by Daniel Lyons
“You’re a sweetie,” she says, and kisses me on the cheek. I wait at the curb and watch her go into the building. At the glass doors she stops and turns and waves to me. It occurs to me that given our ages and the infrequency of our get-togethers, it’s almost certain that we will never see each other again in this lifetime. A chill runs through me. I imagine myself as Sabrina must see me—an old man, small and gray-haired, weary, bespectacled, bundled in a heavy black coat in the back of a big black car, obscured by foggy glass and falling snow, a small face growing smaller as the car surges into the street and disappears into the traffic.
Back in the Valley, things are rocking. Every day we’re blowing through our sales projections. Our biggest challenge is finding extra capacity at our manufacturing plants in China so we can keep up with demand—and all I can think about is those poor kids who now are going to have to work even longer hours. On the bright side, our stock price keeps ticking up, and even as it does the Wall Street analysts keep recommending it more. One of these guys is quoted in the Wall Street Journal calling us “the Sony of the twenty-first century” and saying we’re “the one stock that everyone should own and hold and keep in a box. It’ll put your kids through college.” I don’t celebrate Christmas, because I don’t believe in Christianity, but if I did this would be the best present I could ever hope to get.
Naturally this run of good luck is all too good to be true. On Christmas Day, while the Jobs clan is sitting around the house non-celebrating, I get a call from Tom Bowditch informing me that good old Charlie Sampson has found even more bad news— it’s like Chinese water torture, I swear—and the board will be meeting the next day to get a full report.
When I arrive, a half hour late, Sampson is already sitting in my spot at the head of the conference table.
“I thought you were done,” I say.
“Funny,” he says, “I was just about to say the same to you.”
Nobody laughs. Sampson points to an empty chair down at the far end of the table. Whatever. He’s trying to annoy me. I won’t give him the satisfaction. The whole management team is here, as well as the whole board of directors, including Al Gore, who has actually made an appearance in person. Everyone looks super pissed because they’re all supposed to be hanging out with their families at Vail or Aspen or Hawaii or whatever, and I’m like, “Hey, don’t be mad at me, I’m not the one who called a meeting during the holidays.”
Sampson launches into his presentation. His team has put together a report to send to the SEC. They’ve found all sorts of misdeeds and shenanigans, the worst of which is that a few years ago Sonya and some other lawyers on her team signed some documents saying that the board had held a meeting to vote on some backdated shares when in fact no such meeting occurred. This last bit has been leaked to some obscure legal magazine, which is threatening to run a story saying we engaged in forgery.
“Forgery?” I say. “I mean, isn’t that just a wee bit overdramatic? I mean, just because someone signs someone else’s name to a document, I don’t think that’s forgery.”
“Actually,” Sampson says, “that’s pretty much the definition of forgery.”
“So if I give my wife my credit card in a restaurant and she signs my name, that’s a crime?”
“It’s a crime,” he says, “if there is an intent to deceive. You created the impression that a board meeting had occurred and that a vote had taken place, when in fact this didn’t happen. That misled shareholders.”
“They were going to vote for it anyway. Why drag everyone out here and make them waste an entire day just so they can raise their hands and say yes?” I turn to Al Gore. “It would be a waste of fuel, right? Isn’t that what we say here, that we were trying to save the planet from global warming, and we’re cutting back on travel and doing some of our meetings in virtual space? We can give it a name, like GreenMeet. Or iGreen. The iGreen Initiative.”
“You lied to shareholders,” Sampson says. “That’s against the law.”
“The laws suck. The laws need to be rewritten.”
“Enough,” Tom says. “Right now we’ve got to think about the story that’s going to hit. Ross?”
Ross Ziehm says his guys have managed to stall the reporter by swearing to him that he’s got it wrong and he’s going to look like an idiot if he publishes this, which of course is every egomaniac reporter’s worst nightmare. But Ross is not sure how long they can hold the guy off.
“We also can’t figure out who’s leaking,” Ross says. “There’s no way this stuff should be getting out.”
“Get Moshe to put a team on it,” Tom says. “We’re not going to tolerate leaks. Whoever’s leaking, I want the guy’s balls on a plate.”
Paul glances at me, and raises an eyebrow. I shake him off.
“Meanwhile,” Tom says, “we’re going to get ahead of everything by putting out our own report. We put our own spin on it. Ross?”
“Right,” Ross says. “We’re releasing the news this Friday, same day as we file it with the SEC. We’ll put out a release at the end of the day West Coast time, after everyone back East has left for the New Year’s weekend. Basically our premise is this: Did illegal activities occur? Yes. Was Steve in charge at the time? Yes. Did Steve authorize the illegal activities? Yes. Did Steve benefit from them? Yes. Therefore Steve is not responsible. Now if you don’t mind, we’d like to consider this matter closed, and we ask that you leave us alone so we can go back to making the beautiful objects that restore a sense of childlike wonder to your lives.”
The management team are all nodding their heads—they all get it, instinctively—but the board members look skeptical and sick to their stomachs. The old guy from the clothing store chain says, “You think that makes sense?
