Weather of 2 cities (SFO vs. LAX)

~LAX (Fullerton) and ~SFO (Mountain View)

Average temperature (high/low) and precipitation

From Hot to Scorched at Commerce One

[zz: businessweek]


When Mark Hoffman was pushed out as CEO of Sybase (SY) in the summer of 1996, his first thought was to retire to his 20-acre horse ranch in the shadow of the Bay Area's Mt. Diablo. He had co-founded the company and built it into the world's then-second-largest maker of relational database software. Yet he had also made a crucial mistake -- producing a new version of Sybase's database in the mid-1990s that didn't sync well with applications from the likes of Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and Germany's SAP (SAP). That hurt sales. When Sybase ran into trouble, Hoffman was shoved out the door.


Just a couple of weeks later, though, his hopes were reborn. Jeffrey T. Webber, a venture capitalist pal of Hoffman's, had suggested he poke around at a tiny company, DistriVision in suburban Concord, Calif., that was creating electronic product catalogs on CD-ROMs. The founders didn't have much polish. Tom Gonzales Sr., who wore jeans and cowboy boots, had trained ex-cons how to drive 18-wheelers before the PC bug bit and he started setting up computer systems for mom-and-pop businesses. His son, Thomas Jr., was a quiet, stay-up-all-night programmer.


Hoffman saw huge potential. The world had discovered the Internet. While most people were fascinated with consumer Web sites such as Amazon (AMZN) and Yahoo! (YHOO), Hoffman foresaw a time when the Net could be harnessed to automate the dealings between companies, saving billions of dollars in costs.


In DistriVision, he glimpsed the glimmerings of a way to do that. Rather than deliver electronic catalogs on disks, DistriVision could put them on the Internet, where anybody could easily get to them. Hoffman volunteered to run the company -- soon changing its name to Commerce One (CMRC) and moving to bigger digs in the California towns of Walnut Creek and then Pleasanton.





When dot-coms posed a grave threat to old-line businesses, Hoffman came off as a trusted friend





No flashy leader, Hoffman is 5'8", with a placid face and a voice that rarely rises above a whisper. But at a time when dot-coms posed a grave threat to old-line businesses, he came off as a trusted friend of the Establishment. Alexis de Raadt-St. James, later an executive at Commerce One, recalls meeting Hoffman at a technology conference in Monaco in 1999. She was Shell International's e-commerce chief at the time. At a cocktail party, a then-famous dot-com CEO told her contemptuously that he "'wouldn't work with Shell if it was the last company on earth.'"


Hoffman was a stark contrast. He asked her detailed questions about Shell's business processes. "I could see this was fascinating for him. He could see what would come next," says de Raadt-St. James.

The Season of Hype

What came next defied all reason. It also planted the seeds for Commerce One's eventually fall from grace. While some dot-coms already were starting to fail in 1999, it was the business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce companies' turn to rocket toward the stars. Analysts confidently predicted that by 2005, $6 trillion of commerce between businesses would be handled via the Net. Large tech companies such as Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle, and IBM (IBM) weren't even in the game. The leaders were Ariba Technologies (ARBA) and Commerce One. And they made the most of it.


Commerce One became a marketing machine. Hoffman and then-strategy chief Chuck Donchess spoke at practically every B2B conference -- and there were dozens. The company held its own conferences, too, called eLink. All it had to do to get in the news was issue a press release, and a dozen reporters would call. "It was like throwing cows into a lake full of piranhas," says Andrew McCarthy, who was then director of PR.


The rivalry with Ariba was a gift. With these two companies running neck and neck, every feat of one-upmanship made good copy. Commerce One used the competition to whip its troops into a frenzy. Then-sales chief Mark Biestman, whose nickname was The Biest, passed out "Aribanator" T-shirts--with pictures on the front of Arnold Schwarznegger as The Terminator. One day, dressed as General Patton, he drove a Harley-Davidson motorcycle into a hotel during a sales training event.





Heeding the Get Big Fast mantra, Commerce One didn't even set up a beta-testing program for new software





No behavior seemed too outrageous. A few weeks before Commerce One's July 1, 1999, initial public offering, the executives gathered at MoMo's, a trendy San Francisco restaurant that some jokingly called Commerce Two because they spent so much time there. The occasion: a deal to sell software to Japanese telecom giant NTT (NTT). Webber, the venture capitalist, who was then on the board of directors, remembers peeling off a J Wine Company sweatshirt and a Commerce One polo shirt, and, bare-chested, presenting them ceremoniously to the Japanese. Everybody hooted with laughter. "It was a fun culture," he says.


But the go-go attitude opened the door to mistakes that didn't show up until later. In the glow of easy victories, Hoffman didn't keep a close enough watch on basic operations, according to several former managers. Commerce One's engineers and marketers were frequently at loggerheads. Heeding the Get Big Fast mantra of the moment, the company didn't even set up a beta-testing program for new software releases. The result: an array of products that didn't work well together. Customers suffered, and ultimately it spoiled Commerce One's reputation.

The Road to Rapid Riches

During its heyday, everything Commerce One touched seemed to turn to dough. Its stock rose by more than 1,000% by the end of 1999, then peaked on Mar. 9, 2000 with a $21.5 billion market cap. The key to its success was the emergence of a new phenomenon, the electronic marketplace, which also led to Commerce One's undoing.


This was Hoffman's baby. Back in 1997, he quietly started building software for e-marketplaces, Web sites where sellers and buyers would come together to trade everything from paper clips to raw steel. Commerce One's breakthrough came in the Old Economy bastion of Detroit. In October of 1999, General Motors (GM) procurement chief Harold R. Kutner staged a bake-off between Commerce One and software giant Oracle for the right to power GM's e-marketplace. The carmaker set harsh terms. It wanted stock in the tech companies, and it wouldn't pay for software or services. Oracle refused to play by those rules.





Customers were competing with one another to land Commerce One as their supplier





At first, Hoffman also recoiled. But while taking a shower at home in California a day after hearing GM's ultimatum, he realized that running its trading exchange could set Commerce One up for huge transaction fees. He decided it was worth the gamble, so he agreed to negotiate on those terms. After around-the-clock talks in Detroit on Oct. 29, Hoffman and Donchess ran out of clean clothes and bought University of Michigan duds at a hotel shop -- hoping that would curry a little favor with the GMers. The next day, they struck a deal.


The GM deal set off a business bonanza that made Commerce One the fastest-growing Nasdaq company -- ever. It signed up dozens of e-marketplaces, from aerospace to wood products. And at the peak, customers even competed with one another to land it as their supplier. After logging just $33.6 million in sales in 1999, Commerce One racked up $401 million in 2000, and was on a pace to double that in 2001.


Even while Commerce One was riding high, Hoffman fretted. At a brainstorming session at the Walnut Creek Marriott in January, 2000, he worried about a new alliance between Ariba, IBM, and supply-chain software maker i2 Technologies (ITWO). Commerce One needed a strong partner that would lend it credence in giant corporations that were more comfortable buying software from the likes of IBM. SAP, the king of corporate software, looked like the best choice.

