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briefings from other members of the group.
    Some picked at bowls of fruit, cracked walnuts, and crumpled soft-drink cans while Michael Murray, a dark-haired marketing man with dimples and mirrored sunglasses, rattled through industry charts and projected sales rates and market share. He showed how Mac would be introduced between the more expensive office computers made by competitors like IBM, Xerox, and Hewlett-Packard and the cheaper home computers sold by companies like Atari, Texas Instruments, and Commodore. “We’ve got a product that should be selling for five thousand dollars but we have the magic to sell for under two thousand. We’re going to redefine the expectations of a whole group of people.” He was asked how sales of Mac would affect Apple’s office computer, Lisa, which was a more elaborate computer but built around the same principles.
    “There is one disaster scenario,” Murray admitted. “We could say Lisa was a great exercise for Apple. We can put it down to experience and sell ten.”
    “Lisa is going to be incredibly great,” Jobs interjected firmly. “It will sell twelve thousand units in the first six months and fifty thousand in the first year.”
    The marketing sorts talked of ploys to boost sales. They discussed the importance of trying to sell or donate hundreds of Macs to universities with gilded reputations.
    “Why not sell Mac to secretaries?” asked Joanna Hoffman, a perky woman with a faint foreign accent.
    “We don’t want companies to think the machine is a word processor,” Murray retorted.
    “There’s a way to solve that problem,” Hoffman countered. “We could say to the secretaries: ‘Here’s your chance to grow into an area associate.’”
    There was a discussion of improving sales overseas. “We have the kind of hi-tech magnetism that can attract the Japanese,” Hoffman mentioned. “But there’s no way they can succeed here while we’re here and we’re going to succeed there regardless.”
    “We were very big in Japan until recently,” Bill Fernandez, a beanstalk-thin technician, observed in a pinched staccato.
    Chris Espinosa, manager of the writers who prepared the computer’s instruction manuals, slopped in his sandals to the front of the group. He had just turned twenty-one, and as he pulled some notes from a small red backpack he announced, “You all missed a great party.”
    “I heard there was free acid,” somebody piped up.
    “It was for sale outside,” Espinosa chortled.
    “Can we ship your party?” Jobs asked sharply.
    Espinosa blanched and settled down to business. He told his colleagues that he was having difficulties hiring qualified writers, that his staff needed more Mac prototypes to work with, and that Apple’s graphics department wasn’t geared to cope with some of his demands. “We want to make books that are gorgeous,” he said, “that you read once and then keep on your shelf because they look so great.”

    The work sessions were broken up by coffee breaks and by walks along the beach, some Frisbee games on the grass, a few scattered poker games, and a fuchsia sunset. Though dinner was served at long canteen tables, it bore no hint of the mess hall. Clutches of Zinfandels, Cabernets, and Chardonnays stood on every table but the breadsticks disappeared more quickly. After dinner someone who looked like a demure orthodontist, with thinning silver hair and owl-eyed spectacles, performed what, in computer circles, amounted to a cabaret act. The figure wearing a Mac T-shirt over a long-sleeved dress shirt was Ben Rosen. He had turned a reputation gained as a Wall Street electronics analyst, the industrious publisher of an informative, sprightly newsletter, and host of annual personal-computer conferences into a career as a venture capitalist. Before he started investing in computer companies his comments had been sought as much as his ear.
    For the Mac group Rosen worked from a casual script of observations, wisecracks, tips,