to out-IBM IBM in terms of company culture. They all had short hair, no beards or mustaches, and a freshly starched shirt. From what I heard, they generally did a good job for their customers. Unlike the Big Five accounting firms, who would only run up your laser printer toner bill.
KirinDave 7y ago
... Wait. Are we giving investors specific credit for interface builder when their contribution throwing money at the founder of one of the most famous companies in the 20th century? I have more to do with Interface Builder than Ross Perot does, and I was like 13 at the time I was there doing user testing for it. Shower me with the appropriate praises please.

by gdubs 7y ago

jasode 7y ago

>, but what many don’t know is that he funded NeXT computer - Steve Jobs’ post-Apple venture Ross Perot also tried to buy an early Microsoft in 1979 when it only had 28 employees: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920614&slug=1497096 http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=199... Some accounts said one reason Ross Perot's enthusiastic investment in NeXT happened was because he regretted missing out on Microsoft and didn't want to repeat the same mistake.

lizknope 7y ago

Nothing you said is wrong except that NeXTSTEP was first ported to Mac hardware and became Mac OS X which in turn led to iOS.

armadsen 7y ago
OP didn't say otherwise.

steve19 7y ago

I remember him as the guy who did everything he could to save employees stuck in Iran, two of whom were imprisoned, during the revolution. He didnt go rescue them himself, but he funded the rescue and was personally invested in the rescue. Not many CEOs would do much more than pay some K&R firm to negotiate a ransom/bribe, while simultaneously getting the lawyers to work out how little each life is worth they need to settle with the families. RIP Mr. Perot

tunap 7y ago
He also flew into Iran during that time to visit the imprisoned employees to assure them he was doing everything in his power to get them out. If he had been spotted, he surely would have been arrested, too. On Wings Of Eagles https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Wings_of_Eagles https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Wings_of_Eagles
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

twoodfin 7y ago

I was curious enough to play out how much that chunk ended up being worth. Perot reportedly acquired 16% of NeXT for his $20M investment[1]. I don't know the details of the cash/stock split but Apple ultimately acquired NeXT for $350M after paying off its debts[2]. That's $56M for Perot if he maintained that 16% stake. If he kept it all in Apple stock (unlikely I know, but fun to play this out) he'd have had about 2.3 million shares of Apple at the time. AAPL has split 28X since then[3], so if he held it, today he'd own 64.4 million shares. Total present-day value, not counting significant dividends in the meantime: $12.9 billion. Really, it doesn't matter if he kept it. By the uncaring math of Wall Street, that $20M investment ultimately generated $12.9 billion worth of value. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/30/business/company-news-perot-reportedly-invests-in-next.html https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/30/business/company-news-per... [2] https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-acquires-next-jobs/ https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-acquires-next-jobs/ [3] https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/10/apples-stock-split-history.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/10/apples-stock-split...

microtherion 7y ago
That assumes that NeXT did not undergo any dilution post-1987. Not sure this was the case — IIRC, they had to raise several more rounds of investment.
- ccozan 7y ago
  Yes, but even so, the (fictional) RoI on the start money is a few orders of magnitude. Which is not quite ordinary.
  - microtherion 7y ago
    Sure, but how much was Perot being lucky vs. him being smart? If Apple had gone with acquiring Be instead of NeXT (which I think was a distinct possibility), Perot's investment could quite possibly have ended up a write-off.
    - 7y ago

walrus01 7y ago

It really glosses over and ignores the actual history of OSX by going directly from describing NeXT, to iphone stuff. The first releases of OSX were basically NeXT with a weird half baked apple GUI on top of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Server_1.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Server_1.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Public_Beta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Public_Beta As OSX has evolved as its own product, of course it's been diverging from its roots, but even as recently as v10.4 or v10.5 it was blindingly obvious where it came from, when you started poking around under the hood of the OS.

bdcravens 7y ago
> it was blindingly obvious where it came from Why so many APIs in the Apple ecosystem start with NS
- dlivingston 7y ago
  Oh man, I hadn't made that connection before but it's so obvious now
  - cpeterso 7y ago
    Firefox has its own historical code with NS- prefixes inherited from Netscape. The joke now is that NS standards for "namespace". :)
saagarjha 7y ago
It's still quite obvious where it comes from. Many of Cocoa's controls can trace their way back to NeXTSTEP.

B1FF_PSUVM 7y ago

EDS - a large company in the 1990s - should also get a mention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Data_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Data_Systems

adventured 7y ago
And Perot Systems, which was sold for $3.9 billion to Dell. It had 20,000 employees and $2.8 billion in revenue by 2008, before the acquisition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perot_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perot_Systems
- chiph 7y ago
  The Perovians were known to out-IBM IBM in terms of company culture. They all had short hair, no beards or mustaches, and a freshly starched shirt. From what I heard, they generally did a good job for their customers. Unlike the Big Five accounting firms, who would only run up your laser printer toner bill.

KirinDave 7y ago

... Wait. Are we giving investors specific credit for interface builder when their contribution throwing money at the founder of one of the most famous companies in the 20th century? I have more to do with Interface Builder than Ross Perot does, and I was like 13 at the time I was there doing user testing for it. Shower me with the appropriate praises please.