“Absolutely,” Ross says.
“Come on. You think people are going to buy that?”
“It’s all in the way you say it,” Ross says. “You’ve just got to really sell it.”
One thing I really admire about Ross is how smooth and patient he can be even when he’s dealing with the stupidest frigtards. Me personally, I’d just tell the guy to shut up. It always cracks me up how clueless these guys on the board can be. They just don’t get how things work out here in the Valley. Out here, we’re the good guys. We’re the guys who are making the world a better place.
“One more thing,” Ross says. “If anyone gets calls from the press, you say nothing. I would expect everyone is going to get called. Just say something bland like you endorse the findings of the independent investigators, and then bounce the assholes to me. Okay? Nobody goes solo here. Nobody goes off the reservation. I want this buttoned up tighter than a nun’s bunghole. And that’s watertight.”
Afterward, I’m in my office checking email when Tom Bowditch walks in without knocking. He comes around my desk and presses his face close to mine. He’s about an inch away. His dog breath is overpowering.
“Is that still you?” he says. He’s peering into my eyes.
“What are you talking about?”
He leans to the left, then to the right.
“The eyes are always the give-away,” he says. “It’s the one thing they never get right. Are those colored contacts? I can’t see the edge of the lens.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Just tell me,” he says. “Have you gone to Scottsdale? No, wait. You’re right. Don’t tell me. Okay, do tell me. No. Okay. Tell me this. What’s the name of the dog you had as a kid?”
“I’m allergic to dogs.”
“Jesus Christ, it really is you. Kid, do you have rocks for brains? Why aren’t you in Scottsdale?”
“I’m not going to fly off to some clinic and have some Mafia surgeon turn me into someone else,” I say. “I’m not going to stage my own death and flee the country. As much as I’m sure you and your friends would like that.”
He lets that slide, which means I’ve hit a nerve. He goes to the window and stands there, looking out.
“You
know what I’m talking about,” I say. “Don’t you.”
“Kid, you’re getting boring. Look. Whatever you think you know, let me tell you what you don’t know. Doyle is going to indict you. I’ve got someone on the inside at Doyle’s office. Right after New Year’s they’re going to indict.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Fine. Don’t.”
“You know what I think? I think you’ve been trying to torpedo the stock. I think you’d like it if I stepped aside, or got killed. I think you want me to stage my own death.”
He looks at me, but says nothing.
“I know about your company in the Caymans,” I say.
I don’t know anything, not really. It’s just a guess. But, there’s something about the way Tom looks today, something about his eyes. I just have this feeling, this sense of intuition.
I honestly did not believe Paul Doezen’s big conspiracy theory. But I believe it now. I believe it because of the look on Tom’s face. It’s a dead look, a look that says he can’t be bothered to keep up the ruse about us being friends. He can’t even be bothered to ask me what I’m talking about, or deny what I’m accusing him of, because we both know the truth, and we’re just wasting our breath talking about it.
“All right,” he says, heading for the door. “I’ll see you in the funny papers.”
Before he can leave I say, “I can’t believe it, Tom. Honestly. I thought you and I were—well, I thought the two of us were on the same side.”
He stops. He stands with his back to me. He’s drumming his fingers on the doorknob. For a moment it seems as if he’s going to turn around and give me some big lecture about capitalism, and tell me how all my ideas, all my struggles, all my fights and failures and late nights meditating on products are nothing more than a way for people like him to make money.
But he doesn’t do that. He just opens the door and walks out.
How intense is ayahuasca? Put it this way: If at some point during the trip you don’t feel certain that you are dying, then you’ve underdosed and will need to try again some other time. But if you get it right, which we have, it’s really something. The trip lasts ten to twelve hours, with side effects that include vomiting and diarrhea, so you have to wear Depends and keep a bucket beside your mat. Luckily we’ve got a great spirit guide, Diego, who plays a flute and keeps us centered and tells us really wild stories about how the world is going to end in the year 2012 when the Mayan calendar runs out of days.
It’s New Year’s Eve and we’re all hanging out at Larry’s Zen palace, which is a fantastic place for using psychedelics. Larry arranged the compound so that its center, a courtyard, is located directly over an energy vortex which has been compared in strength to the vortexes outside Sedona. As a result the entire courtyard possesses a really exceptional sacred energy. Diego says he’s never felt anything like it, and he’s from the Amazon rainforest in Peru, which is ground zero for ayahuasca ceremonies. Sting and I tripped with him down there last summer and arranged to fly him up here for the holiday. We sent the Jobs Jet to Lima to get him.
At midnight, six hours into the trip, when we’re really peaking and lit up, and the vomiting and diarrhea have subsided, Diego gathers us all into a circle on the floor and starts talking about how every human being is a small power plant, a little generator, and how we all have a finite amount of energy to expend in our lifetimes, and how our lives are, unfortunately, all too brief when you consider any single individual in the context of all of space and time. He urges us to take turns talking about how we might use our energy in the year ahead. Bono talks about poverty in Africa. Sting talks about Amnesty International and ending torture. Ja’Red, who’s here as my guest, talks about global warming, which is kind of lame and predictable, but he’s still doing better than Larry and his Oracle guys, whose goals involve beating their sales numbers and killing companies that compete with them.
