@jobs_He_ was a scary guy, trust me. We went out there, and he only wanted to meet each one of us myself because each was a technologist who was much more important in his world. And me and each—[the other guy] was a fanboy. Each one—you know, there’s the Hector fanboy, he was an SJ fanboy. He knew everything about him.

I was really impressed, and it was amazing company. But we go into the boardroom after about five hours of being grilled and prepared by other executives, because they’d already done a ton of research on us. They wanted to buy our company, but he had to pass the Steve test. There was a lot of forewarning about Steve . There was a lot of “well, if Steve said no, you were done.” He never took a meeting by himself, so there was going to be a bunch of people in the room on the executive team. He had a lot of quirks and things that he was going to do, and they prepared me ahead of time—which was kind of cool of them, because they didn’t for other people. That shows that they wanted the money and they needed it to work, so they tried to prep you. They wanted it to work, right? But Steve was tough.

So this is a good one. If you won’t usually try the tech there as well—so Steve would do this as well. He’d say, “So Hector, so you’re really close with your dad, huh?” Sixty seconds. Mm-hmm. Nothing. Got to hold. The guys don’t say anything. People get so uncomfortable—granted, it’s Steve Jobs, but yeah. So in life, that’s what happens. People just get uncomfortable.

So it was his litmus test to determine if you’re a bozo or not. Okay, the hero or a bozo. Bozos were gonna fill up that uncomfortable silence with some [bullshit]. He was gonna know you weren’t the guy—that you’d never be able to negotiate for him, you’d never be able to pull through in the clutch for him. So he gave me about 60 seconds, which felt like six hours. I was like, “Oh my god, I’m just holding the gate.” Finally I was like, “Okay, yeah.” And he was okay.

And then he’d ask you a bunch of questions about your family, your dad, and he would store it away. Maybe he’d use it right away, maybe he’d use it in a year, but he’d come back—you know, in a meeting, and maybe you had a poor meeting in his mind, and he’d bring you over. He’d go, “But Hector, do you think—you said your dad worked like three jobs and moved from Juarez, Mexico, just to give you this life. You think he’d be appreciative of the [bullshit] performance you made here today?”

Jesus, I just choked up a little bit. He knows what made you take whatever it was. He’d stored it away. Yeah, keep it hidden, then whip it out, and you wanted to please him. Everybody wanted to please Steve . And if you told him, “I can do this, man, I can do it in six months,” he’s like, “Great, you’ve got four weeks.” And you’d say, “I couldn’t—there’s no software, I can’t make self, I can’t even do this in 40.” “You have four weeks.” And you would. And they did. They always did.

And everybody at Apple was amazing, and everybody thought their [shit] didn’t stink, and they were arrogant, and it was a wonderful, exciting place to be, especially then. You know, the iPad just came out and everything else, and you felt you could do anything for this guy.

Yeah, so—and we skipped a lot. Oh yeah, so I got to tell about that meeting. Yes, it was the best part. So we go to the meeting, and fanboy each—[Hector]—right away starts babbling. And he’s looking at him, and he’s going like this, and he says, “Could you explain that again? I’m sorry.” So he short-explains again. He’s like, “One more time.” Really not getting it. And [Hector] says, “Okay, well, with our ads and the other Android ads and another platform, you can kind of create a lowest common denominator to run across all the platforms, whether it’s an Apple phone or a Google phone—the Google phones coming out.”

And I was like, “That’s probably not a good thing to say.” Right? And I look at Steve , and Steve looks at me, and if that’s—[Hector]—he just puts his hand up in his face, looks at me, and says, “I’m not talking to him again. I’ve done everything in my life to be anything but ‘below lowest common denominator.’ How dare you come into my boardroom and say that?” Yeah, I was like, “Okay, let’s keep talking.”