Transatlantic Courtship

Hoffman called SAP Co-CEO Hasso Plattner and got turned down. But a month later, Plattner reconsidered. SAP was getting written off as a has-been for falling behind on the Internet, and an alliance with Commerce One would put that issue to rest.


The first face-to-face meeting almost didn't happen. On his way to the W Hotel in San Francisco, Plattner hit a speed bump in his Aston Martin and scraped off his engine's oil pan. He was 45 minutes late, but Hoffman waited. By June, the two companies had a deal. They would combine their engineering teams to deliver a new set of products and then unleash their sales teams on Corporate America. No two technology companies had ever tried to combine forces so thoroughly -- short of merging. The coupling brought Commerce One instant credibility and nearly $500 million in cash.


Nothing captures the jittery energy of that era better than the last days leading up to the deal being struck. SAP and Commerce One people met, and regrouped, and met again in Las Vegas hotels and conference rooms leading up to SAP's big user conference. They finally finished at 8 a.m., just before Plattner and Hoffman were to appear on-stage before an audience of thousands.





By the end of 2000, rank-and-file employees were holding stock options worth hundreds of thousands





Gary Fromer, then chief strategy officer for SAP's e-marketplace subsidiary, recalls sitting in the audience when the two CEOs strode into the spotlights. And suddenly he couldn't stand it. "I had spent so much time and effort on it that I couldn't watch. I got up and walked out," he says. Just as he got to the exit, he saw that Rob Tartkoff, his counterpart at Commerce One, was also heading out. They went off to the blackjack tables together -- and won about $500 apiece.


By the end of 2000, Commerce One's fortunes were soaring. The company boasted 567 customers and 157 e-marketplaces. Everybody there got a taste of riches. Rank-and-file employees saw their stock options grow to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Top salespeople became ridiculously wealthy. And customers and partners shared in the bounty. At the peak, Hoffman hosted 2,800 people at a conference in the swanky Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. He watched in the Drink nightclub while hundreds of his guests danced wildly to the R&B riffs of Jim Belushi and his Sacred Heart Band.

Downhill from Here

The problem was, it didn't get any better than that. In the first quarter of 2001, demand began to taper off. Revenues of $170 million were down 10% from the previous quarter. At Commerce One's eLink event in Berlin, starting on Feb. 19, only 1,000 guests showed up. Berlin's Brandenburg Gate was wrapped in cloth for repairs, and to some Commerce One people, it seemed the same would soon be true for them.


What went wrong? A bunch of things. Some of the early e-marketplaces took many months to get going, partly because of problems with the technology but mainly because the industry consortiums that formed the e-marketplaces had trouble getting coordinated. Those delays put a damper on hopes for quick and easy riches.


Then the slow economy put the brakes on all kinds of technology spending. "People were buying vision in 2000. In 2001, they were looking for return on investment," says Robert M. Kimmitt, then Commerce One's president and now an executive vice-president at AOL Time Warner (AOL). When the new products from Commerce One and SAP were ready to conquer the world in early 2001, the world had changed. E-marketplace software was no longer in demand.


The team eventually retooled the products to handle private e-marketplaces, where individual corporations would interact with their suppliers. But that fell flat, too. And so did Commerce One's revenues, dropping to $101.25 million in the second quarter of 2001 -- roughly half of their peak.





Commerce One's bet on linking with SAP left it uncompetitive as a solo act





By then, Commerce One's fate was totally entangled with SAP. The U.S. company had spent a year focusing its 400 engineers on combining its technology with SAP's e-commerce applications. When hard times arrived, Ariba was able to strip away everything else and fall back on its e-procurement business, which is desktop software used by corporate employees for ordering supplies via the Net.


But Commerce One had bet everything on the SAP relationship and had let its e-procurement software slip. It wasn't competitive anymore as a stand-alone company. So when Plattner proposed merger talks during an August 10, 2001, lunch at SAP's Silicon Valley offices, Hoffman put aside his dreams of building an independent software powerhouse and said yes.


Despite all the signals that the glory days were over, Hoffman had a hard time accepting it. Commerce One had more than 3,000 employees through most of 2001. It still promoted itself as the worldwide leader in e-marketplace software long after the market had gone sour. Hoffman confesses that he kept hoping the economy would turn around.


Instead, he kept building for a brighter future. Dennis Jones, the longtime chief information officer of Federal Express, came on as Commerce One's chief operations officer in April of 2001 to provide big-company business processes. Donchess resigned for personal reasons, and Hoffman replaced him with de Raadt-St. James. She had just finished an MIT masters degree. Her thesis topic: managing expansive growth.


So just when Commerce One needed to shrink and refocus smartly, its new executives were best suited for a big company that was getting even bigger. "It was like bringing in a podiatrist when what you needed was a brain surgeon," says Roy Satterthwaite, a former marketing vice-president.

Painful Divorce

Undoing the SAP relationship practically ruined Commerce One. The deal fell through a couple of weeks after the September 11 terror attacks. Plattner, who had forged the alliance with Hoffman and was loath to give up on it, got a back-channel call from a board member. "They pre-preempted it. They asked me not to spend any more money on Commerce One," says Plattner.


Hoffman already had a gut feeling that something was amiss. The intensity of merger talks had dropped off precipitously after the attacks. Werner Brandt, SAP's chief financial officer, didn't mince words when he called Hoffman in late September. "'It's not going to work out, given all the stuff that's going on,'" Hoffman recalls Brandt saying. Looking back, Hoffman wishes he had handled the alliance differently from the start. "I wouldn't let myself so closely align" with another company, he says. "It has been very difficult to extract."


Indeed, breaking up was extremely hard to do. The companies' products were thoroughly integrated with one another, and they were pushing a single e-marketplace package. Because most major corporations already had relationships with SAP, many of the new deals were written as addenda to existing SAP contracts. Now, though they maintained a marketing partnership, most of their relationship had to be unwound.


At the same time, SAP started warning corporations that they had better play it safe and buy technology from big, stable suppliers -- undercutting Commerce One. Hoffman had learned the hard way to avoid intertangling alliances.

The Internal Split

At a time when Hoffman needed a unified team behind him, his lieutenants were at war over the company's soul. It was the newbies vs. the old guard. When Jones had proposed Commerce One's first-ever beta-testing program in the summer of 2001, he caught flack from managers who believed it would slow things down when new products needed to be launched quickly.


Some Commerce One veterans thought de Raadt-St. James wasn't qualified to set strategy for a software company. They privately mocked her frequent references to "S-curves" -- a way of tracking growth in a booming market -- as laughable pedantry. "We didn't mix well from a cultural and style point of view," says Mike Micucci, who then ran marketing and quit when he lost a power struggle with her.


