Andy Hertzfeld, part of the original design team for the Mac, has put together a collection of antecdotes of those early days at Apple in Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made. From the Forbes review:
The advantage to having these stories collected into a bound volume is that it counters the histories already published about Apple. As well-written as some of those are, none have the close and personal feel of Hertzfeld's book. When he describes bursting into tears during a "walking tour" performance review, the shock and disappointment is fresh and tangible in a way that a third party could never report.
The most intriguing personality that emerges is Burrell Smith. Brilliant, young and woefully underpaid, Smith designed the original Macintosh board that inspired Jobs to take ownership of the project. Smith obsessed over food (Jobs gets him to stay late and test circuit boards with the promise of pineapple pizza), referred to attractive women as "good prototypes," and fantasized about urinating on Jobs' desk on his last day at Apple.
As a former supervisor myself, I can attest to the power of free pizza as a sound employee motivation technique. Much of the material for this book is from the site folklore.org. If it sounds interesting, you may want to root around there first.
Update: From Extremetech, an imagination called, "If Microsoft Never Existed", which seems to hail Gates and company as bringing order and innovation to our lives. Poppycock, I say. He completely ignores the fact that Apple introduced the GUI, and the innovation that results from competition. For those who think we should worship at the altar of Redmond.
Actually it was Xerox that invented the GUI. We're all standing on each others shoulders here.
Posted by: Jim | October 12, 2005 at 08:47 AM