Steve Jobs

The Next Step

Jobs sold over $20 million of his Apple stock, spent days bicycling along the beach,

feeling sad and lost, toured Paris, and journeyed on to Italy. It was not until late
August that he began to catch his breath. [Utal, 1985, p. 119] Then Jobs thought
back on his experience at Apple. Though he is not an engineer, he felt his greatest
talent had been spearheading development of new products. Jobs also recalled with
special pride that he had helped introduce personal computers into education. [Utal,
1985, p. 119] To collect his thoughts one day, he took up pen and paper and began
to write down the things that were important to him. Along with the development of
the Macintosh, he listed three educational projects he had launched: Kids Can't Wait,
Apple Education Foundation, and the Apple University Consortium. [Utal, 1985, p.
119]

Inspiration came at the beginning of September 1985 when he had lunch with Paul

Berg, a Nobel laureate in biochemistry at Standford University. Paul Berg explained
to Jobs the time consuming trial and error experiments carried out to extract DNA.
Jobs asked whether Berg had ever thought of speeding up these experiments by
simulating them on a computer. Berg said most universities did not have the
necessary computers and software. "That's when I started to really think about this
stuff and get my wheels turning again," says Jobs. [Utal, 1985, p. 122]

On September 12, 1985 Steve rose in the board meeting and said in a flay,

unemotional voice, "I've been thinking a lot and it's time for me to get on with my
life. It's obvious that I've got to do something. I'm thirty years old." [Sculley, 1987,
p. 201] Offering to resign as chairman, Steve said he intended to leave the company
to start a new venture to address the higher education market. The company Jobs
envisioned would have sales reaching $50 million annually in a few years and would
not be competitive with Apple, only complementary, and that he would take with
him only a handful of personnel. [Utal, 1985, p. 124] John Sculley said, "all of us
want you to reconsider your decision to resign from the board. Apple would be
interested in buying 10 percent of your new company." Jobs told the board he would
think about it and tell them his decision the upcoming Thursday. [Sculley, 1987, p.
204]

That Thursday Jobs went into Sculley's office and handed him a piece of paper with

all five employees that would leave with him. The employee's were Rich Page, an
Apple Fellow and one of the company's most import engineering designers, Daniel
Lewin, the marketing manager for higher education business, Bud Tribble, the
manager of software engineering for Macintosh, Susan Barnes, Senior controller for
US. sales and marketing, and George Crow, an engineering manager with vast
Macintosh experience. Together, they knew Apple's internal schedules, costs, focus of
next products, schedule of when Apple would introduce them, how they would be
used, and which individuals and universities Apple would work with to ensure their
success. The board authorized Sculley to begin litigation on the basis that Steve
allegedly made plans for the new company while serving as Apple's chairman, and
that Steve falsely represented his company and intentions to the board.