Apple Europe salesman Bob McNinch eventually played a key role in the company's telephony projects. For now he visited Cupertino with the European sales teams.
We stayed at a Hilton hotel close to Bandley Drive and I had a rental car to get me over there for the first meeting. With half an hour to go, I was still driving around and around because I couldn't find where Apple was. Which is funny if you do this trip now! but I ended up at the corner of Stevens Creek and South De Anza Boulevards, which I think the local council now calls ‘the center of Silicon Valley.' There was a petrol station, gas station, right there on the corner, so I pulled in and I said to the attendant, ’I'm looking for Apple Computer. Can you tell me where I can find them?' And he looked at me, screwed up his lip and said,
'Never heard of them. Couldn't tell you'.
I eventually worked out that it was on the other side of that same intersection! but that gives you a pretty good idea idea how much Apple has changed.
A bit of trivia you may know already: the Bandley buildings were not numbered based on their location on Bandley Drive (like post office sequential numbering) but rather on the order in which Apple moved in. For many of us our favourite was Bandley 7 where regular and frequent meetings were help about 6pm. It was the number allocated to a bar called Eli McFly's.
In the early eighties Apple was small enough and not as fractured as it became so sales, marketing, distribution, finance, developers, engineers, all mingled in one watering hole. You knew you could grab the inspirational and charismatic Bill Campbell and other senior managers - and get listened to - a rare privilege for younger and new employees. I think through this communication a respect for each others contribution development.
As the company grew and fractured I think comms deteriorated as did understanding and respect.
