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Metzen · Jan 5, 2002, 02:21 AM

I'm not talking about Ex-Junior Janitor of Spindler's desk here, I'm curious to know who else out there has had an encounter with a famed Apple employee.

I've had two thus far, and both have been with Apple CEO's. One was Steve Jobs, the other was John Sculley.

Encounter with Steve Jobs:

Back in '95 or '96 my dad "stumbled" across his email address (before the NeXT aquistion) and I sent him a email thanking him for starting Apple. He replied back personally (I was shocked) and I didn't send another email to him since. Unfortunately, I had forgotten what he had said, but I remember it being along the lines of "thanks, Apple was fun." There was obviously more to it then that, but I can't remember and we didn't archive the message.

Another former Apple fame I ran across was John Sculley in 2000. I met him when he came to Edmonton to give a seminar on technology and the internet. He signed a picture for me along with the words:

"To Trentent,
With warm regards to a real Mac fanatic!
John Sculley"

Maybe I'll scan it and post it one day...

juanvaldes · Jan 5, 2002, 02:42 AM

That would be cool..

I drove by Job's house in Palo Alto with my driving instructor, does that count?

curmi · Jan 5, 2002, 03:12 AM

Not me, but a friend who worked in a California Japanese restaurant - hope that counts. Apparently this restaurant was (is) Steve's favourite (I hear he is a vegetarian, but apparently he eats fish as he loves sushi, so he isn't a strict vegetarian).

Jobs is considered their number one customer. One day jobs ordered sushi, and they made him a special sushi with the fattiest parts of the tuna (a delicacy to the Japanese, and quite expensive). Jobs returned the sushi and asked could he have less fatty tuna (the cheap stuff).

Not that I blame him, as I don't like it either...

Jobs also used to (maybe still does) have dinner there with his good friend Larry Elison (Oracle CEO). One day after they left, my friend picked up a napkin on the table which one of them had scribbled on. It said "NC $700" (or similar price, can't recall). This was back when Elison was always going on about Network Computers, so it looked like they were discussing a relatively cheap network computer idea (that never arrived

).

usedmac · Jan 5, 2002, 03:12 AM

I wrote a letter to Steve about the future of Apple PDA's and that there were really some good sites with mockups. Anyway, the next week I get a call from his office saying that Steve really appreciated the letter and was curious about these mockup sites. To make a long story short, Steve was walking by when the guy was saying this and I hear a "just a minute" and the next thing I know I hear a "Hi Ben, this is Steve Jobs. Your talk of mockup sites was all news to me. What are some url's so I and my people can look at these." (paraphrased) So i told him about theapplecollection.com and applele.com. And I got a free t-shirt. ALL TRUE

Agasthya · Jan 5, 2002, 03:22 AM

I ordered a G4 thru Apple's online store after I got back from the Keynote (MWNY 2000) and the order time said 4 weeks. 4 weeks passed and I got an email from Apple saying that they had run out of "accessory kits" and that it was going to be another month to two months before they got enough in for me to get my G4...I needed this computer for college which started in mid August so I fired off an email to [email protected] telling him how I thought that all this was very unprofessional since he himself had said that the machines would be available "immediatly" after the Keynote. The next day I was at my friends house and I got a call from Lynn Fox (Apple PR lady) (turned out that she called home first and my mom gave her the number to my friends house) saying that the letter was moving along the higher ups at Apple and that Steve himself had pushed my order through and I was going to get the machine within the next three days...sure enough, FedEx delivered it two days after my little talk with Lynn Fox. I was very impressed

Adam Thomson · Jan 5, 2002, 03:56 AM

I live in the most techology advanced city in the world, Detroit Michigan(motortrend magaziene) and have only had piss on's delivering the keynotes at tech confrences! Why are the big guns afraid of the auto industry?

Nebrie · Jan 5, 2002, 04:45 AM

Originally posted by Adam Thomson:
I live in the most techology advanced city in the world, Detroit Michigan(motortrend magaziene) and have only had piss on's delivering the keynotes at tech confrences! Why are the big guns afraid of the auto industry?

Maybe because the computer industry is concentrated in Silicon Valley, and the financial district is concentrated in NYC, and they rarely have anything in Detroit. You get all you can eat auto keynotes, we'll just take the all you can eat tech keynotes. It's not like we get a ton of auto ceos doing keynotes here.