De Raadt-St. James acknowledges that she met plenty of resistance. "I caused a lot of tension around running a company in a very structured way," she says, recalling that people came into her office, "angry, crying, saying they were leaving." That was something she urged them to do if they felt they couldn't adapt to a new way of operating.





"I have to go on my gut. I don't like our chances"





Indeed, many of Commerce One's faithful were abandoning ship. Strategic marketer Mark Nittler and merger expert Robert Tarkoff left before the end of 2001. At a Jan. 7 dinner at Moose's restaurant in San Francisco, Hoffman asked Biestman to hold on for six months, by which time he hoped the company would begin to show signs of life. "I said, 'I have to go on my gut. I don't like our chances,'" recalls Biestman, who's now CEO of SEVEN Networks, a telecom startup. "I told him I thought we had lost our way as a management team." Three months later, The Biest was gone.


Just when Commerce One hit the skids, co-founder Thomas Gonzales Jr. died of a rare form of cancer. Last Dec. 13, more than 600 friends and colleagues gathered for an evening memorial service at the Blackhawk Auto Museum in the hills east of San Francisco. Like the treasures of a pharaoh, Gonzales' prize possessions, F1 McClaren and Ferrari F50 sports cars, were placed on display -- as were drawings of the dream house he never got to build.


At the end, people lingered in the parking lot in the dark. For some, this was the ultimate downer. Gonzales grew up poor in a cabin in California's Sierras. He had worked hard. He was a team player -- always ready to stay up all night to finish a project or fly to any city to show the company's newest technology to potential customers. And thanks to the Internet gold rush, he had attained wealth beyond his dreams. Now he had died way too young. "When Thomas died, something died within the company. The spirit went out," says Biestman.


Indeed, the Blackhawk farewell is a fitting epitaph for a whole generation of Internet startups. They came. They soared. And, like Commerce One, they're in danger of fading away without fulfilling their promise.

Rubic's cube solution

[source]

Step 1: Cross

Step 2: Bottom layer corners

Step 3: Middle layer edges

Step 4: Edge Orientation

F (R U R' U') F'

f (R U R' U') f'
or U2 F (U R U' R') F'

Step 5: Corner orientation

R U R' U R U2 R'

Case A: 
if TWO corners are yellow: rotate top layer until a yellow sticker is on the bottom left,facing front.

Case B:
if ZERO corners are yellow: rotate top layer until a yellow sticker is on the bottom left, facing left.

Step 6: Corner permutation

R' F R' B2 R F' R' B2 R2

 Step 7: Edge permutation

(R U') (R U) (R U) (R U') R' U' R2

兩封代禱信

第一封：

各位親愛的主內肢體平安：

一.許多人關心我的健康情況，除了感謝各位代禱外。在此向大家報告病況：

2006年7月起，我就發現全身皮膚發癢發紅，看了幾個皮膚科的診所都沒有改善，癢到非抓不可，抓到皮破為止；生活品質大受影響（夜間完全無法入睡），病情時好時壞，8月初住入榮總治療，檢查認定是「紅皮症」是因為長期過勞，壓力太大致使身體免疫力失調的疾病；(欲瞭解該病詳情者不妨上網查詢，嚴重者可能致死)這是一種因為過敏而引起的皮膚病。住院四天之後我即出院，出院之後我不以為意，仍像以前一樣的馬不停蹄的服事主，完全忽略了對身體=聖靈的殿的照顧；近日來自覺元氣大傷，精神體力不大如前，病況不僅沒有好轉而且有惡化的趨勢，10月16日再赴榮總複診，皮膚部劉主任要求我作切片（他懷疑我身上可能有淋巴癌）次日住院（為了強迫我完全的休息），9天之後日出院在家完全休養迄今，其間作了一般性全身檢查、抽血檢查以及全身的 MRI；其中除抽血檢查發現癌症指數偏高外檢查的結果都沒有發現癌症，感謝主！）目前每週按時回診及服藥（包括類固醇，止癢劑、抗過敏藥、..）；由於找不出病因（過敏原），無法對病下藥，目前所有的治療都是在治標，只能說保持病情穩定，迄今尚末痊癒；食物改吃清淡有機食物，不外食也不吃以前沒有吃過的食物，可能會引起過敏的食物例如海鮮、筍、鴨、羊肉…也都不碰以免過敏，再加上吃一些極少種類健康食品，除了極少數的短講外，講道事奉幾乎全部停止，希望保持病況穩定，不要復發。

二.我的心情：

1. 突然從「一條龍」變成「一條蟲」，從「生猛海鮮」變成「廢物一個」實在非常難以調適，生命似乎要寫下句點。
2. 不知這病何時會復發？何時又要住院？
3. 對於以後的日子完全無法安排和掌握（去年答應某教會下個禮拜的佈道能不能講？）
4. 我靠著主的恩典迄今沒有抱怨、只有凡事謝恩； 我一點也不怕死，因為到 主那裡去那是好的無比，我只是對內人、家人、親人、主內肢體、朋友的千萬個不捨以及台灣還有百分之九十七以上還沒有得救者靈魂沉重負擔。

三.我的生活：

1. 因為藥物的副作用以及心情低落因此靈修和代禱生活都不如以前，提不起精神禱告和讀經。
2. 家中大小事全部由內子一人無怨無悔的一肩承擔，使我非常心疼和不忍！
3. 完全的休息，正在學習靠 主無憂慮。
4. 睡眠品質不好，原因之一是因為癢，每晚要服用鎮靜劑。

四. 我的萬分感謝和感恩：

從發病至今，教會同工費神替我安排各處講道的代替方案、有人電話關心、有人堅持到醫院和舍下探訪、有人送慰問卡/信/金、水果、蔬菜、各種食品或親自烹煮的精美食物、健康食品（一個月的用量即高達數萬元）和藥品(祖傳秘方)，又有人推薦醫生、又有幫忙掛號、也有人奉獻指定去作非常昂貴但極精密體檢、更有人指定用在購買防塵被，更不知道有多少人為我代禱(前幾天晚上一群牧者到舍下，其中一位答應我的病連續四十天為我禁食禱告，令我感動的當場落淚)、有主內醫生幫我作免費但昂貴精密檢驗(將我的血送到美去查病因—過敏原)、有人陪伴我外出散心（放風）、醫生及護理人員也對我特別關愛(他們並不都是基督徒)、……。這一切的一切若不是上帝的恩和愛在你們當中怎會這樣？每每想到這些深情厚愛常令我感動不已而淚流滿面，除了求神賜福報答你們外我想我到了永世中都無法報答每一位。

　　五.目前我的尋求：

好友們提出兩種不同的意見，其一是完全休息，在一段時間內（一年或三年）內完全停止講道的事奉；其次是保持一週一次講道，逐漸恢事復(他們擔心我若暫時停止一切的事奉恐怕不能適應)。

