Around fall of 2006 the Marine Corps handed me papers to go home. Having done my time in the Carolina swamps freshly minted at 22 as a combat engineer that wasn’t sure if I could pair detonator to dynamite they told me go home after denying my first—of many—attempts to go to war. Slot’s full, they said, wait for the next cycle. Don’t worry, war will always be there they chuckled. Glad that became true.
So I took the ticket out and slunk back to whence I came up, the quiet burbs of Cupertino. Back to my old room with the bunk bed, my stoner buddies, back to my old life, drifting around. I had cachet though, I recalled. I’m a United States Marine. That meant something anywhere but where I was.
The overachievers roundly finished college and found exciting jobs being cube drones. Back then, before Y Combinator validated, before the tipping of nerd being chic, before startupping was trend du jour, before all of that society told us being desk drones was the best outcome. It didn’t even matter what you did as long as there’s a desk, a chair, internet, and a paycheck.
Despite knowing that’s not what I wanted, that was why I dropped out of college, I somehow ended up doing the same thing. Living at home, in front of a desk, sitting on a chair all day, hooked on the internet, making no money, and dreaming about war. My mum nagged me all day to get a job so I did. I went down the street and picked a drabbly death star looking office building and walked in.
——
Apple chose an medium-grade industrial walk-up back in 1976 in Cupertino because it was convenient. It was orange orchards everywhere back then, fertile land for planting dreams. There was a windmill that locals took their grains to for grinding down the block. It’s now a Chinese bank building.
Back then only nerds walked in and out asking for jobs. That’s just what a garage startup in Silicon Valley was like. If they were smart they got to keep coming back and help out. Apple was a small fry fighting to convince the world worked through mail and telephones that the average joe blow deserved a $666.66 computing machine on their desk. Woz had no problem designing the computer but Steve had a tough time belying he’s capable of turning his cadre of misfit super nerds into a corporation.
I didn’t know any of this as I tailgated the random guy past the security doors. I just knew Apple was finally in exciting times again. Every empty commercial space in town has been snatched up. Every empty factory now have motor pools everywhere. Badgers walked wandered to every Yelp reviewed spot within walking distance during lunch. Times are a-changing, Macs are hot, and a new generation of users won’t have to live in shame like I did, spending my school time recess on the yard arguing over which was better: PC or Macs.
The building I chose happened to house the support arm of the company. Across the street was finance and legal. Engineers and the higher ups had the reserved luxury of working in the mothership. It didn’t matter, I was okay with anything. So I asked people I saw and met about work. They looked at me like I was crazy. Then I figured out what was wrong, they were too young. I readjusted fire.
The nice lady looked trendy and amazing for the silvering she’s been up to. A framed letter thanking her for the 25 years she’s put in and signed by Steve Jobs was on her desk. She was a lifer. She smiled, perhaps reminded of the garage days, when I told her what I wanted and handed me a laptop she pulled from the Steelcase cube drawer. Fix all the HTML in these files so she can prepare them to be uploaded to a CMS. I nodded and sat in the cube of the guy on vacation.
At the end of the day I emailed her the files. She told me to come back in the morning. Then the next. Then next. I managed to cheat my way into becoming a cube drone at the soon to be most influential company in the world.
——
I loved exploring Apple’s campus at night with my badge. For every red horrendous beeps there was a green light openings doors somewhere. I was like a rat sniffing around every inch, I waltzed around different departments and studied cube decorations, took in the complexity of ideas and thoughts left over on whiteboards.
Some desks had red PCB motherboards strewn about, some desks had vintage Apple posters, some desks were cluttered with broken iPhones collected for support engineering testing. To a kid that grew up in Silicon Valley, to a nerd that obsess about computer, to someone that marveled at how radically technology changes lives, this was where the magic happened. And it was all just so normal work place, where people integrated systems, designed products, wrote software, and made business deals—a corporation.
One late night while working on QA-ing help content for new iLife products I stepped out of the sterile lab I was in and took another walk. You hear the thud of the doors every now and then as late night bachelor badgers finally it quits and go back home but no one ever bothers you.
I was on the fifth floor of IL1, the atrium that you walk past the main entrance, overlooking the massive product ads when he walked by.
I’ve heard that happens. I’ve seen it happen before, during lunch once. He wore the same mock turtleneck and jeans, tapping on his iPhone, followed by three little girls eating cookies from the cafeteria. People open up the sidewalk and just let him on through, like a Mose parting the pedestrian seas.
He nodded and I nodded, unsure of what to say. Or if I should even say anything. Scuttlebutt was that the top floor of IL1 is forever Steve’s universe. He has a show room built so he can practice his presentation, have demos, and get things done. I imagine it to be much like what John Lasseter does at Pixar, endless hours of tweaking great things to greater things.
Great things, though, are done by irrepressible people. So I was shocked at the rusty and cramped words that came out of my mouth, “how, how do I get all this?”
He paused in walking away from me, turned around, and inspected. “What,” he must be wondering if it’s worth talking to me—and he sure took awhile before deciding. “You chase. Every day. And sometimes you’re lucky to do the right things.” Chasing I’ve heard of but it’s the sometimes that scared me straight.
You see I believe Steve lives in a different world from you and I. He chased his entire life to make his world controllable through good design, good products, and good technology. If I know anything about luck it’s that it’s not something that just happens, you chase it, and when you’re a great master of the universe you make it.
As a business hacker Steve made his luck, he made his chips to leverage, he made deals happen like Gaza depends on it. It was a fault many thought flawed, that the obsession tarnished what he made but great things are done by irrepressible people.
Every moment a constant struggle between two mentalities in my mind, thinking that either life is controllable or not. Some days I’m overwhelmed by what little I have control of but when I’m empowered by amazing technology my life is filled with watch cat videos, find cheap eats, look up how to get lost, record every aspect of every major moment of my life, and channel otis redding soul through two Chinese handmade earbuds at any moment then I’m powerful. And still thankful, as much as I take it all for granted now. By god, you remember when you were stuck with a StarTAC for a burner? Eww.
Namaste, bro, you’re pretty rad.
