Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs

by Daniel Lyons

  Because you know what? Fear works. Look at the crappy cars that get made in Detroit, where nobody ever gets fired. Compare that to the stuff that gets made in Vietnamese sweatshops. Or to the bridge in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Please don’t say that bridge was awesome because the Brits were such amazing perfectionists. Come on. I love the Brits, but these are not people who are known for the quality of their workmanship. Ever owned a Jaguar? Enough said. No, what motivated those lazy, stupid Brits was their fear of the efficient, vicious Japanese. You put people’s lives in danger, and they do their best work.

  Obviously we can’t literally put our employees’ lives at risk. But we have to make them feel that way. This requires a lot of psychological manipulation on our part. But look at the result. We never could have made OS X so reliable if our engineers didn’t believe in their hearts that every time a bug surfaced one man was going to be killed.

  Which leads me to my next management tip. You don’t have to hire the best people. You can hire anyone, as long as you scare the shit out of them. That’s the key. The fear. This applies not only to assembly line and factory workers but to all of your staff, including top executives and even the board of directors. A corollary to this rule is this: Only promote stupid people. But not just any stupid people. You have to find the certain type of stupid people who actually believe they’re super brilliant. They make insanely great managers and are incredibly easy to manipulate. It’s easy to spot them. Former McKinsey consultants are top candidates.

  The MBAs say you should set high standards, let people know what’s expected of them, and hold them to that. I do a little twist on that and say, Hold people to an impossibly high standard, but here’s the twist—don’t tell them what that standard is. And fire them if they fall short. You know what that does to people? Makes them crazy. And guess what? Crazy people are more creative. And more productive. Every shrink in the world knows this.

  Another MBA rule that I never follow is where they say a CEO or manager should be consistent and predictable. I say the opposite. Be inconsistent and unpredictable. Be random. One day say something is great and the guy who made it is a genius. The next day say it’s crap, and he’s a moron. Watch how hard that guy will work now, trying to impress you.

  Management gurus also tell you to reward performance, and dole out loads of praise. I disagree. My motto is this: No praise. Ever. You start praising people and pretty soon they start thinking they’re as smart as you are. You cannot have this. All employees must know at all times that you are better in every way than they are. Repeated criticism, in the most humiliating fashion, is one way to accomplish this.

  The best way to keep people’s spirits broken is to fire people on a regular basis for no reason. Fly off the handle, shout at people, call them names, then fire them. Or better yet, don’t fire them. Let them believe they survived for a few days. Then, when they’re relaxed, call them in and fire them. It’s all part of creating and maintaining the culture of fear.

  Another tactic, but one that should only be used in extreme circumstances, is this: throw tantrums. I mean literally cry and scream and roll around on the floor like a three-year-old, slapping your hands and kicking your feet. This is great when someone won’t let you have your way. It works because it freaks people out to see a grown man crying and screaming. They’ll do anything to make it stop. Brilliant.

  Another tactic involves a verbal technique based on neurolinguistic programming. In the middle of a meeting, when someone else is talking, I’ll sit there nodding my head, as if I’m agreeing with everything they say. But then at some point I’ll suddenly stand up and go, “No! No! That’s stupid! What is wrong with you? Did someone drop you on your head when you were a baby? I can’t fucking believe this!” Then I’ll stomp out of the room, slamming the door.

  Another trick is I’ll get on the elevator with some Apple employees, and smile, or say hi. They’re usually nervous, and usually they’re so scared that they just don’t talk at all, and I have to admit, I dig that. But sometimes they do carry on a conversation with each other, one that does not include me. When that happens I’ll wait until we get to my floor, and then, as the door opens, I’ll turn and say, “What you just said is completely wrong. You know not whereof you speak. Please go clean out your desk, and turn in your badge at the HR department.”

  This freaks people out, believe me.