Yeah, so without further ado—and then it took about three or four hours to get back into it. Okay. And then it was one of my better performances. I definitely had some duds in my life, but I kind of felt like I had nothing to lose at that point, so it was actually kind of freeing. Yeah, and I was good. And I was answering his questions, and then I kind of thought I had him, 'cause he asked me if I had kids, and then asked him if he had kids—which I should have known. I didn’t know if he had kids, and he got a little choked up. Yes, he was dying. 'Cause I said, “Are your kids in college?” Yes. Like, “I’m not sure if I’m gonna see my son graduate.” Was so—yeah, no. He said he weighed like a hundred pounds, you know, just followed more energy than I’ve ever had in my whole life.

Yeah, and then he looks at me and he says, “How much am I buying your company for?” There’s a little known start—I guess I could say it now, it’s long ago. I said, “We have a deal. 325 million.” And he looks over at Peter Oppenheimer, who is the CFO of Apple, and he’s like, “We’re paying 325 million for Andy’s—[Peter Schiff]—company?” He said, “Okay, gonna test me as a negotiator.” And he said, “Peter’s like, ‘Well, that’s what we’ve negotiated.’” Yeah. And he said, “Well, I’m not paying that, Andy.” I said, “Well, that’s the deal here.” He’s like, “Well, I’m not paying that. Your company’s not worth that.” I said, “Well, I think—I think we are.” And he’s like, “Now what can we do?” I said, “I don’t really understand you asking me to negotiate against myself.” He’s like, “I’ll pay it—275.” I said, “No, like we have a deal, man.” He’s like, “We don’t open 'til I say we have a deal, you understand?” Mm-hmm. I said, “Fair, but I think you’re re-trading.” And he’s like, “You know, ‘betrayed’ is a bad word.” Yeah, like we’ve caught—we did other words, you know, in our growing up, right? Yeah. And he’s like, “Eh, you calling me a raid raider?” I said, “With all due respect, I think so. Because I came here thinking we had a deal for—you know, I told my board we have a deal for 325.” I’m gonna walk out of here at 275. He’s like, “How about this?” He leans in. He’s like, “Screw you guys. How about you tell your board back in Boston that oops, and these little ads don’t work anymore on Apple phones, and then see how good your business is and how much it’s worth.”

Talk about a—oh my god. I was like, “275 sounds pretty good.” Rather—and he likes to be—he goes, “Can you land this plane?” And I was like, “Hi, captain.” He’s like, “That makes no sense. That’s a boat metaphor.” That was it. Shook his hand—actually did not shake his hand. Just looked at him. He looked at me. He’s like, “We’re done here. I’ll see you around campus.” And he said, “Oh yeah, by the way, you need to move everybody to Cupertino.” I said, “I have a hundred and fifty people work for me.” He’s like, “Yeah, move more.” I was like, “We’re all from Boston.” He’s like, “No no no, don’t move them all. Leave the bozos back in Boston where they belong. Move the good people out here.” Like, oh. So that was the deal. That was part of it. That’s how I ended up at Apple. I reported to Steve until he died for a couple years, and I learned at—I’m unbelievably stressful. Unbelievably. Had any hair—I had a little hair at the time, a little bit gone. I worked my ass off 24 hours a day. I bought a house because I was commuting from Boston, right in his neighborhood. Saw—I didn’t even know he lived there, honestly. And he hated the fact that I lived near him, because I was seeing what was happening with his sort of health. And it was all Steve , all day, 24 hours a day. Tuesday meeting at 1:30. That was it. That was it. Like, it was the scariest time of my life—those Tuesday meetings. I’d meet with him in front of the whole executive team, almost the whole executive team, because he was terrified that ads were gonna [screw] up his customer loyalty experience.

Yeah, and so he had everybody in there, and every time I won something, I try and not bring it in. Oh, and he told me—and this is a good tip for you young entrepreneurs out there—that I was a very complicated man, which is not a compliment, right? His whole world is about simplicity. In fact, right outside of it, the creative group at Apple, they have this big mural and it says, “Simplicity simplified—crossed out. Simplify—simple—crossed out. Simplify.” And that’s what it was for him. You had to boil everything down into its essence. And then he didn’t even want me to hand stuff for him to read or look at, because then I would kind of frame his thoughts. It was just, “Boil everything down into its essence. I’m gonna trust everything you say. The day I don’t trust what you say, you’re gone. You don’t belong in this boardroom anymore. And save me the time so we can make an informed decision.”