　　六.我的請求：

請您繼續懇切代求，使我在任何情況下都榮耀 主的名、不要失去對衪的信心和盼望，不要在晚年時「晚節不保」，保守我『無論是生是死讓基督在我身上照常顯大』；也請勿費神前來舍下探訪，因為我會情緒激動又會說個不停而傷神，但是您的回信卻是我的喜樂和力量。耑此奉陳並敬祝

以馬內利
主僕
范大陵
敬謝 2006年11月底

email:darling.fan@msa.hinet.net
p.s.病中友人贈送我書，閱後大得激勵和安慰，特此推薦(校園；『以神為樂( IT’S NOT ABOUT ME)；作者REV. MAX LUCADO；譯者吳 品』

第二封：

范大陵病塌心聲

一. 感恩事項：

1. 透過主內同工的介紹和妥善安排，2012/2/13 發病第一天立刻住院就醫；又接受最好的治療，衪從不誤事。
2. 許多多人主動為我們禁食禱告、關懷(電話、簡訊、email)、探訪、贈送(水果、食物、營養品、祖傳密方、…)、…. ；雪中送炭的温暖，我們一生感激不盡，主必賜福報答每一位愛我們的人！

二. 病情近况：

1. 我罹患急性腎衰竭(我的腎臟短時間喪失 90%的功能，無法排出體內血液中毒素，俗稱血液尿毒症，情况嚴重：詳情請上網查詢) 。 
2. 急性腎衰竭患者會有兩種可能不同方向的發展：1)腎臟細胞壞死，只能依賴長期洗腎；2)部份腎臟細胞可以恢復， 功能某種程度恢復。
3. 雖然腎臟切片(也有可能查不出病因)因目前我的凝血速度不符而暫停，但醫生為爭時間先是朝著使腎臟細胞恢復的治療方式進行(短期內使用大量的類固醇礙止發炎) ，其療效及結果短期並無法得知，I just pray and wait with thanksgiving！
4. 病因：感冒 or 中毒or 長期的勞累和壓力(我自覺早已達到心力交瘁的地步) 是罹患急性腎衰竭的原因。由於近兩年來神為我大大開福音之門，其屬靈效果和範圍令我這個不配的五十年以上老佈道者都「前所未有、跌破眼鏡、嘆為觀止、令人敬畏、瞠目結舌、無言以對」；只能將全部讚嘆和榮耀歸給神！因此我奮不顧身擺上，只希望在有生之年作個忠心有見識的小奴僕，早就忘了我是年逾古稀的資深公民。

三. 病塌心聲

1. 我一生的心志：與其荀且偷生，不如戰死屬靈戰場；米該雅和施洗約翰是我極其羨慕的榜樣先知--他們至死忠心傳祂的信息。
2. 我當然祈求主垂聽全體代禱者而完全醫我，但不是照個人的意思，而是衪的旨意成全；無論是生是死，健康或疾病，成或敗、榮或辱，順或逆、貧或富、活的長或短、…但每天求主幫助我一生榮神益人，凡事謝恩！千萬不要「晚節 不保」
3. 我決定暫停今年三至五月份的全部講道事奉，希望能重新得力。

四. 懇求代禱

1. 為我因愛而服事五十年以上的教會「林南」急需要懲治>悔改>潔淨>復興禱告；五年來發生的所謂「林南悲劇」，造成有超過三百位以上熱心愛主資深有洞見的肢體含淚陸續離開教會流浪(此為長期以來造成我心力交猝而罹患急性腎衰竭的主因)，個人也同時惨遭受林南極少數重要人士無情的人格謀殺；感謝主！「地方教會同工會」對針對「林南悲劇」已提出「審理報告」，還原了真相。
2. 求主給我智慧，作出合乎衪旨意的「餘生規畫」，適度調整步調，不再作「野驢」。
3. 為內人多年來陪伴我無悔無怨走這路窄/苦/死/永生/蒙福之路所遭遇的一切代禱，我倆每天為都需要祂超然的恩 典過日子。

一點請求：
煩將「范大陵病塌心聲」傳給每一位願意為我們禱告的人，這是一件善事！

范大陵滿心感激掏心掏肺寫於2012 年2 月下旬

Mr. Sterling Mace's "Battleground Pacific"

I haven't read the whole book yet, but I'm already intrigued by it. An 88-year-old man's first hand experience of WWII by itself is intriguing, I think, let alone the well-written texts (I just read the Prologue on Amazon). When it begins with the death of the man's elder sister when he was only four years old, it felt like the deep and resonant sound from a cello, piercing and with resonance in the innermost part of one's soul, mixed with profound and yet tear-less sadness. It's a book I look forward to read.

Another point to make here is equally intriguing but more on the negative side. I could feel the author's unresolved (perhaps unresolvable?) hatred towards the enemy of himself and his country, but in a rather narrow view. Here's an excerpt from the Prologue:

"...that sneak attacks by little yellow bastards would not go unpunished by the United States of America."

Mr. Mace, and many other like him, fought heroically in the pacific front. At the time of war, this was inevitable, I suppose. How else would you prepare young soldiers heading towards the front line, into the rain of bullets coming from the enemy? So in retrospect, I would like to understand his remark by reminding myself that sneak attacks by evil forces had taken place in Europe, and equally would not, and did not, go unpunished. Pearl Harbor was a trigger for the U.S. to be involved, but Roosevelt and others certainly understood the villains in Europe had to be stopped, too. Bravery was equally evident in the fights half a world away.

The victory in WWII shows that any evil acts will be countered with greater strength and resolve. No matter who did it, yellow or white, little or great, nor would it matter which nation it was done to, be it U.S., Poland, England, Russia, China, or Kuwait for that matter.

With that understanding and my utmost respect, I solute to Mr. Mace, and all those who fought bravely against evil in the great war. They not only served their countries well, but all mankind.

p.s. On a light note, I read Mr. Mace on Reddit and found that he's a delightful man. In answering questions from a youngster about how to cope with the past and the one advise he would give, the answer was the same and had only one word: Martini.

Cheers!