  I’ve described these management techniques in presentations at business schools, and I always get the same blowback. People go on and on, telling me that using fear and psychological manipulation doesn’t work. They say it works better to be nice to people and treat them with respect. Last time this happened was at Stanford and the guy giving me grief was the professor. Perfect. I hate professors. I was like, “Look at Apple. Look at our amazing success. Especially our success since I took over the company. Compare that to the abject failure under my predecessors. Now compare that to whatever company that you built with your bare hands into a multi-billion-dollar empire using your techniques. What’s that? You don’t have a company? You never started a company or ran a company? You’ve never been a CEO? Huh. Okay. So you’re, what, a teacher? In a college or something? Okay. The prosecution rests.”

  It’s dawn on the Fourth of July. I’m in my backyard, facing the back wall and the flower garden. During the night a low fog has rolled in over the hills from the Pacific. I’m standing in the foggy mist, wearing shorts and an old Reed College T-shirt. I’m facing east. For a long time I am absolutely still. I listen to my breathing. I feel my heart beating, the pulse in my neck and wrists and ankles. Slowly, I raise my arms over my head and begin my sun salutation sequence. From this I shift into my T’ai Chi workout, focusing on my breath energy, which is incredible this morning, really off the meter.

  It’s been a crazy weekend. On Friday the story hit the papers about our announcement that we have hired lawyers to investigate ourselves. Since then, every day, there have been more stories, all of them based on leaks and “sources close to the matter.” I’ve been back and forth on the phone with Ross Ziehm and Tom Bowditch and Moshe Hishkill, our head of security, trying to find out who’s talking to the press. We’re pulling phone logs, scanning emails, but so far we can’t find anything.

  But that’s behind us. Today there is peace. I can feel it. Today I refuse to read any newspapers or watch the news on TV. Today I will only focus on restoring my strength. By eight in the morning I’ve finished my workout, showered, and downed a fruit smoothie that Breezeann prepared for me. Breezeann is a true flower child California chick, raised by hippie parents in the Santa Cruz mountains, in a cabin with no running water or electricity. The only question I asked her during her job interview was how many times she had taken acid. “Oh, man,” she said, “I dunno, but, like, a lot? Like I couldn’t even count even?” The only question she had for us was, “Um, like, I wouldn’t have to wear like business type clothing or anything, right?”

  In other words: perfect. She also happens to have long blonde hair and a killer body and she bears a strong resemblance to the naked chick on the cover of the “Blind Faith” album. I think about her every morning when I’m beating off in the shower, and I’ve been wanting to bone her forever. But every time I ask her to sleep with me she threatens to rat me out to Mrs. Jobs, and I have to give her a raise. She’s now making two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. I don’t know what we’d do without her.

  “Namaste,” I tell her as I’m leaving. I do a little bow. “I honor the place where you and I are one.”

  “Yeah,” she says, without looking up from washing the blender in the sink. “Keep dreaming, sport.”

  Then it’s off to Apple headquarters for my weekly high colonic. Yes, it’s a holiday, and yes, my colonic tech, Kuso Sukatoro, isn’t exactly psyched about coming to work. So much for that famous Japanese work ethic.

  “You clenching,” Kuso says. “Not good. You need relax.”

  We work on it, and eventually I’m fu
lly refreshed. Right after the butt blast I ride a Segway down to the back of the campus to the commando barracks. Moshe Hishkill is waiting for me. Moshe is a former general in the Israeli army. He’s got this huge scar, as wide as a finger, down the left side of his face, and a messed-up left eye that looks like egg yolk. We’ve left medical catalogs on his desk, open to the page with eyepatches; he doesn’t seem to get the hint.

  Moshe introduces me to a guy named Mikhail, one of the Russian hackers from our Windows Virus Creation Team (WVCT). “Operation Wavecat,” as we call it, employs some of the best virus writers in the world, who do nothing but create malware to mess up Windows computers. I figure if Microsoft really wants to keep copying everything we do and stealing all of our ideas, the least we can do is repay the favor by making their knock-offs not work right.

