I worked with Steve Jobs as a software engineer straight out of college. It was like playing on a gr

• Rony Sebok got a job at Apple straight out of Harvard in 1983 working on the Mac team.
• She worked with a small team of software engineers under the direction of Steve Jobs.
• Sebok said Jobs was a visionary — but he'd tease her about wearing khakis and shirts.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Rony Sebok, the co-founder of 1 Beyond, about her time working at Apple. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

When I joined Apple in 1983, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I got a job as a software engineer straight out of college in the summer. I had a choice of companies to join, and something in my instinct said this was a cool group of people working on something cool. Steve Jobs told us there would be computers on everybody's desk one day. Could we have anticipated the Mac would become what it did back then? No, but did we imagine it? Yes.

I was in my early 20s moving from the East Coast to the West Coast. It felt like a whole new world. I'd just finished my master's degree in computer science at Harvard.

Harvard wasn't traditionally known for computer science, but Bill Gates had studied there and was recruiting alums to Microsoft. This gave the impression that there were talented grads tech companies might want.

By the spring, I already had offers from Microsoft and IBM, but I still had an interview with Apple.

The recruiter introduced me to the Apple II and Lisa teams, but I'd indicated I had other opportunities and wasn't sure I wanted to go with Apple. He then scheduled an interview for me with the Mac team.

Interviewing for the Mac team didn't follow the traditional approach

At the time, this was a top-secret project. When I first got to the interview at the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, we spent the first part of the interview walking around the building. All the windows were covered so that no one could look in. They didn't want to let me in to see the computer until I passed the first round. Once I passed that stage, I went inside to meet the rest of the team.

I spoke to the team and played ping pong with the hardware designer of the Macintosh. A lot of the interview was about whether I'd be a good cultural fit.

I got the job in June. The first six months of my working life were this big push to get the Macintosh ready to launch in January.

The Mac team was intellectually diverse. At Apple, people had highfaluting college degrees but there were college dropouts. It was a largely young workforce —  very few people over 30 worked there.

I remember they would always make fun of IBM staff dressing in white shirts. But there was as much of a culture and dress code at Apple to fit in. They made fun of me for wearing khakis and buttoned shirts. Steve Jobs once came into my cubicle and asked, "Don't you own a pair of blue jeans?"

What Apple was like in the early 80s

Apple was very generous as a company. We would get free orange juice and soda. They hired a masseuse to come around and give massages to the staff once a week. In the early eighties, those kinds of perks were super unusual.

Every perk or strange element was Steve Jobs trying to inspire creativity.

Steve put a beautiful Bosendorfer piano in the lobby for the scientists to play. You'd be walking through the building and hear piano music. He also put this fancy BMW motorcycle in the lobby to inspire people with its design.

The small group of software programmers, the hardware team, the marketing team, the documentation team, and the international marketing team were all in one building. Steve put a pirate flag on the top and called the building a pirate ship. He had everyone under one roof because we had to do something slightly different than the norm to get it out quickly.

We had retreats where Steve would hire Windham Hill musicians to play. He had this love for the arts and inspired an environment filled with creativity and hard work.

Working on the Macintosh in 1983

We worked crazy hours. On a normal day, we'd work 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., then a few of us from the software team would go for a jog or play tennis, shower at the office, eat dinner together, and go back to work. It was like working with a bunch of friends — not everybody had families, and we were all younger.

There was a handful of people in that office creating the Mac software. It was collegial in the sense that we were all working together to create something. It felt like art. At the time, the Mac processors were just powerful enough to run the graphics. It was exciting because, as programmers, we could envision the result we wanted, but we had never known it was possible. All of a sudden, the hardware could perform at the pace required to run the graphics and update fast enough to create a fluid experience and bring our visions to life.

Steve was obviously a visionary, very motivating, very focused. He always said the coolest part was seeing how people would use what we were building. I think we all knew we were building something special.

My role in creating the first Macintosh computer

The Mac project spanned three years, but I joined at the tail end. The other team members were much more involved. A lot of the other components of the Mac computer were done, but the software was remaining and Steve had a way of focusing on what was most essential.

The software team spent a lot of time together because we were the gating item for the computer to be released. Steve didn't want the Mac to have a big manual like the IBM computers. It was supposed to be intuitive, so I created a game to teach people how to use the mouse, "Mousing Around." It was the first program that would appear when you booted up. I worked with Susan Kare, the graphic designer and the only other woman on the team.

I also helped debug certain things and helped the documentation team write the manual explaining to other programmers how to use the tools we developed for Mac applications.

The Mac team broke up after the launch

The engineers were invited to Hawaii for the trade show to introduce the Mac. We were launching an innovative new product, so we had to do lots of demos. In a condensed amount of time, I had experiences most young engineers would never get.

In January 1984, we announced the Macintosh. After the Mac was introduced, I worked on the Mac resource manager and the email.

During that time, there was infighting between Steve Jobs and John Sculley. Things got unsettled within Apple. The people working on the Mac as part of this intense project splintered up.

It was unfortunate because I'd just gotten my footing and was ready to ride the Apple wave, but the wave crested. I felt like the company was losing focus.

It wasn't until 10 years later, when Steve came back, that the innovation took off again.

I left Apple and did some soul-searching

I left Apple after about a year and went to other jobs looking for the same thing I'd experienced with Steve and the Mac team. Steve Jobs left Apple in 1985 after I'd quit.

It was hard to have that peak so early in my career. You're left thinking, "What am I going to do with the rest of my life?"

I went through a period of soul-searching. I worked at HP in their AI labs and left after a year to get my MBA at Havard Business School. I worked at BCG as a consultant for five years but eventually started my own company, 1 Beyond.

What I learned the most from Jobs was the thrill of entrepreneurship. I didn't want to give people advice. I wanted to create things.

Steve managed to break down barriers and allow his employees to do what they do well. I was incredibly fortunate to work closely with him. I don't have to rely on stories — I saw it in action every day and learned from him directly. I emulated what we had at Apple regarding pushing the envelope for my own company.

Over 20 years, I built up 1 Beyond, building specialized computer systems for video editing and production. The product took off when we integrated AI video tracking for conferences and livestreaming.

My time at Apple was like being part of a great sports team

My experience at Apple centered on that moment in time. Building the first Mac was just like playing on a great sports team. You have a set of talents and a particular leader that allows you to do something great.

Steve pulled these people into a cauldron of creativity where, together, we achieved more than any one of us could have done individually.

In tech, that moment can repeat itself. Google did it, OpenAI is doing it now, and I feel like my company did it in a small way.

Correction: January 18, 2024 – An earlier version misnamed the graphic designer on the original Macintosh team. Her name was Susan Kare, not Susan Kerr.

Watch: Steve Jobs and Apple learned a huge lesson from the failure of the original Macintosh

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