The Soul of A New Machine

The meeting took all day. I later learned that this was standard procedure at IBM: a simple review takes one day, and if there is something substantive to discuss, it requires two. In contrast, GO’s meetings were usually scheduled in fifteen-minute increments.

The Newton group was more like a startup at the time, and so for once I was able to execute some of the ideas we’d had in the design group. It wasn’t until Jobs came back that what we were trying to do got any traction outside of the Newton group. DOUG SATZGER, industrial design creative lead (now vice president of industrial design at Intel) We wo

Everyone in attendance was in a dark suit, and euphoria was in the air. In a buffet line, one gentleman with silver hair told another, “I haven’t felt this smart since 1968.” He added, “If we start thinking it’s our brains, we’re in trouble.” That sort of self-admonishment was the voice of the minority, however. Self-congratulation was the theme th

Bill and I had decided we were going to reinvest our profits and not resort to long-term borrowing. I felt very strongly about this issue, and we found we were clearly able to finance 100 percent growth per year by reinvesting our profits. After some discussion with the members of the board, they seemed to be impressed with what we were doing but s