  But right now Mikhail is working on a different project. He’s trying to find our leaker. He’s a tall guy, dark-haired, with a few days growth of beard. He looks like he hasn’t slept for a while.

  “I’ve checked the Apple email and phone system,” he says. “Is nothing there. Then, I check—”

  He stops and looks at Moshe. He’s worried, I guess, about how much he should say in front of me.

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  Moshe nods.

  He goes on. “I check email addresses that have sent or received anything with Apple email address. Nothing. I check home phones of Apple employees. I check personal email addresses, if we know them. I check cell phones. Is not one hundred percent. But anyway, I get nothing.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I figured. Worth a try, though. Thanks.”

  I start to leave.

  Moshe says, “Wait. There is something.”

  “Only a clue,” Mikhail says. “We have database of phone numbers and email addresses for reporters, Wall Street analysts, business partners, suppliers, customers. I pull information for any reporters who write stories this past weekend. Look. This one. Here. Girl from Wall Street Journal.”

  He pulls up a page on his screen. It’s an AT&T phone bill for Erika Murphy, a Journal reporter in San Francisco. He scrolls through the list of her incoming and outgoing calls over the past two months.

  “This one,” he says, stopping on a line. “Here. And here again. And here, an incoming call. Here, an outgoing call. A dozen calls with same number. So I pull up some other reporters. Same number calls three other people.”

  “That’s not an Apple number.”

  “No, certainly not.”

  “What is it? A cell phone?”

  “A SIM card. But we can tell where it was used.”

  “How do you do that? Satellites or something?”

  “Don’t ask,” Moshe says.

  “It’s a weird thing.” Mikhail turns from his screen and looks at me. “You know anyone in the Cayman Islands?”

  By the time I get home Larry has already arrived.

  “It’s definitely weird,” he says, when I tell him about the phone calls from the Cayman Islands.

  “No talking about work,” Mrs. Jobs says. “Just for tonight. Okay?”

  “What else are we supposed to talk about?”

  “I don’t know. How about books,” she says.

  We look at her.

  “Movies? Politics? The war in Iraq?”

  We sit there for a couple of minutes, stymied. Finally Mrs. Jobs goes into the house to get a drink and Larry says, “Did you hear about Jeff Fernandez? He’s selling his house. Legal bills.

  He’s going to be ruined.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yup. It’s bad, brother.”

  Breezeann fires up the grill and cooks up some mind-blowing tofu steaks and grilled veggies. After dinner we walk to the park to watch the fireworks. We all go “ooh” and “aah” at the right moments, and we walk home saying how great the show was this year and pretending that everything is going to be okay.

  On the day after the holiday I arrive at work to find a handwritten note from Charlie Sampson informing me that he and his team would like me to come down and answer some questions. At the appointed hour I go to the Crosby room. They’re all lined up behind a long table. They have a stenographer, some recording equipment, and pitchers of water.

  “Dudes,” I say, “what’s this? The Senate subcommittee?”

  Nobody laughs.

  “Seriously,” I say, “this looks pretty intense. Should I have a lawyer or something?”

  “Do you think you need a lawyer?” Sampson says.

  “That’s what I just asked you.”

  “I think you should do what you think is best. If you feel like you can’t answer our questions without having a lawyer present, then you should get a lawyer. But this isn’t a court. We’re not here to decide if you’re guilty of anything.”

  “All right,” I say. “Fire away.”

  Sampson starts out asking some time-wasting stuff like my name and how old I am and how long I’ve worked at the company. For kicks I get a couple of them wrong, just to see if they’re paying attention. They are.

  Sampson asks me what percentage of Apple’s outstanding shares I own. I tell him I have no idea.

  “None at all? You mean you could own one percent or ninety percent, and you really don’t know?”

  “I’ve told you this already. I’m no good with numbers. It’s part of the reason I left school. It’s a learning disability. I’m mathlexic.”

  “Mathlexic?”

