“‘He’s coming,’ Bertrand says, sticking his head into the conference room,” Arno Gourdol writes for Medium.
“Bertrand is our lookout. When he saw Avie and Steve walking jauntily at the end of the long corridor connecting Infinite Loop One and Infinite Loop Two, he gave us the warning,” Gourdol writes. “Steve has to be escorted everywhere on campus. He refuses to carry one of the access cards that would allow him to open the locked doors that separate the buildings. No one is really sure why, but there’s probably some logic to him for this eccentricity.”
“I’m sitting in front of a bulky CRT display, looking at the white screen and small black text of the debugger with a puzzled look,” Gourdol writes. “‘That was not supposed to happen,’ I think, incredulous. I reach for the power button and reboot, and I get the same result, unsurprisingly. ‘In the next two minutes, I’m about to meet and get fired by Steve Jobs. I wonder if I’m going to set some sort of record. I’m sure I will find that funny some day,’ I say to myself.”
“My head spins. It’s one of those nightmares where you are standing on stage naked in front of a room full of strangers, unsure of how you got there. Bertrand stares at the screen with a look of surprise,” Gourdol writes. “‘Can you fix it?’ he asks. I don’t answer.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Steve made a big dent in the universe, including in our lives. We miss him, too.
[Attribution: Cult of Mac. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
I worked with someone early in my career, who was very highly respected, so well educated, spent the time (personal sacrifice) to do truly outstanding work, in everything they do. It is from this publicly recognized personal characteristic that gives power to those 4 words. I think if you are a manager with a good enough attitude that works for in a good enough culture, those words don’t have much meaning.
May be it was because of his cancer he was afraid that the RF will affect him.
Any way, he made apple what it is and help a lot to the world so he could do what ever he wanted no questions ask.
Most likely it was to ensure that he didn’t walk on his own when instead he could walk and talk with someone and use his time instead of wasting it.
There’s also the prevention of paranoia that he’s going to suddenly appear, unannounced using his card. He’s not micro-managing, not creeping up on anyone.
Looked at another way you can’t track which doors and when Steve Jobs has passed through w/o having a history of who he was with at the time.
Interesting!
Might explain why he also didn’t license his cars.
Personally I think the whole thing is genius if you can get away with it. Unfortunately, I can not.
I heard the reason for that is California has a loophole in the law for car license plate where you have a 6 month grace period on a new lease/purchase of a car. Steve simply got a new lease short of every 6 months.
Any leader that shows respect for the thoughts of his/her team, gets more respect back.
I worked for jerks and I worked for thought full managers. I would rather put my energy for a thought full manager. Steve 2.0 wasn’t a jerk, though some may think so.
Loved the story.
Haha.. So Steve Jobs was doing the Queen of England? I’ve heard she doesn’t have a passport and when she goes through immigration all she needs to say is she is the Queen of England to enter a country. 😀
Every day I miss Steve. He is the photo on my desktop, inspiring me to do better than I think I can do every day.