毛家第四代

This lovely little girl is one of the 4th generation of China's Mao's family. Born in 2008, she is now a kindergartner in Beijing's 六一幼兒園.

confidante = 閨蜜

法國人發明的字，在21世紀的中國有最貼切的翻譯。不知兩者是否同樣出自一個巨變的時代。

蔣家圖譜

陳維齡

心曲三迴（創作「媽媽的喜歡」的心路歷程）

【啞歌/吉他老爹/鄒昌富】

如果故事一開始，就必需淺吟低迴地唱一首歌，唱一段久已塵封的「童年往事」，我想我也許該套用詩人余光中的「民歌手」吧！ 

給我一張鏗鏘的吉他/一肩風裡飄飄的長髮
給我一個回不去的家/一個遠遠的記憶叫從前 

乘著歌聲的翅膀，飛回記憶中三十年前的花蓮！那個早已變成「走不回的江湖」，也是一個「回不去的家」。雖然它的確是「生我的土地，懷我的搖籃」有我的父、我的母、也有著青蛙、和草、和泥土……


 一迴：哀歌

傳說中，那稱為我父親的男子是從烽火裡走出來，是浪子也是軍人，帶著一顆過客的心，隨政府撤退至台灣，原以為旋即便可以返鄉的，未料在花蓮一落腳就生了根，隨後又擁有一群「生不由衷」的孩子。

悲劇於焉開始，且是一幕接著一幕……

我不知道是 不是每個所謂錯謬的結合，都必定導致一個悲劇的收場？我真的不知道，因我不信宿命，我也不信事事都能源溯於因果且合乎邏輯。我只知道一件事，當時的我是既愛他又恨他—我的父親。愛他，是天性使然；雖然記憶中的他總是那樣嚴苛且易怒，令人畏懼三分。恨他，則因他生性嗜酒好賭，常悔而不改，至終造成家庭破碎！且妻離子散不久的他，也終於一場婚宴醉酒後的車禍中身亡。從此我失去一位永遠不再能愛、能恨的父親！而那一天，正就是民國五十五年的母親節，一個父母原本於仳離半載後意欲復合再婚的日子，未料竟成為我們作兒女的黑色夢魘與哀歌。身為長子的我，於次日親手盍上父親瞪視的雙眼，也親眼目睹他在焚屍爐中化為灰燼……那年，大姊才剛升初三，我初一，之下有個八歲的小弟。而母親終究還 是走了！帶著大弟和大妹。

就當時的我而言，母親的出走與改嫁是意味著背叛鄒家，亦是一個不能原諒並接受的事實！然而就她而言，一個十七歲就被外公逼嫁於父親的弱女子，如今想來，又何嘗不是一種解脫與幸福呢？是錯誤？是悲哀？套上那個年代大人常說的話：「大人的事，小孩子不要管。」是的，管不著也不能管！然而所有因此而導致的苦果，卻似乎不得不讓每個無辜的孩子分嚐。


二迴：啞歌

在讀書、繪畫、看武俠小說，以及偶而翹家中，讀完初中，為了逃避現實環境與自己，我在聯考放榜後，投進了一個全然與我性格、喜好完全相反的學府－陸軍官校預備學生班(現在的中正國防預校)，當時我的成績不差，但身體太弱(當時體重只有44公斤，且早有胃疾和十二指腸潰瘍)好在口試時表現不錯，也就那麼一 筆的帶過了。

從幼校到官校，七年的歲月，我走過一段漫長艱澀的心路。除了要適應外在文武兼備的軍事教育外，還得學習在我那方寸內，做各樣的自我調適與突破，很自然的，我開始涉獵許多文、哲、心理學之類的書籍，加上寫詩、彈吉他，生活似乎顯得充實且多采。在努力遺忘過去和策勵未來之間，我顧不得同學與長官投來的異樣眼光；長久以來，人際關係不佳，導致我更加的孤獨和寂寞。

然後，又接觸不少相命和卜卦與玄學類的東西，日子逐漸深陷而緊縮，只因為我開始對生命產生了極大的困惑與不解。生命的答案何處尋？文學裡的風花雪月，不能滿足我，哲學中的思辨推理，不能激勵我，甚至心理學也不能剖析我的內在問題，治癒創傷……

在自我防衛的心理下，雖曾有人向我傳基督的福音，但我也不屑的 拒絕了；驕傲卻又是脆弱的心靈，還不死心的想靠自己闖出一條活路來；不承認有神，卻又懼怕的深信有鬼，如聖經中所說的：「有一條路，人以為正，至終成為死亡之路。」又說：「立志行善由得我，只是行出來由不得我……我真是苦啊！誰能救我脫離這取死的肉體呢？」

官校三年級那年，我嚐試學習從「內太空」的世界轉向「外太空」也瘋、也玩，似乎是豁達多了，暑假還冒險去爬了一次奇萊山，而且就差點喪命在山上。

依然是逞強好勝，依然不能諒解那位懷我、生我的母親……，那年她帶著妹妹南下考試，順道(其實猜得出是專程)來學校看我，但我除了客套的陪她走完一圈校園外，什麼也不願多說，甚至連叫一聲母親都不肯。及至她傷心地走了，我還以為自己爭贏了什麼，儘管自知是一種病態的報復心理，卻仍 舊不斷壓抑自己內心深處的真實情感！執意以形同陌路的冷峻姿態來折磨對方，令一個同樣是婚姻受害者卻又被先父冠上「拋夫棄子」的母親一生愧疚！

豈料也在那一年，那位視我如己出的義父因身罹絕症而綿惙床榻，面對一位瀕死歸主的老人，我整個心都碎了，除了頻頻從心中哭喊著「為什麼，為什麼？」之外，別無他是，人的愛和一切的錢財，竟不能救一個人脫離死亡？！

而他，卻異常平靜的伸出僅剩皮骨的右手，示意要我到他的床邊；透過一位基督徒弟兄的解說，才知道他要為我祝福禱告！是的，那是自我父親死後最悲痛的一個日子，然而也在一天，我承受了一個最美也最大的祝福：「孩子！願你有一天也能相信我所信的基督耶穌，祂將永遠賜福給你！」他是真的走了，而我也因此徹底的崩潰下來。

同時， 四年級的那一整年裡，一個淒美的愛情來了，又逝去，加上舊疾復發，我終於在畢業前夕，也就是我二十三歲生日的第二天，我悄然地走出了那原不屬於我的江湖，軍官的美夢破滅了，而我必須走進另一個我從不承認的家……


三迴：讚美歌

民國六十九年十月的一次民歌演唱會，地點在國父紀念館。我緊張地抱著吉他，準備在前面的歌手唱完之後登台演唱。我知道我要唱的是什麼，也知道台下坐的有我的家人和母親，只是我一直不敢相信這個事實－當我在台大醫院完成我的二度切除手術之後(十二指腸和三分之二的胃)，我竟然因信主而完全接納了母親，更接納了我自己，因而當天對我而言，不僅是一個「告別民歌」的演出，同時更是「向憎恨與死亡揮別」的見證。

當時我的心情是充滿喜悅而感激的，我的思緒飛掠過一幕幕童年的往事，彷彿當時我是立在雲端之上，雲下雖曾有過風雨斷腸，而雲上的太陽，卻依舊耀眼燦爛！於是我徐徐地唱著：

小小時候，有好多喜歡！
喜歡問山是怎麼綠的？
喜歡問海是怎麼藍的？
還有那星星是誰家的流螢？
祇有媽媽說：傻娃娃！
山是因為希望而綠的，
海是因它的理想而深藍，
星星是夜神最美麗的眼睛。
長大後，我才明瞭，
媽媽只有一個喜歡，
喜歡她兒女能在愛中成長、茁壯，
有踏實的人生，
這樣的喜歡，是豐富的愛，
遠綠過青山，深藍過海…

