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Once Rock invests in a company, he remains active in its management. He is a director of Intel and Apple, for example, and vice chairman of Diasonics. He stays in close touch with his managers, most of whom recognize that his advice is worth far more than his money. He maintains a delicate balance between guiding them and letting them find their own way. Last year, when Diasonics announced that it would lose $5 million to $7 million in the third quarter. Rock spent hours huddled with senior managers, helping them pinpoint weaknesses and reorganize the company. Says Joseph Rizzi, founder of ELXSi International, a Rock-financed computer company in Sunnyvale, Calif: "Arthur has the uncanny ability to say one or two things that can get you pointed in the right direction." Concurs Paul Levy, 28, president of Rational Machines, a 33-month-old computer company launched under Rock's wing: "I wouldn't think of hiring a senior executive without having Arthur interview that person."
Rock will stand by investments that do not become bonanzas. He helped nurse Qantel, a business-computer company, for several years until it reached sales of $49 million. It was finally sold in 1980 for $34 million. Notes his friend Sarofim: "The investors still came out ahead, but we were spoiled. We didn't make as much money as we usually do."
Rock's professional manner is detached and clinical. He refuses to let his companies waste money and conveys a harsh sense of urgency. He says little at board meetings, and will sometimes squelch woolly ideas by abruptly asking, "What good will it do?" Says his onetime partner Thomas Davis, a California venture capitalist: "He only wants the right answer." Behind Rock's understated exterior lurks a remorseless will. Notes Palevsky: "Arthur makes it clear you had better win and you had better work your ass off all the time."
Rock's quiet manner often intimidates strangers and can daunt even close friends. Says one associate: "I was scared to death of him for the first ten years I knew him." Nevertheless, Rock has a thoughtful paternal side, which he shows particularly to favored protégés. He includes them in attractive deals and cautions them against squandering their fortunes by selling their stock too early. In December 1982, he treated Apple Chairman Steven Jobs, 28, to his first opera, Tosca.
The son of a Rochester, N.Y., candy-store owner, Rock graduated from Harvard Business School before beginning his career on Wall Street. Childless, he lives in San Francisco with his second wife, Attorney Toni Rembe, in a home overlooking the bay. He frequently attends and contributes heavily to San Francisco's opera and ballet companies and the city's Museum of Modern Art. His private art collection includes works by the modernists Robert Motherwell and Hans Hofmann. Rock likes to entertain at dinner parties, which attract an eclectic mixture of guests such as Opera Impresario Kurt Herbert Adler and Rolling Stone magazine Editor and Publisher Jann Wenner. Rock suffered from polio as a child, but shows no ill effects from the disease. He exercises for an hour every morning when at home and spends much of each winter skiing in Aspen, Colo., where he conducts business from a three-story, $450,000 condominium.