Then it’s my turn, but when I begin to speak the words get choked in my throat and I feel tears welling up in my eyes. The next thing I know I’ve fallen off my pillow and I’m curled up into a fetal position, sobbing. It’s as if all the hatred and betrayal and negative energy that I’ve been battling for the past six months has roared up and overwhelmed me. All the bad karma— exploiting those kids in China, throwing Zack to the wolves, dealing with all those damaged souls in Los Angeles, blackmailing Yoko Ono—it all just rolls up on me like a huge wave, crushing me.
Sting leaps in and curls up around me and spoons with me while I sob, just like I did for him last summer in the rainforest when he started thinking about global warming while he was peaking and it freaked him out.
“You’ve seen what they’re doing to me,” I say. “These bastards. These prosecutors. The press. They’re having a field day.”
The papers and TV shows have been filled with news about Apple all weekend, ever since we put out the press release on Friday evening. The legal journal has printed its story about the forgery, which has ignited a whole new round of outrage. Again there’s the same speculation about whether I’ll be forced to leave, and whether I’ll face criminal charges, and whether Apple can carry on without me. Most notably, Doyle himself has been quoted hinting about the indictment that could be coming next week.
“I try to be brave,” I say. “I try to pretend it doesn’t bother me, that it doesn’t get to me. People think that, well, you’re rich, and you’re a genius, so whatever, you can take it. They’re so gleeful! It’s like they’re enjoying it! It’s like they don’t realize there’s a human being on the other side of their abuse. Sure, a very wealthy, brilliant human being, a human being who has changed the course of history and who lives a life that these asshats could not even begin to imagine. But a human being nonetheless. With real human being feelings. And you know what? This stuff hurts. It hurts! I want to just go on TV and shout at these people, Look, I’m hurting, okay? I’m suffering! Is this enough for you? Is it? Do you want to see me bleed?”
“Easy, amigo,” Sting whispers in my ear. “You’re right. They’re evil. We’ve all been through it. It’s the price you pay for being an artist. You should see what they said about my last album. The madrigal songs. Terrible. Hush now, Steve. Go easy. Breathe. That’s it. It’s okay, Steve.”
Finally I manage to gather myself and sit up. “I’m sorry,” I say to the group. “I don’t want to ruin the energy in the room. I’m sorry. I’m okay now.”
Bono and Sting pick up guitars and start playing, softly, just finger-picking. Thing is, Bono doesn’t actually play guitar all that well, and I can tell Sting is kind of pissed off, trying to show him some chords, and then they stop because one of them is out of tune, and they start doing that thing where they’re tuning up, tuning down, tuning up, tuning down—yeah. Painful. The Oracle guys wander out to the kitchen for beer.
I get up and head outside to the courtyard. I need to breathe fresh air. Ja’Red comes with me. We end up sitting by the fire pit for a few hours talking about products we’d like to invent and all the cool software we’d like to write, if either of us actually knew how to write software, which we don’t.
Ja’Red’s eyes are blazing. I can remember being just like him, twenty-five years old and full of cool ideas and you think you’re going to conquer the world. That seems like a long time ago now. For a long time we sit looking up at the stars and trying to figure out which constellation is which, and I really wish I’d learned that stuff at some point in my life, but now it’s just another item to add to my list of all the things I should have done but didn’t have time for because I was too busy making stupid computers.
Up above us on the hillside Larry has some super-powered telescope that supposedly cost more than the one in the Stanford observatory. Ja’Red wants to go up and look through it.
“What’s the point?” I say. “You’re just looking at lights. You don’t know what any of it is.”
“Larry said he’d take us up there. Apparently you can see Mars or something.�
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“Larry doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s just a rich guy with a telescope, that’s all.”
Well, they all go hiking up the hillside anyway. They spend an hour or so up there marveling at little twinkling lights. By the time they come back it’s nearly dawn, and the sky is growing pale. Ja’Red brings me a cup of herbal tea and says I really ought to cheer up, that my life isn’t so bad, blah blah, mwah mwah, all the usual stuff. He says that even if they put me in jail, I’ll still bounce back and be bigger than ever. “Look at Nelson Mandela,” he says.
“It’s not that,” I say. “It’s everything. The hassles. The bullshit. The meetings. All the fighting you have to do, when all you really want to do is to make something beautiful. It should be easy, right? But it’s not. It destroys your soul. That’s what it comes down to, in the end. You can do this job, but you lose your soul. Not all at once, but in bits and pieces. The people you need to deal with, the things you need to do to other people—it’s not healthy.”
“You’re tired,” he says.
“I’m old,” I say. “There’s a difference. You’ll see. Give yourself twenty-five more years.”
I sip my tea. It’s perfect. Delicious. I tell myself to just focus on this one perfect thing in front of me and push everything else away. But I can’t.
“You know what I keep thinking about? I keep thinking about those kids in China. About what I’m doing to them.”