And this was—this is the most amazing—exact—see, look what they’ve done, right? Their company in the world. They’ve all been there forever. There’s no focus groups. Like you always—you say a few—I don’t want to, you know, please—but like you say similar things, right? Like, you know, sometimes people don’t know what they need until you give it to them, right? And that was his thing as well. “I’m not gonna have a focus group to tell me what this thing should look like, what color I should have. You know, I’m gonna show them what they don’t know.” And it was all like—you like—surprise and delight. He was a pleaser on some level. Unbelievable attention to detail. Like ridiculous. Every little thing, he’d make you go back a hundred times for it. Even if he was fine with it, he’s—don’t think he’d go back and do it because he wanted to train you in that way. And for me, I was too complicated. He’d say, “Exactly—you use ten words when you can use one. You can use a picture instead. You know, I don’t want to see a deck with a hundred words on it. I want you to think like an Apple guy.” And that was really hard for me. And now I think that’s why I’m such a good multitasker and why I get so frustrated probably with our employees sometimes, because they need to simplify their world. Because if they’re giving you everything and then you’re simplifying it, it’s exhausting.

Yeah, and my meetings with him were scary and legendary, and they—I got some great stories there of him abusing me at some level and other levels, you know, building me up and making me a man. And it was incredible. That’s gotta be like—I mean, imagine how many people get to work for a genius like that, right? Literally changed the world, right? I mean, in my opinion—I agree. Yeah. So that’s that. I never took it for granted. Yeah, I did one day—and the only time I ever did, I sat in the room and he was talking, and he was talking to Tim Cook, who’s now the CEO—is another genius—and Scott Forstall , another genius who created the iOS platform, and Eddy Cue, who runs iTunes, and he’s amazing. All these guys. I looked around, I was like, “How the [hell] did I get here?” I had—it’s not a body thing—I was like, “What is happening?” They were talking about something with Obama. I remember I was like, “What is happening?” And then Steve looked at me and he said, “What do you think, Andy?” And he’s like, “You weren’t paying attention, were you?” And I was like, “No.” And he was actually nice to me. He’s like, “Look, everybody here except for you I hired. I bought you. You’re not an Apple guy. Maybe someday you’ll be an Apple guy, but you got to earn your way into the boardroom. You haven’t earned your way in here, so I didn’t really want your opinion. I don’t really care. Mm-hmm. But I noticed you weren’t paying attention, and if I ever notice that again, you’ll never be in here, and you go back to Boston.” That’s amazing. I was like, “Okay, sorry.” That is amazing. I wish somebody did that to me. [Laughs] [Bullshit] myself, yeah. I imagine that. Like it—and that happens. I would be the worst person to be there, because I’d date him a lot. You know, I’m always like, “Oh, my brain’s like this.” That’s what makes you special. No, maybe. Yeah, but not to Steve Jobs. You know, he’s pretty similar. He would value the creative.

You know, I—we—you and I say this in our presentation for our fundraising and just with our employees—is that, like, Steve 's big thing was he believed that Apple sat at the intersection of liberal arts and technology. Right? He’d have a street sign on his—on his presentation to the employees every year, and it was “Mystery Train” with liberal arts—Apple—liberal arts and technology. And that’s the corner there. Meaning he could go out and hire, because he’s Apple, the best software coder in the world, but he’d rather hire a great software coder who also did stand-up comedy, wrote his own music, baked cakes, did calligraphy—and could inject everything he’s doing with some kind of culture and design and art. And that’s kind of the way we look at energy, right? Like, we could just be an eSports team, and that’s great, and you know we’ve been trying, but we also look at ourselves as, you know, trying to be part of gaming culture and do a lot more than just, you know, what—come on—says.