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There is a further rough parallel between the stormy personal waters Jobs was navigating at the time and some acute growing pains Apple was suffering almost simultaneously. The company's newest addition to the line, the Apple III, went on the market in November 1980 and turned out to be, at first, a thundering dud, what Jobs now characterizes as "an evolutionary product." Apple recalled and repaired the machines, and manufactured better new ones. "A learning experience" is what Jobs terms that parlous period now. Lisa—"a revolutionary product"—will determine just how well Apple has learned its lessons and how tough it can be against a behemoth like IBM. Some outside the company who have used the new machine have been, at their most temperate, wildly enthusiastic.
If Jobs is deft at dealing with his peers and elders in commerce, a comforting combination of overnight plutocrat and shill for a new gold rush, he is positively hypnotic when he takes the computer gospel to the young. Jobs is youthful enough to fit right in and both bright enough and rich enough to get respect. Certainly, he does not live like a superstar. His pleasant home in Los Gates is nothing that would interest Architectural Digest: freshly laundered shirts lie on the floor of an unfurnished second bedroom, a love letter is magneted to the kitchen fridge, the master bedroom holds a dresser, a few framed photos (Einstein, Jobs with his buddy Governor Jerry Brown, a guru), a mattress, an Apple II. He has forsaken vegetarianism ("Interacting with people has got to be seriously balanced against living a little healthier") and dresses with what might be called tailored informality. He is a work junkie, not a sybarite, and tends to see the simple, sensual pleasures in strictly practical terms. "The amount of time you spend shopping and preparing and eating food is enormous," he maintains. "The amount of energy your body spends digesting the food in many cases exceeds the energy we get from the food."
Life at Apple has been tough for some to swallow. Following the initial problems with the Apple III, the company president fired some 40 employees and was in turn dumped by Jobs and current Apple president A.C. ("Mike") Markkula. Steve Wozniak drifted into conspicuous retirement and last year staged a rock concert in the Southern California desert. Some oldtime employees have not shared in the corporate bounty. Says one: "I wasn't obnoxious enough to make myself a millionaire." Jobs drives the staff hard, expecting long hours, high productivity and indefinite patience with his scattershot ideas. "He should be running Walt Disney," says a onetime Apple manager. "That way, every day when he's got some new idea, he can contribute to something different."