6 ms·

Apple's first employee: The remarkable odyssey of Bill Fernandez

122 points by hoggle 12y ago

ddellacosta 12y ago
This is how you tell what kind of guy Woz really is: Around the time of the Apple IPO in late 1980, Woz decided to give away stock options to the earliest Apple employees who had never gotten options -- including Randy Wigginton, Chris Espinosa, Kottke, and Fernandez. He gave them each a stock grant out of his own chunk of shares. It was a generous move, especially towards Wozniak's old neighbor and friend with whom he'd built his first computer and helped become Apple's first employee.
- danmaz74 12y ago
  Yes. It also shows what kind of guy Jobs was.
  - MCRed 12y ago
    In 1977, there wasn't such a popular thing as "Stock options" for going to work for a "startup". This is, quite literally, THE startup that started in a garage and produced the "came from a garage" myth. Further, your dishonest implication that Jobs didn't give up ownership is factually false, and the reality is, he simply gave up ownership to different people than Woz did. But your comment shows what type of person you are, that's for sure.
    - danmaz74 12y ago
      I'm curious now, what kind of guy am I?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - S4M 12y ago
      I think you don't get the point of danmaz74's comment. Job hired his childhood friend as first employee, making him quit his job to work in the garage, and when the company goes well and they start talking about IPO, he doesn't bother to give him stock options as a reward for being instrumental to Apple's success. That's pretty much ungrateful, and doesn't have anything to do with modern startups.
      - danmaz74 12y ago
        This
    - dalke 12y ago
      Umm, Intel gave stock options to key employees in 1971. See http://www.intel.pl/content/dam/doc/report/history-1971-annual-report.pdf http://www.intel.pl/content/dam/doc/report/history-1971-annu... for evidence. Quoting note 5: > (a) Under this plan, officers and key employees have been granted options to purchase shares [of qualified stock] ... (c) [the same for non-qualified stock] See also http://www.npr.org/2012/04/04/149870751/a-rare-mix-created-silicon-valleys-startup-culture http://www.npr.org/2012/04/04/149870751/a-rare-mix-created-s... : When Fairchild's investors back east took the option to buy the company, its executives didn't understand things like giving stock options to employees. "Their attitude was much like everyone else on the East Coast," Rock says. "Companies could give out a few options, but only to top executives. They were all very staid and white-shoe." ... Rock says one executive called the idea of stock options creeping socialism. "They did things the way their fathers did them," Rock says. In turn, National used stock options and higher pay to hire people from Fairchild. See http://books.google.com/books?id=UUbB3d2UnaAC&lpg=PA172&dq=by%20offering%20stock%20options%20and%20higher%20pay%2C%20National&hl=sv&pg=PA172#v=onepage&q=by%20offering%20stock%20options%20and%20higher%20pay,%20National&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=UUbB3d2UnaAC&lpg=PA172&dq=b... . This was in the mid 1960s. Quoting from http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1997/07/07/228627/index.htm http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive... : "With Rock's backing, they decided to form a company called Intel that wouldn't be stingy about granting options to employees. "We didn't include everybody, but almost everybody," says Moore, who retired in May as Intel's chairman. (Noyce died in 1989.) Other startups followed Intel's example; by 1977 it hardly raised eyebrows when Apple Computer--another startup backed by Arthur Rock--granted options to all its employees." Followed by "Ironically, outside of Silicon Valley the stock option was becoming an endangered species. Congress, at the urging of Senator Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee, had begun in the 1960s to whittle away at options' tax-advantaged status, which some denounced as an unfair boon for the rich." I think that establishes that in Silicon Valley by the time that Apple was founded, employee stock options of the type that Apple did were a popular thing. And the garage 'myth' starts with Hewlett-Packard in 1939, not Apple. Here's a picture of the garage where HP started: http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-information/about-hp/history/overview.html http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-information/about-hp/history/ove... . It has its own Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Garage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Garage and is on the National Register of Historic Places. So before you start calling people dishonest - know some history first, and not just word-of-mouth myths.
    - gaadd33 12y ago
      Actually Hewlett-Packard was "THE startup" that started in a garage and produced that myth. That was in 1939, a few years before Apple was around.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- hoggle 12y ago
  A true role-model for any friend and businessman indeed.
- wallflower 12y ago
  If you have not yet already read JL's interview of Wozniak in Founders at Work, the Floppy drive story is priceless. http://www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html http://www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html
  - hoggle 12y ago
    Also great retelling by Andy Hertzfeld on the 3.5" Sony floppy disk drive: "Quick, Hide In This Closet!" http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Hide_Under_This_Desk.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...
    - melling 12y ago
      You don't hear too many stories like this about Steve: "Steve swallowed his pride and thanked them for disobeying him and doing the right thing."
      - MCRed 12y ago
        Actually you do. There are many cases of Steve realizing he was wrong and changing his position. In his Eulogy Jonny Ive talked about it as one of his best known features. But this doesn't fit the "steve jobs is a tyrannical asshole and apple's success is only a fluke of marketing and apple is evil" narrative that is so popular among google worshipers.
        frou_dh 12y ago
        Who mentioned Google? Stop making technology companies your sports teams.
        canes123456 12y ago
        That person was arguing against the simplistic story lines that are created when we treat tech companies like sports teams. It came off some what badly but I believe it was correct. There are tons of stories of steve jobs swallowing his pride and admitting he was wrong but they are not spread as widely because they don't fit the public perception of him.
keithpeter 12y ago
>> He said Omnibotics will "build smart home electronics and I'm hoping that we can finally make it possible to make your house more responsive to you, to give your house a user interface other than mechanical switches and knobs." Wondering how that vision loops back to his childhood in the Japanese styled home. What kinds of interface? What definition of simplicity?

