“Steve Jobs was a man who adopted many mentors in his life, but one of his mentors deserves more than a passing look: Robert Friedland, a charismatic, free love wacko who dealt LSD and had his own free love commune on the same apple orchard that inspired Steve for the name of his company,” John Brownlee reports for Cult of Mac. “It was also where Steve allegedly got his ‘reality distortion field’ from.”
“Steve Jobs met Friedland at Reed in 1972 after Friedland was kicked out of Bowdoin for having $125,000 worth of acid and then doing two years in a federal prison,” Brownlee reports. “Highly charismatic, he journeyed to Reed, ran for student body president, and handily won.”
Brownlee reports, “Steve met him after arranging to sell him his IBM Selectic typewriter. When Jobs came into the room, Friedland was having sex with his girlfriend, and insisted Jobs stay and watch, which Jobs did. Friedland then formed a commune out on All One Farm, an apple orchard that was granted to him by an eccentric millionaire uncle… Early Apple engineer Daniel Kottke said that some of Jobs’ personality traits were inspired by Friedland, including the reality-distortion field, where truths are much more subjective.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lava_Head_UK” for the heads up.]
“RDF” term comes from a sci-fi television and was used in relation to Jobs that has nothing to do with LSD.
So this article’s use of this term is a cheap exploit.
No, “RDF” does not come from Star Trek, as 60 minutes claimed. It is just a term made up in jest, but that apple haters have used as an excuse for their own denial for reality.
But it is a great term to let you know the person using it is an idiot…. so, whenever you see an article like this that acts as if the RDF is real, you know you’re dealing with an idiot.
It’s not 60 minutes per se, they’re just repeating the urban legend that stems from the Apple employee who coined the term RDF and *claimed* it came from Star Trek. But nowhere on the net is the episode it supposedly came from ever identified.
man, just when you think the bs can’t get any deeper: it does.
But… its in the book. I mean, this isn’t exactly rumors and gossip. This is a pretty important guy in Steve’s young life. Have you read the Bio yet? You should.
@botvinnik
Agreed. I’m stunned by the sheerly moronic assertions this idiot jumps to.
I love the causality implied in these sentences:
“When Jobs came into the room, Friedland was having sex with his girlfriend, and insisted Jobs stay and watch, which Jobs did. Friedland then formed a commune out on All One Farm, an apple orchard…”
It’s as though having sex in front of Steve inspired Friedland to form a commune!
On another note, I loved using the IBM Selectric; with the acetate ribbon it was fantastic for typesetting. All that went away with the Macintosh.
So using a IBM Selectric typewriter can possibly inspire casual sex and possibly a commune? Time to fire up Siri and ask her where to buy that dam typewriter. 😉
What was he doing having sex with Steve’s girlfriend?!!!
hahahaha
So, now the legend moves at full speed in the direction of saying illegal behavior, especially the use of LSD, is how we came to love the products made buy Apple? Even if LSD did inspire Steve Jobs, he’s one in a 100 million who could achieve success in that manner. How many young lives will be destroyed trying to follow THAT example?
very few
If any.
can you even get acid any more?
Yes, find a college campus or a rave and it can be had.
Illegal behaviour, like… say… selling machines that hacked the phone system for 150 bucks? LSD was a very innocent ‘crime’ and it opened up his mind, i’d say it’s a great thing he did. And Steve would agree.
In the book Steve says it’s one of the most important things he ever did in his life.
From experience I agree. Everybody should do LSD if you ask me. Jobs thought gates should have.
Agreed.
Everyone should drop acid…at least once.
It should be a law.
The crapshoot of ten seconds fame by association goes on …
I met Steve once in the early days, told him computers would once be the size of a book and that he should give up his dream of being a door to door wig salesman, lent him a pen while exclaiming, “Computers are the future man!”, and told him to “dig it”.
It was that pen that enabled the two Steve’s to design the first Apple computer as they had no stationery in those days.
Yes, I remember Steve mentioning “Frank the pen guy” with depressing regularity. To help him move on, I introduced him to my good friend friend Bill, whose nickname “Micro Soft” still stuck, years after that unfortunate frat party. I assured Steve that Bill was a cool guy, one you could trust with your innermost secrets.
