Steve Jobs needed money for his new company NeXT. To avoid scaring off an investor, the expensive cars had to disappear from the company parking lot for a few hours. A former employee of Jobs, Randy Adams, tells this story.
When was that? In 1985, Steve Jobs left the Apple Corporation and founded his own company: NeXT. The company particularly developed workstations for use in higher education and business. Due to the very high prices, NeXT was never really able to establish itself.
Shortly after the founding, also in 1985, Jobs hired the engineer Randy Adams, who had just bought a Porsche 911.
As luck would have it, Steve Jobs had recently bought himself a Porsche 911 as well. So there were always two models in the company parking lot. However, for a “deal,” the luxury cars had to disappear. This was reported by colleagues from Forbes.
A Porsche gives the impression that the company has too much money
Why did the Porsches cause a problem? At a strategic moment, the two Porsches were parked at the back of the office to avoid any impression that the company NeXT had too much money. Adams explained that one day Steve Jobs had come into his office and said:
We have to hide the Porsche (…) “Ross Perot is coming and considering investing in the company. We don’t want him to think we have too much money.
What was the outcome? Ross Perot, a prominent American entrepreneur and billionaire, actually decided to invest in NeXT: He subsequently invested approximately 20 million US dollars in the company. This was intended to ensure that NeXT could remain an independent company until 1996.
In 1996, NeXT was finally taken over by Apple. The software from NeXT is still considered an important foundation for today’s operating systems from Apple (macOS, iOS, and iPadOS).
However, it remains unclear to this day whether hiding the two Porsche vehicles was crucial for the deal. In the end, Perot might have invested in the company despite the luxury cars. We can no longer ask Ross Perot, as the businessman died of leukemia in Dallas on July 9, 2019.
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