雖我在眼淚中看不清母親的面容，但我深信一件事，就是神已經用祂那無比的愛，將我們母子的心都給溶化在一起了。正如經上所說：「神就是愛，住在愛裡面，就是住在神裡面…愛既完全就把懼怕除去了……」

感謝神！因著這 完全的愛，使我得著釋放與赦免，使我能對生命更真切地讚美與稱頌！因為祂誠然成為我的力量,

我的詩歌, 並也是我的拯救。

神就是愛! 愛就是神 ! 這愛更是~~~永~不~止~息




演唱：莊惠年、鄒昌富

トイレの神様 / 植村花菜

小３の頃からなぜだか
おばあちゃんと暮らしてた
実家の隣だったけど
おばあちゃんと暮らしてた

毎日お手伝いをして
五目並べもした
でもトイレ掃除だけ苦手な私に
おばあちゃんがこう言った

トイレには　それはそれはキレイな
女神様がいるんやで
だから毎日　キレイにしたら　女神様みたいに
べっぴんさんになれるんやで
　
　
その日から私はトイレを
ピカピカにし始めた
べっぴんさんに絶対なりたくて
毎日磨いてた

買い物に出かけた時には　二人で鴨なんば食べた
新喜劇録画し損ねたおばあちゃんを
泣いて責めたりもした

トイレには　それはそれはキレイな
女神様がいるんやで
だから毎日　キレイにしたら　女神様みたいに
べっぴんさんになれるんやで
　
　
少し大人になった私は　おばあちゃんとぶつかった
家族ともうまくやれなくて　居場所がなくなった

休みの日も家に帰らず　彼氏と遊んだりした
五目並べも鴨なんばも　二人の間から消えてった

どうしてだろう　人は人を傷付け
大切なものをなくしてく
いつも味方をしてくれてた　おばあちゃん残して
ひとりきり　家離れた
　
　
上京して２年が過ぎて
おばあちゃんが入院した
痩せて　細くなってしまった
おばあちゃんに会いに行った

「おばあちゃん、ただいまー！」ってわざと
昔みたいに言ってみたけど　ちょっと話しただけだったのに
「もう帰りー。」って　病室を出された
　
　
次の日の朝　　おばあちゃんは
静かに眠りについた

まるで　まるで　私が来るのを
待っていてくれたように

ちゃんと育ててくれたのに　恩返しもしてないのに
いい孫じゃなかったのに
こんな私を待っててくれたんやね
　
　
トイレには　それはそれはキレイな
女神様がいるんやで
おばあちゃんがくれた言葉は　今日の私を
べっぴんさんにしてくれてるかな

トイレには　それはそれはキレイな
女神様がいるんやで
だから毎日　キレイにしたら　女神様みたいに
べっぴんさんになれるんやで
　
　
気立ての良いお嫁さんになるのが
夢だった私は
今日もせっせとトイレを　ピーカピカにする

おばあちゃん
おばあちゃん　ありがとう
おばあちゃん
ホンマに
ありがとう

鄭焙隆

台灣的Paul Simon Bob Dylan!

The moment when the dragon is slain

Woz on SJ

Last week, in the course of reporting articles for Newsweek on the death of Steve Jobs, I spent two hours on the phone with Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder. Woz reminisced about his friendship with 16-year-old Steve Jobs, their early days listening to Dylan bootlegs and what it was like as Apple took off. He recalled the times when they disagreed — but never, ever had a face-to-face fight or argument, he insists — and why he believes that Steve died happy. Woz told me about the early days when he and Steve were going door-to-door in the dorm rooms at Berkeley selling blue boxes, illegal electronic devices that let people make free long-distance phone calls. He told me about a prank call they made to the Vatican, and about getting robbed at gunpoint. Finally, Woz revealed that, owing to some kind of miscommunication, he never participated in the forthcoming Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs.

I’m publishing this here because as often happens in the world of print journalism, there was no room for all this material in Newsweek. But I’m hoping people will find it as interesting and informative as I did. (Apologies for any typos. Point them out and I will fix them.)

When I talked to Woz it was Friday morning. He was wrung out and exhausted. He’d been up until midnight on Wednesday, the day the Steve died. He slept for two hours then got up when the camera crews started showing up at 2 a.m. Thursday for the East Coast hits. He gave interviews all day Thursday, went out for dinner, and finally came home and got some sleep.

Are people coming up to you in restaurants, wanting to talk?

No, they are being polite. The waiters are always saying things. But people are holding off more than normal. Usually people come up to me when I’m out at dinner. Everyone wants to express their own emotions and feelings which are strong and deep. They look for, “Where can I express it?” I don’t want to be the focal point. But my phone was ringing constantly.

What was Steve like in the early days?

Steve was very organized and operational minded. He never tried to do any computer design stuff when I was around. He knew it was pointless. From the day we met he found other ways. I was just such a hot shot designer of things, so ahead that nobody would try to do things around me.

How did you and Steve come up with the idea for the first Apple product, the Apple I?

Oh, a lot of people saw the Apple I before Steve Jobs even knew about it. I was in the Homebrew Computer Club. Steve was up in Oregon, working at an orchard, in a commune. We were really not in touch. But I got inspired to help this revolution. People in our club thought the personal computer would affect everyone’s life. We thought everyone would have a little computer, a little thing with switches and weird numbers on it, and people would learn to program to operate a computer. We didn’t think it would be normall stuff like it turned out to be.

I never wanted to run a business. I had a perfect job for life at HP. I went to club meetings every week and I passed out my schematics for the Apple I, no copyright, nothing, just “Hey all you guys here is a cheap way to build a computer.” I would demo it on a TV set.

Then Steve Jobs came in from Oregon, and he saw what the club was about, and he saw the interest in my design. I had the only one that was really affordable. Our first idea was just to make printed circuit boards. We could make them for 20 dollars and sell them for 40 or something like that. I had given the schematics away. But Steve thought it could be a company.

This was actually our fifth product together. We always were 50-50 partners. We were best friends. We first did the blue boxes. The next one I did was I saw Pong at a bowling alley so I built my own Pong with 28 chips. I was at HP designing calculators. Steve saw Pong and ran down to Atari and showed it to them and they hired him. Whether thought he had participated in the design, I don’t know and I could not care less. They offered him a job and put him on the night shift. They said he doesn’t get along with people very well, he’s very independent minded. It rubbed against people. So they put him on the night shift alone.

Our next project was when Steve said that Nolan (Bushnell, head of Atari) wanted a one-player game with bricks that you hit out. He said we could get a lot of money if we could design it with very few chips. So we built that one and got paid by Atari.

The legend is that Steve cheated you out of some money on that deal.

The legend is true. It didn’t matter to me. I had a job. Steve needed money to buy into the commune or something. So we made Breakout and it was a half-man-year job but we did it in four days and nights. It was a very clever design.