Jansar · Jan 5, 2002, 04:51 AM

Back in the day, my dad was part of the Apple work force. He was friends with Jobs (at his first time CEO at Apple), and he became best friends with Mike Spindler, because he's the one who helped bring him in to Apple after previously being CEO of Apple in Europe.

applenut1 · Jan 5, 2002, 04:52 AM

Back in 99 after I purchased my G4 I had several problems and apple support was, gasp, no help at all, frustrating, rude, didn'y want to help.

I sent Steve Jobs an e-mail and he responded that he would have it taken care of. That night I got a phone call from an "apple exec" telling me that they would swap my G4 and give me a few extras for my trouble. Very cool to say the least

My brother also met , I think the vice president of Apple a few years ago at the Apple market Center in manhatten while watching the MWNY Keynote Address. he gave him one of those Apple employee shirts (the white polo shirt with big colored apple on the back) and talked to him for a while.

I've also met other apple employees but none I would think would be considered big enough to talk about

Adam Thomson · Jan 5, 2002, 05:21 AM

Nebrie,Detroit has 1,000,000 auto workers and 325,000 automated robots that get replaced or upgraded at re-tooling(once a year).Who designs and programs these robots? not m$ or apple or anybody else from silicon valley! I think if sombody came up with a program that would change the auto industry they would end up like Jimmy Hoffa! It's time for somebody to step up to the plate!

Jansar · Jan 5, 2002, 05:51 AM

Hey applenut, what is Jobs's eMail address? I'm just curious.

dtriska · Jan 5, 2002, 06:01 AM

Originally posted by Metzen:
Another former Apple fame I ran across was John Sculley in 2000. I met him when he came to Edmonton to give a seminar on technology and the internet.

And why was I not informed?

tobster · Jan 5, 2002, 08:00 AM

Originally posted by Jansar:
Hey applenut, what is Jobs's eMail address? I'm just curious.

[email protected]

I would not recommend sending him crappy e-mails about nothing though. Put yourself in his shoes first and ask yourself then if you'd like to recieve that mail #580084 today (a pointer to anyone that reads this, not just you Jansar).

- tobs

tullamore · Jan 5, 2002, 08:21 AM

I met John Sculley his wife and two kids at the opening of the Apple Store in Minneapolis.

seanyepez · Jan 5, 2002, 08:28 AM

I believe Chris Hanks spoke a few words with Steve on the phone once by accident.

I know the technical lead team for Mac OS 9 personally. We've played a few games of Marathon, too!

iBabo · Jan 5, 2002, 08:37 AM

i dont really know him Per say!, but Avie Tevanian is Apples executive VP of Sofware, and invented Mach and OS X and all that good stuff, and hes armenian, and im armenian, so im almost certain that i know someone that knows someone that knows him...

The Ancient One · Jan 5, 2002, 09:06 AM

Well, I never met any Apple bigwigs, but I used to hang around BMUG in the late '80s and I DID get to talk to Bill Gates when he was there to demo Excel 3.0. Does that count?

BTW, I asked him about voice-activated operating systems and his answer indicated that he had tried them and found them extremely unimpressive.

KaptainKaya · Jan 5, 2002, 02:21 PM

I met Steve Wozniak at a MUG meeting once when I visited my uncle in California about 2 years ago. Its amazing that he still has input about what goes on at Apple but he doesn't work there anymore. He has great ideas and I hope Jobs is wise this time around to listen to them.

The Jackalope · Jan 5, 2002, 02:48 PM

I saw S Jobs at a computer store in Palo Alto when the NeXT Cubes were first rolled out. Forget the name of the store though...

I still kinda want to buy a NeXT Turbo Color and have him sign it one of these days. Those things were dope.

Ruddigger · Jan 5, 2002, 03:07 PM

I have a friend who met Steve Jobs. I think he scared him, my friend's about 6'5, with long hair down to his ass and a huge beard. He jumped out at Steve while he was alking by with his entourage at MWNY a few years ago and started babbling about sometihg he doesnt remember. Steve shook his hand and left in a hurry. Hehe.

applenut1 · Jan 5, 2002, 03:41 PM

Originally posted by Jansar:
Hey applenut, what is Jobs's eMail address? I'm just curious.

he has a bunch including [email protected] [email protected], [email protected], etc.

I think I sent mine to his apple and pixar addresses.

Oh, my mother saw Steve Jobs on the floor of MWNY once but couldn't find me in time to tell me