At Bell Laboratories on the US east coast, a small team that included Eric Hoffert, had created a parallel image supercomputer called the Pixel Machine. It was used by aerospace, media, laboratories, and academia for scientific visualization. Despite the prestige of working at the Labs, Hoffert looked for a “path out”.
I very much enjoyed my time at Bell Labs, but I left because I fell in love with the idea of working at Apple, which had become a passion - and a goal to change the world of digital media!
In 1988, Hoffert decided to visit America's leading digital media companies.
I went to California to interview at Apple Computer and NeXT. My first interview was with Leo Hourvitz and Adam Levinthal.
Hourvitz (director of NeXT's Media Software) had previously worked with Adobe to create Display PostScript for NeXT, while Levinthal (manager of NeXT's Graphics Hardware) was a Lucasfilm/Pixar veteran.
Company founder Steve Jobs unexpectedly joined them in the boardroom for Hoffert's interview.
He (Jobs) said, "So tell me, what would you want to do if you came to NeXT?” And I said to him, ‘I would love to bring this idea that I have for playing back digital video and software on the NeXT machine’. And he started challenging me intensely and tearing into the idea, as I was putting it up on the whiteboard. We were going quickly into all the details. “How would the compression work, playback, and how many bits per pixel? What kind of algorithm would you use? How would you get the video compressed?” It was like a rapid-fire thing, and he was tearing into it really, really quickly and then before my interview was scheduled to end, he said, “I don't think this is the right direction. I don't think this (real-time video playback) is going to work. We need to focus on 3D graphics.”
Jobs had only owned Pixar for 18 months, and the company had just screened an incomplete version of the Tin Toy film at SIGGRAPH. Its only revenue source was the hardware package called the Pixar Image Computer.
Pixar's first feature, Toy Story, was seven years away.
Steve finished up with, “You know, the future of this kind of machine is 3D graphics, not this kind of video playback. So it's been nice meeting you, but I’ve got to go”. He stormed out of the room, and then I was in a room of ten people, and everyone just sat there scratching their heads. I was thinking, oh, my God, what just happened?
Hoffert thought he had “flunked” the NexT interview and headed to Apple.
Then, I spoke to Steve Perlman and his team at Apple. I pitched them the same idea, saying I wanted to work on it. Steve (Perlman) said to me, “We'll get you a summer intern. We'll give you resources, and you can do this as a small experiment, with some spare time. We are the Advanced Technology Group, and we encourage these kinds of explorations”. Steve (Perlman) even got the CEO, John Sculley, involved in my offer.
Then NeXT offered Hoffert a job - despite the unusual interview.
I had one weekend at home in December 1988 to decide. It was the most torturous decision of my life. I was going completely nuts trying to figure out what to do. I wanted both experiences, right? I wanted to work at Apple. I wanted to work with Jobs. Who knew they would come together, later on, at that time? They were separate options in 1988, but in the end, I decided to work at Apple. I didn’t know it, but Steve Jobs got word of my decision to go to Apple.
I remember being back at home on that (following) Monday, and the phone rang, and I answered ‘Hello.’
'Hi, it's Steve.'
‘Oh,' I said. 'Hi, Steve.'
And then he said, 'You're making the stupidest move of your entire career. Apple's big, slow moving and focused on current products. Please don't ruin your career. You're going to go there, and you'll be crying and wishing you came to NeXT. We have all the best people here at NeXT. Come join me and we're going to do something great.'
Eventually, Hoffert made a decision that placed him on a team that changed digital media, and created a multi-billion dollar, worldwide industry.
Excerpt from https://books.by/john-buck/inventing-the-future
