11 ms·

It's interesting to see that in such an early year, Jobs and Woz's offices are almost as far apart as they could possibly be in the building.

orionlogic 15y ago
It's because Woz always wanted to stay as an engineer, not as a manager. That's why Jobs and Markkula is one place while Woz near the software team.
- jaysonelliot 15y ago
  You could also say, conversely, that Jobs placed himself next to Markkula instead of Woz, finding it more important to sit next to the VP of marketing than the chief engineer. I'm not making any judgements on the way they organized the physical space in the office. It clearly worked, after all, Apple in 1978 was on the precipice of an unprecedented success. I'm just interested in the way that the physical location of people in an office affects the work that is done there. I wonder, would the early history of Apple had been any different if Jobs and Woz had sat right next to each other every day? How many startups today seat the technical and business co-founders next to one another, versus those that sit far apart, and how does that change the personalities of those companies?
  - jstevens85 15y ago
    According to Isaacson's biography, it was Markkula who insisted that Jobs be heavily involved in the non-engineering areas of the company.
    - bluekeybox 15y ago
      According to the same book, Wozniak specifically insisted at some point that he would prefer to be treated as an engineer and not be involved with high-level management. One could also say it would be interesting how things might have turned out if Wozniak was more ambitious.
      - mapgrep 15y ago
        This is correct. In fact, the book said this was what finally got Woz to quit HP and go full time at Apple: One of his friends told him he could start a company without going into management, which he hadn't realized. Jobs had convinced all these friends and family to lobby him, but none of it worked until he was told he could stay an engineer.
      - defen 15y ago
        On the subject of counterfactuals, I recently finished reading Jobs' bio and Woz's autobiography and found myself contemplating how their lives would have turned out if they hadn't met each other. It seems easy to project the most likely outcome for Woz if he hadn't met Jobs - he'd probably still be an engineer at HP (assuming he didn't get laid off by one of their disastrous CEOs), his Apple ][ board a forgotten relic sitting in his garage. Less likely but still possible is that someone else would have helped him commercialize it, but there never would have been a Macintosh as we know it and the company would have ended up like Commodore, Tandy, and Atari. With Jobs, though, it's much more difficult to imagine where he'd have ended up without Woz. I could see him pushing Atari into PCs (but Bushnell didn't want the Apple ][, so that seems unlikely), or he could have been a religious leader, or a burned-out hippie living in Humboldt County, or a tyrannical Silicon Valley middle manager, or any number of other things.
        erikpukinskis 15y ago
        Here's a random theory: They would've met each other a little later, and done the same thing. Jobs and Wozniak orbited each other a few times before they really connected professionally. If you change one little thing so they wouldn'tve met each other, they would've met each other some other way. And if you change enough things so that they NEVER would've met each other, you'dve changed enough things that they wouldn't really be Steve Jobs and Woz anymore.
        mseebach 15y ago
        We're doing counter-factuals. So what if it's not "never met", but "never went into to business together". Is it really hard to believe that fate could have conspired in such a way that Woz and Jobs didn't become business partners? Was the universe really curved in such a way to inevitably push Woz and Jobs to start Apple together?
microtherion 15y ago
It's also interesting to see that the CEO and CFO shared an office, while some key engineers had private offices.
- Swizec 15y ago
  It might have something to do with the fact that marketing people are on the phone a lot and engineers have to focus a lot. Wherever I've worked the engineering team always locked the CEO away from themselves because he's a huge distraction.
  - microtherion 15y ago
    I'm not questioning the good sense of this arrangement, but I find it an interesting glimpse at the balance of power at the company.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    Typically, the CEO is "locked away" in a spacious corner office and the engineers have to make do with cubes.
    - bluekeybox 15y ago
      If the CEO never had to meet people from outside the company, I'm sure his office would be less spacious.
      - philwelch 15y ago
        And if engineers never had to concentrate and focus to get their work done, I'm sure their workspaces would be open to auditory and visual distraction. Don't think for a minute that the typical business allocates these resources based on practicality rather than status.
        bluekeybox 15y ago
        Businesses exist to make money, not to serve as a bed for some perverse status assertions. Not saying that the latter ones never happen; just pointing out the basic facts.