The next project we did together was we saw a guy using a big teletype machine that cost as much as a car hooked up to a modem dialing in to the Arpanet. You could get into 12 universities and log in as a guest and do things on a far-away computer. This was unbelievable to me. I knew you could call a local time-sharing company. But to get access to university computers was incredible. So I went home and designed one myself. I designed a video terminal that could go out over the modem to Stanford and then on to the Arpanet and bring up a list of university computers.

The far-away computers would talk in letters on my TV set. Instead of paddles and balls in Pong, I put in a character generator. The terminal was very inexpensively designed. We sold it to a company called Call Computer. They now had a cheap terminal. Steve and I split the money.

Tell me about making the blue boxes.

These were counterculture days. I was anti-war. Steve was into the hippie thing too. I didn’t do it to make money but just to build a device to explore it, not to save money on phone calls. I was so honest I would not use the blue box to make long-distance calls. But if I wanted to play pranks, like route signals around the world and make them come back to the phone next to me. We did prank calls. I would call a hotel in Paris and make a reservation. At the dorms in Berkeley we would go door-to-door selling blue boxes. One hundred and fifty bucks was the price.

Did you really once call the Vatican and pretend to be Henry Kissinger?

Yes, I did. We were doing a demo of a blue box in a dorm room. I called Italy, then asked for Rome, then asked for the Vatican. I told them I was Henry Kissinger calling from a summit meeting in Moscow. It was 5:30 in the morning in Italy. They told me to call back in an hour. I did, and I spoke to a bishop who said he had just spoken to Henry Kissinger in Moscow.

We also got robbed at gunpoint once. This was in a pizza parlor in Sunnyvale. Two guys looked like they might be interested. We took them back to a pay phone and made a call to Chicago for them. They were enamored and wanted the blue box, but they had no money. We got out to the car and they show up with a gun and stick it in Steve’s face. We gave them the blue box. But they didn’t know how to use it. They gave us a phone number to call so we could tell them how to use it. I came up with this idea of telling them a method that would get them caught by the police, or one that would get them billed. We didn’t do it. But boy it would have been funny. But you don’t want to be dealing with someone who is pointing a gun in your face.

You guys seem like an unlikely pair.

We were very similar. We would hunt through stores in Berkeley looking for Dylan bootlegs. Steve was interested in computers, and he really wanted to find a way to build a computer out of these new devices called microprocessors. He thought that someday they could replace big computers and everyone could have their own computer relatively cheap. Steve had a background working in computer stores buying stuff cheap and selling it for a lot more. I was shocked when he told me how you could buy something for 6 cents knowing he could sell it for 60 bucks. He felt that was normal and right, and I sort of didn’t. How could you do that? I was not for ripping people off. But then we started Apple and I went with the best advice which is that you should make good profit in order to grow.

Steve was willing to jump right into that. Mike Markkula was the mentor who told Steve what his role would be in Apple, and told me mine. He was the mentor who taught us how to run a company. He’s very low-key. He stays out of the press and he’s not that well-known. But he saw the genius in Steve. The passion, the excitement, the kind of thinking that makes someone a success in the world. He saw that in Steve.

Mike Markkula had worked at Intel in engineering and marketing. He really believed in marketing. He decided that Apple would be a marketing driven company. He was introduced to us by Don Valentine. Don had come to the garage and I ran the Apple II through its paces and he said, “What is the market?” I said, “A million units.” He asked me why that was and I sad, “There’s a million ham radio operators and computers are bigger than ham radio.” We didn’t quite get the formula. Steve Jobs and I had no business experience. We had taken no business classes. We didn’t have savings accounts. We had no bank accounts. I paid cash at my apartment — I had to, because of bounced checks.

Was Steve more into business than you were?

He understood the technology well enough to know that I was the best designer. He knew that. He had seen other companies and he knew that you need a businessman who understands technology. He was very much a technologist business. He wasn’t an engineer. He didn’t do any hardware or software.

Randy Wigginton told me that in the early days you were the most impressive one, not Steve Jobs.

Well I was a super brilliant engineer. HP turned down my idea for the personal computer five times. Then later when they saw the Apple II they said it was the best product they had ever seen. I was highly regarded for my engineering skills. But I never wanted money. I would have been a bad person to run a company. I wanted to be a nice guy. I wanted to make friends with everybody. Yes I came up with the idea for the personal computer but I don’t want to be known as a guy who changed the world. I want to be known as an engineer who connected chips in a really efficient way or wrote code that is unbelievable. I want to be known as a great engineer. I’m thankful Steve Jobs was there. You need someone who has a spirit for the marketplace. Who has the spirit for who computers change humanity. I didn’t design the Apple II for a company. I designed it for myself, to show off. I look at all the recent Apple products, like the iPhone, the iPad, and even Pixar, and it was like everything Steve worked on had to be perfect. Because it was him. Every product he created was Steve Jobs. You’re not going to let an imperfect you go out. That’s why he was so tight and controlling of the quality of things.

Are you surprised that Steve Jobs became this huge cultural icon? Randy said that in the early days he would never have bet on Steve becoming so important.

Nobody would have bet on it except a few rare people, ones that know that greatness and great companies come from people who have a certain kind of spirit, a way of thinking beyond what other people might think. Randy was really young in those days. So it would have been hard for him to see that. It was hard for me to spot that in Steve. But Mike Markkula spotted it. Mike really thought we would have one of the biggest companies ever.

In the early days of Apple Steve deliberately injected himself into every decision. I said, “Look if I try to pretend that I know how to do marketing, it’s better to be silent and thought a fool than open your mouth and leave no doubt.” So I sat there in staff meetings and I did what I was excellent at — printer interfaces, floppy disk interfaces, serial interfaces. I did my job. Steve wanted an important say in every division of the company. Mike defined that was Steve’s role. Get in and learn. Get a footprint in every department so over time Steve got very confident about telling anyone what to do. Because he was the founder and he was protected.

Is it true you originally didn’t want to join Apple?

I said no to Apple at first. I was philosophically pure and I always said I would not be corrupted by money. I would not take big money from Markkula and give up my dream of being an engineer at the greatest company ever, HP, for life. I said no to Apple. I said I could design computers in my spare time. Markkula said I had to leave HP. I said, “No, I don’t have to leave HP, I’ll moonlight.” Then all of my friends started calling me and telling me I had to go to Apple. My friend Alan Baum said, “You can stay at HP and become a manager and get rich or you can go to Apple and stay an engineer and get rich.” That’s what I needed to hear. I realized I don’t have to run anything. I didn’t want to run a company. I was so non political that I would have been thrown out, probably. Steve had a way of being offensive to people. He was always jumping at people always trying to be at the top and out in front. I was quiety. I never had that kind of ADHD life that so many of my friends in technology have. I was calm. No big ups and downs.

Did you guys have a falling out at some point? I read that you were upset when Steve started emphasizing the Mac instead of the Apple II.