  “It’s like being dyslexic, only with numbers.”

  Sampson frowns. “This is a real diagnosis?”

  “It’s either mathlexic or dysmathic. I can’t remember. One or the other.”

  “Are you also dyslexic?”

  I shake my head. “Just dysmathic.”

  “I thought it was mathlexic,” one of the young guys says, in this gotcha voice.

  “Oooh,” I say, “you caught me! Look, you Nazis, I told you I’m not sure what it’s called. And watch your tone, assholes. I’m the one signing your paychecks, remember?”

  “That’s actually not true,” one of them says.

  Sampson says we should move on. His helpers start firing questions at me. Normally in situations like this I can pretty much read people’s minds. It’s a form of extrasensory perception that I developed by working with a Zen master in Los Altos. On a really good day it’s almost like hearing a transcript of what someone is thinking. But today I’m getting static. Images, flashes. Stray words and phrases. Random stuff.

  When I look at Sampson I get nothing at all. He stares back at me and does something funky with his eyes.

  The helper named Chip says, “Do you recall a lunch meeting with Sonya Bourne on the thirteenth of July in 2001 at which you two discussed options grants?”

  “Let me see,” I say. “2001? Thirteenth of July?” I close my eyes and wait a few seconds, as if I’m concentrating. “Ah, right. Okay. Yes. July 13, 2001. It was a Tuesday. We went to Il Fornaio in Palo Alto. I had a Waldorf salad and a bottle of San Pellegrino. I sent the salad back because there was mayonnaise in the dressing and had them make it again with a vinaigrette dressing, and the waiter said then it won’t be a Waldorf salad and I said that’s fine, bring me what I want. Waiter’s name was Anton. Six-one, slender, brown curly hair. Wore a silver ring on his right hand, middle finger. Timex sport watch on his left wrist. Sonya had a turkey club sandwich, no bacon, light mayo, and a Diet Coke with a wedge of lemon. No, strike that. Wedge of lime. The bill came to twenty-three dollars and nineteen cents. I left a two-dollar tip. Paid with a Visa card.”

  Chip scowls. “So that’s a no?”

  “Do you remember where you were on some random day five years ago? Come on.”

  They start going on about how many options I received on what day and how many I exercised and how many I sold, and then how many I gave back in exchange for restricted shares, and what’s the value of those shares today versus when I got them, and wasn’t some of that money applied to the value of the jet that Ap
ple gave me, and then they start going on about some Black-Scholes model or whatever to figure out the value of the compensation.

  “Guys,” I say, “seriously, I have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s like you’re not speaking English.”

  “Let’s try going over this again,” Sampson says.

  “You can go over it all you want,” I say, “but I won’t understand a word. I told you, I’m dysmathic.”

  “That’s going to be your defense?” Sampson says. “Seriously?”

  “What can I tell you. It’s a disability.” I stand up. “Are we done?”

  “No,” Sampson says. “Not even close.”

  “Well,” I say, “I’m done. You guys can stay if you want.”

  “There’s something you need to see,” Paul Doezen says.

  He’s waiting for me outside my office. He’s a mountain of a man, Buddha in a suit, grunting as he hoists himself up out of his chair.

  He hands me a piece of paper. The paper contains rows and columns of numbers. It’s a spreadsheet. I detest spreadsheets. I refuse to read them.

  “Just tell me what this means,” I say.

  Paul explains that the key numbers are the ones in the right-hand column. They represent the number of Apple shares that are currently sold short in the market, meaning the number of shares held by frigtards who are betting that our stock is going to go down. The number, Paul says, has been growing steadily over the past month, starting right before the SEC hassle began.

  “Notice I said before the SEC thing happened. What’s that all about, right? Someone knew there was bad news coming. And since then someone’s been shorting us like crazy. There’s a big spike right here. You see? And look at the daily volume. Then look at the ratio of shorts to daily trading volume, and the ratio of shorts to overall float. Look at the churn.”