orionlogic 15y ago

It's because Woz always wanted to stay as an engineer, not as a manager. That's why Jobs and Markkula is one place while Woz near the software team.

jaysonelliot 15y ago
You could also say, conversely, that Jobs placed himself next to Markkula instead of Woz, finding it more important to sit next to the VP of marketing than the chief engineer. I'm not making any judgements on the way they organized the physical space in the office. It clearly worked, after all, Apple in 1978 was on the precipice of an unprecedented success. I'm just interested in the way that the physical location of people in an office affects the work that is done there. I wonder, would the early history of Apple had been any different if Jobs and Woz had sat right next to each other every day? How many startups today seat the technical and business co-founders next to one another, versus those that sit far apart, and how does that change the personalities of those companies?
- jstevens85 15y ago
  According to Isaacson's biography, it was Markkula who insisted that Jobs be heavily involved in the non-engineering areas of the company.
  - bluekeybox 15y ago
    According to the same book, Wozniak specifically insisted at some point that he would prefer to be treated as an engineer and not be involved with high-level management. One could also say it would be interesting how things might have turned out if Wozniak was more ambitious.
    - mapgrep 15y ago
      This is correct. In fact, the book said this was what finally got Woz to quit HP and go full time at Apple: One of his friends told him he could start a company without going into management, which he hadn't realized. Jobs had convinced all these friends and family to lobby him, but none of it worked until he was told he could stay an engineer.
    - defen 15y ago
      On the subject of counterfactuals, I recently finished reading Jobs' bio and Woz's autobiography and found myself contemplating how their lives would have turned out if they hadn't met each other. It seems easy to project the most likely outcome for Woz if he hadn't met Jobs - he'd probably still be an engineer at HP (assuming he didn't get laid off by one of their disastrous CEOs), his Apple ][ board a forgotten relic sitting in his garage. Less likely but still possible is that someone else would have helped him commercialize it, but there never would have been a Macintosh as we know it and the company would have ended up like Commodore, Tandy, and Atari. With Jobs, though, it's much more difficult to imagine where he'd have ended up without Woz. I could see him pushing Atari into PCs (but Bushnell didn't want the Apple ][, so that seems unlikely), or he could have been a religious leader, or a burned-out hippie living in Humboldt County, or a tyrannical Silicon Valley middle manager, or any number of other things.
      - erikpukinskis 15y ago
        Here's a random theory: They would've met each other a little later, and done the same thing. Jobs and Wozniak orbited each other a few times before they really connected professionally. If you change one little thing so they wouldn'tve met each other, they would've met each other some other way. And if you change enough things so that they NEVER would've met each other, you'dve changed enough things that they wouldn't really be Steve Jobs and Woz anymore.
        mseebach 15y ago
        We're doing counter-factuals. So what if it's not "never met", but "never went into to business together". Is it really hard to believe that fate could have conspired in such a way that Woz and Jobs didn't become business partners? Was the universe really curved in such a way to inevitably push Woz and Jobs to start Apple together?

microtherion 15y ago

It's also interesting to see that the CEO and CFO shared an office, while some key engineers had private offices.

Swizec 15y ago
It might have something to do with the fact that marketing people are on the phone a lot and engineers have to focus a lot. Wherever I've worked the engineering team always locked the CEO away from themselves because he's a huge distraction.
- microtherion 15y ago
  I'm not questioning the good sense of this arrangement, but I find it an interesting glimpse at the balance of power at the company.
- philwelch 15y ago
  Typically, the CEO is "locked away" in a spacious corner office and the engineers have to make do with cubes.
  - bluekeybox 15y ago
    If the CEO never had to meet people from outside the company, I'm sure his office would be less spacious.
    - philwelch 15y ago
      And if engineers never had to concentrate and focus to get their work done, I'm sure their workspaces would be open to auditory and visual distraction. Don't think for a minute that the typical business allocates these resources based on practicality rather than status.
      - bluekeybox 15y ago
        Businesses exist to make money, not to serve as a bed for some perverse status assertions. Not saying that the latter ones never happen; just pointing out the basic facts.