My favorite John Draper story -- not sure if it's true, heard it from several sources. One day IBM called me up and asked if I would write them something like

My favorite John Draper story -- not sure if it's true, heard it from several sources. One day IBM called me up and asked if I would write them something like Apple Writer, for their new PC. I instantly asked, "Under what terms?" I think that surprised them -- I was wrongly rumored to be all programmer and no business sense. They replied, "We give you $100,000 in royalties, after which we own the program." I thought a bit and said, "Hmm ... $100,000 ... that's about 15 days of Apple Writer royalties." A long silence on the phone line. So they realized I wasn't going to write anything for them. Then, according to rumor, they asked John Draper and he agreed -- he wrote them a word processor. A really terrible one. After IBM voluntarily withdrew his program from the market, Draper is rumored to have said, "They asked for a $100,000 program and I gave them one." Yep, we were pretty snotty in those days. But then, we didn't have to compete with AI.