My bad.
Yellow journalism will feed on and feed us shit as long as people thrive on gossip and innuendo.
That’s exactly why privacy is prime and why Steve Jobs cherished and insisted on it.
Everyone’s shit smells.
I rode in a car with Dr. Jerry Buss (Lakers owner) a few times before he became uber-rich and successful. We spoke. I guess I can take credit for his later rise to glory. … Not.
Did you teach him anything at all? Cuz your analogy doesn’t really work.
Hey, it works for me!
Oh wait, that’s the LSD talking: Never mind.
That was a lot of LSD in those days. Bowdoin is just a half hour down the road from me.
Those who do drugs are responsible for thousands of deaths every year, both in the US and abroad. Stop the madness!
Alcohol kills far more and its legal.
Drugs result in single fatality deaths (the user) more often than innocents imho.
Correct Dude! As does tobacco and the related heath problems from Tobacco.
Alcohol is insidious, yet a plant is demonized, people do not smoke a joint, get in their car and wipe out families in auto accidents like they do daily with booze. People do not smoke a joint and get violent and start fights.
Sadly, people are easily propagandized and do not seek the truth enough anymore.
whatever…..Jobs would be 17-18 at the time….I am sure a lot of things went on….who cares….next!!
I did a lot of LSD back in the day.
Holy sh*t… I guess I am an artist!
Me: Dude, want a hit?
Steve: Dude, yeah
Me: Let’s go to my pad
Steve: Your pod
Me: My pad!
Steve: iPad?
The rest is history
I lived at All One Farm during the spring, summer, and fall of 1975. I knew Robert Friedland very well and I spent time with Steve Jobs during several visits that Steve made to Oregon. All One Farm was run like an ashram. Drugs and alcohol were forbidden there and I never saw them used. Celibacy was the rule except for married couples, who were allowed their own private quarters. Everyone was expected to do sitting meditation together for a minimum of two hours a day, and every evening everyone gathered in the meditation hall for bhajan — singing Hindu holy songs. All One Farm hosted a Buddhist Vipassana Retreat, and the Vipassana organization has very strict standards. All One Farm was also a working farm, where we all worked a full shift each day.
I have yet to read Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, but if Steve told his biographer Walter Isaacson that there was “free love” and drug use at All One Farm, Steve was LYING. It would not be the first time that Steve Jobs lied. Steve lied about not being the father of his daughter Lisa, but the court-mandated DNA test proved otherwise.
What girlfriend was Robert Friedland screwing? His own or Steve’s? BTW, Steve’s high school girlfriend, who was the mother of Steve’s daughter Lisa, did not attend Reed College or live in Oregon when Steve and Robert were at Reed.
Fegel-san:
Interesting to see your post. Perhaps you remember me. I think the last time we crossed paths was at my restaurant, Good Karma, in SF, in the late 70s. I live in Sonoma County now (and have for 20 years). Let me know what you’re up to.
Also — sorry to contradict you, but the summer I was at All-One Farm, 1975, lots of people were smoking lots of marijuana lots of the time. There was also some acid around.
I just read the relevant passages from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. Neither Walter Isaacson or Steve Jobs describe any “free love” or promiscuity or drug use at All One Farm.
Steve Jobs describes walking in on Robert Friedland having sex with Friedland’s girlfriend while Steve and Robert were attending Reed College. The girlfriend is anonymous.
At All One Farm, there was always plenty of food. Everyone was served three square meals each day, the meals were sumptuous, and the kitchen was not off limits to anyone who wanted a between-meal snack. The kitchen did not skimp on quality or quantity, and the meals compared favorably with the best vegetarian restaurants. The residents worked hard and they had hearty appetites. If some people went to the kitchen for a midnight snack, no one minded it. Steve Jobs was a fanatic for fasting and food discipline. Steve’s complaint about food pilfering at All One Farm is irrelevant. Makes me wonder if Steve monitored the eating habits of his own family the same way.
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