Well I had worked on the Mac. I believed in that technology so thoroughly. I saw it as Apple’s future. But I didn’t believe we should cut off the Apple II product line and stop mentioning it in public. The Apple II was the big cash cow. The Apple II people felt bad, but not me. However, I did speak out on their behalf. Steve didn’t talk to me personally about these issues. But he didn’t like what I was saying. The closest thing we ever had to an argument was when I left in 1985 to start a company to build a universal remote control. I went to Frog Design to do the design. Steve dropped in there one day and he saw what they were designing for me and he threw it against the wall and said they could not do any work for me. “Anything you do for Woz, belongs to me.” I was on my own, but I was still friendly with Apple. But Steve had a burst-out there. The people at Frog told me about it. That was the only time there was ever a fight between us, but it wasn’t actually between us. Nobody has ever seen us having an argument.

Were you still working together closely in 1985 when you left to create the new company?

We were much more distant by then. The first couple of years at Apple we were very close. But then Steve was the businessman at the top, and I was an engineer. We were in different parts of the company. We weren’t communicating much. We were different people by then.

But even after you left to start the new company you remained an Apple employee. You’re still an Apple employee today, right?

I get 200 bucks every two weeks. A tiny salary.

When did you first move out of the garage?

It turns out that from our Apple I sales in the garage and by not paying salaries to ourselves we had established a bank account with about $10,000, and that was enough to move to an office space in Cupertino. I think we moved in before we even got the initial investment funding from Mike Markkula. We had a few desks, and no walls. We hired a president, Mike Scott. I really liked Scotty. He could be stern and strict but he also had a light side. He took Apple to the IPO. You never hear about him, but boy he was so important. He created a manual that was just filled with all of my designs and information. I wanted it to go out with the computer. Steve Jobs thought I wanted the information out so people could use our computer, but no, I wanted the information out there so people could learn what computers were and how they were built. I can’t tell you how many times I run into CEOs and they tell me they went through that manual and learned it all and that is what brought them into computers. If we published taht manual today I don’t think Apple would let anything out that had all those little details.

What is the deal about Steve parking in handicapped spots? Was that true?

To me, I would just laugh and enjoy it as a joke. He was always flying around to buildings in his car and you know what it’s like when you can’t find a parking spot, so he would just drive up and pull in. There’s a story that someone once keyed his Mercedes at Apple so from then on he would park his car in a handicapped spot near a window so it was always being watched.

And what about him having a car with no license plate? How did he do that?

You can get a permit for that. Steve was always trying to be anonymous, and hidden. That’s the opposite of how I am. I don’t call reporters, but I don’t hide from people who I am. I get tons of email a day and I try to answer all of them.

Do you remember the first time you met Steve?

I took a year off from college to earn money for tuition. I was working as a programmer and I told the company that I knew how to design minicomputers. This exec said “If you can design one, we’ll get you the parts.” So I designed a very simple computer, and they got me the chips. I was working on it with a friend, Bill Fernandez. We were in his garage building this thing. Bill said “You should meet this guy Steve Jobs, he’s at our high school and he knows about this digital stuff. And he’s played some pranks too.” So Steve came over. We talked about what pranks we had done. Then we started talking about music. I was turned on to Dylan, reading the words and analyzing them. We agreed Dylan was more important than the Beatles because he had words that meant things. He was serious. He was not just about enjoyment. We started going to Dylan concerts together. We would go through music stores looking for Dylan bootlegs. We found some pamphlets with Dylan interviews, and then we drove down to Santa Cruz to meet the guy who wrote the pamphlets. He showed us some rare pictures of Dylan and we listened to some rare music of Dylan.

Steve’s lifestyle was the young hippie who has nothing, who is getting by on almost zero dollars. I always had a job, always had money. But I admired everything I read about the hippies. This was the Vietnam War days. I became distrustful of authority. That matched the hippie philosophy of Steve. We admired the students who were protesting. We had a lot in common. People think we were way different but not really. With Steve, maturity came to him, but less maturity came to me in my life. He took on the responsibilities of business. I always wanted to be a young person. I wanted the fun in life forever. When you die you should die happy. For some people that’s all about making a business success, tangling with people, yelling at them on the phone, that’s what makes them happy. Steve was a more serious capable disciplined person. I’m still young and undisciplined. I have a lot of fun.

Do you think Steve died happy?

Of course! If he were to sit back and say, “When I was young, what was my dream in the world,” well he achieved that 100 times over. I think Steve when he was away from Apple he was unhappy but obviously he died happy. I think he died mature and cognizant and aware. I think you are lucky when you have time to see it coming. You can make sure you go out with the right things done.

Will you go to the funeral?

I don’t know about it yet. I haven’t been informed. Will Steve Jobs even have one? Is he the kind of person who would have one? I haven’t seen him for many years. Just phone calls here and there. I don’t know if I was the right person in that crowd. We had an unbelievably important relationship. I never said anything bad about Steve. We never had a fight. Not in person, between us. One time we disagreed when I was designing the Apple II and I wanted eight slots and he wanted only two slots and I said, “Well go get another computer.” My design was good and those slots turned out to be an unbelievable part of the Apple II’s success.

What happened to Steve during the years when he was thrown out of Apple that made him such a great CEO when he came back?

I think Steve learned a lot of discipline. Not just personal discipline but discipline for the company, how to make sure the company met its goals. When he left Apple he was still just flying around believing in his own directions but ignoring the directions of other people. When he left Apple he some quiet words for me. He told me he was going to start this other company because he felt his purpose in life was to create great computers.

Years later, after Pixar came out with “Toy Story,” Steve told me that all these others were making animated movies but what matters is whether the story is any good. The problem is you don’t really know which one is the good one. But he knew. That’s the vision thing. There is some very different genius involved in having everything a home run out of Pixar. I don’t know everyone is talking about “Apple, Apple, Apple,” after Steve’s demise, because Pixar is another one. And it’s a whole diferent realm. I always liked the comparison of Steve to Disney more so than to Edison.

What was Steve’s biggest strength?

Everyone else will say vision, and gosh darn that’s important but that doesn’t go anywhere without operational discipline. Steve once told me that Apple only lost money when they built junk. It was his focus on good products that I believe was the biggest thing. All we have to do is make great products. If you have a big market. Apple had millions of fans, such a huge user base. Another strength was that he came back and put together a new board of directors. He organized the company to have good tight controls. Watching everything he could — that is operational excellence. Lots of CEOs just look at little points of data and make a decision. Steve was so much more than that. It’s rare. It does take a lot of work and time. I always felt bad setting up even a lunch with him, because he must have been the busiest person in the world.

Did you talk to Walter Isaacson for the biography of Steve?

I got a call from someone writing a book about Steve Jobs, saying it was an official book, but I turned him down. I didn’t want to talk about Steve. I was afraid he wouldn’t want it. So I never spoke to Walter for the book. I feel so bad about that. Then again, so much stuff that I’ve said is already out in the public.

[zz]