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from a division called Personal Computer Systems, which made the Apple II and Apple III computers. A few had once worked for the Personal Office Systems Division, which was preparing to introduce a machine called Lisa that Apple intended to sell to businesses. The Macintosh Division was sometimes called Mac but the lack of an official-sounding name reflected its uncertain birth. For the computer code-named Mac was, in some ways, a corporate orphan.
    Jobs began speaking quietly and slowly. “This,” he said, “is the cream of Apple. We have the best people here and we must do something that most of us have never done: We have never shipped a product.” He walked with a springy step to an easel and pointed to some plain mottos written in a childish hand on large, creamy sheets of paper. These he converted into homilies. “It’s Not Done Until It Ships,” he read. “We have zillions and zillions of details to work out. Six months ago nobody believed we could do it. Now they believe we can. We know they’re going to sell a bunch of Lisas but the future of Apple is Mac.” He folded back one of the sheets of paper, pointed to the next slogan, and read: “Don’t Compromise.” He mentioned the introduction date planned for the computer and said, “It would be better to miss than to turn out the wrong thing.” He paused and added, “But we’re not going to miss.” He flipped another page, announced, “The Journey Is the Reward,” and predicted, “Five years from now you’ll look back on these times and say, ‘Those were the good old days.’ You know,” he mulled in a voice that rose half an octave, “this is the nicest place in Apple to work. It’s just like Apple was three years ago. If we keep this kind of pure and hire the right people, it’ll still be a great place to work.”
    Jobs pulled a torn white plastic bag along the table, dangled it by his knee, and asked in the tone of someone who knows what the answer will be: “Do you want to see something neat?” An object that looked like a desk diary slipped from the plastic bag. The case was covered in brown felt and fell open to reveal a mock-up of a computer. A screen occupied one half and a typewriter keyboard the other. “This is my dream,” said Jobs, “of what we’ll be making in the mid- to late eighties. We won’t reach this on Mac One or Mac Two but it will be Mac Three. This will be the culmination of all this Mac stuff.”
    Debi Coleman, the division’s financial controller, was more interested in the past than the future and, much like a child hoping for a familiar bedtime tale, asked Jobs to tell the newcomers how he had silenced the founder of Osborne Computers whose portable computer had been putting a dent in Apple’s sales. “Tell us what you told Adam Osborne,” she implored. With a reluctant shrug Jobs waited for the anticipation to build before embarking on the story. “Adam Osborne is always dumping on Apple. He was going on and on about Lisa and when we would ship Lisa and then he started joking about Mac. I was trying to keep my cool and be polite but he kept asking, ‘What’s this Mac we’re hearing about? Is it real?’ He started getting under my collar so much that I told him, ‘Adam, it’s so good that even after it puts your company out of business, you’ll still want to go out and buy it for your kids.’”
    The group alternated between the indoor sessions and alfresco sessions on a bank of sun-parched grass. Some foraged in a cardboard box and donned T-shirts that had the computer’s name racing across the chest in a punky script. The retreat seemed a cross between a confessional and a group-encounter session. There was a nervous, slightly strained, jocularity but the old-timers who had attended previous retreats said the atmosphere was relaxed and low-key. A couple of the programmers muttered that they would have preferred to stay and work in Cupertino, but they lounged on the grass and listened to