122 points by hoggle 12y ago

This is how you tell what kind of guy Woz really is: Around the time of the Apple IPO in late 1980, Woz decided to give away stock options to the earliest Apple employees who had never gotten options -- including Randy Wigginton, Chris Espinosa, Kottke, and Fernandez. He gave them each a stock grant out of his own chunk of shares. It was a generous move, especially towards Wozniak's old neighbor and friend with whom he'd built his first computer and helped become Apple's first employee.

danmaz74 12y ago
Yes. It also shows what kind of guy Jobs was.
- MCRed 12y ago
  In 1977, there wasn't such a popular thing as "Stock options" for going to work for a "startup". This is, quite literally, THE startup that started in a garage and produced the "came from a garage" myth. Further, your dishonest implication that Jobs didn't give up ownership is factually false, and the reality is, he simply gave up ownership to different people than Woz did. But your comment shows what type of person you are, that's for sure.
  - danmaz74 12y ago
    I'm curious now, what kind of guy am I?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - S4M 12y ago
    I think you don't get the point of danmaz74's comment. Job hired his childhood friend as first employee, making him quit his job to work in the garage, and when the company goes well and they start talking about IPO, he doesn't bother to give him stock options as a reward for being instrumental to Apple's success. That's pretty much ungrateful, and doesn't have anything to do with modern startups.
    - danmaz74 12y ago
      This
  - dalke 12y ago
    Umm, Intel gave stock options to key employees in 1971. See http://www.intel.pl/content/dam/doc/report/history-1971-annual-report.pdf http://www.intel.pl/content/dam/doc/report/history-1971-annu... for evidence. Quoting note 5: > (a) Under this plan, officers and key employees have been granted options to purchase shares [of qualified stock] ... (c) [the same for non-qualified stock] See also http://www.npr.org/2012/04/04/149870751/a-rare-mix-created-silicon-valleys-startup-culture http://www.npr.org/2012/04/04/149870751/a-rare-mix-created-s... : When Fairchild's investors back east took the option to buy the company, its executives didn't understand things like giving stock options to employees. "Their attitude was much like everyone else on the East Coast," Rock says. "Companies could give out a few options, but only to top executives. They were all very staid and white-shoe." ... Rock says one executive called the idea of stock options creeping socialism. "They did things the way their fathers did them," Rock says. In turn, National used stock options and higher pay to hire people from Fairchild. See http://books.google.com/books?id=UUbB3d2UnaAC&lpg=PA172&dq=by%20offering%20stock%20options%20and%20higher%20pay%2C%20National&hl=sv&pg=PA172#v=onepage&q=by%20offering%20stock%20options%20and%20higher%20pay,%20National&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=UUbB3d2UnaAC&lpg=PA172&dq=b... . This was in the mid 1960s. Quoting from http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1997/07/07/228627/index.htm http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive... : "With Rock's backing, they decided to form a company called Intel that wouldn't be stingy about granting options to employees. "We didn't include everybody, but almost everybody," says Moore, who retired in May as Intel's chairman. (Noyce died in 1989.) Other startups followed Intel's example; by 1977 it hardly raised eyebrows when Apple Computer--another startup backed by Arthur Rock--granted options to all its employees." Followed by "Ironically, outside of Silicon Valley the stock option was becoming an endangered species. Congress, at the urging of Senator Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee, had begun in the 1960s to whittle away at options' tax-advantaged status, which some denounced as an unfair boon for the rich." I think that establishes that in Silicon Valley by the time that Apple was founded, employee stock options of the type that Apple did were a popular thing. And the garage 'myth' starts with Hewlett-Packard in 1939, not Apple. Here's a picture of the garage where HP started: http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-information/about-hp/history/overview.html http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-information/about-hp/history/ove... . It has its own Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Garage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Garage and is on the National Register of Historic Places. So before you start calling people dishonest - know some history first, and not just word-of-mouth myths.
  - gaadd33 12y ago
    Actually Hewlett-Packard was "THE startup" that started in a garage and produced that myth. That was in 1939, a few years before Apple was around.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
hoggle 12y ago
A true role-model for any friend and businessman indeed.
wallflower 12y ago
If you have not yet already read JL's interview of Wozniak in Founders at Work, the Floppy drive story is priceless. http://www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html http://www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html
- hoggle 12y ago
  Also great retelling by Andy Hertzfeld on the 3.5" Sony floppy disk drive: "Quick, Hide In This Closet!" http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Hide_Under_This_Desk.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...
  - melling 12y ago
    You don't hear too many stories like this about Steve: "Steve swallowed his pride and thanked them for disobeying him and doing the right thing."
    - MCRed 12y ago
      Actually you do. There are many cases of Steve realizing he was wrong and changing his position. In his Eulogy Jonny Ive talked about it as one of his best known features. But this doesn't fit the "steve jobs is a tyrannical asshole and apple's success is only a fluke of marketing and apple is evil" narrative that is so popular among google worshipers.
      - frou_dh 12y ago
        Who mentioned Google? Stop making technology companies your sports teams.
        canes123456 12y ago
        That person was arguing against the simplistic story lines that are created when we treat tech companies like sports teams. It came off some what badly but I believe it was correct. There are tons of stories of steve jobs swallowing his pride and admitting he was wrong but they are not spread as widely because they don't fit the public perception of him.

keithpeter 12y ago

>> He said Omnibotics will "build smart home electronics and I'm hoping that we can finally make it possible to make your house more responsive to you, to give your house a user interface other than mechanical switches and knobs." Wondering how that vision loops back to his childhood in the Japanese styled home. What kinds of interface? What definition of simplicity?