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Comment by lutusp | Hacker News Reader

I was on the scene in those times (I wrote Apple Writer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer) and I have to agree -- I think Steve's role at Apple resulted from a combination of his narcissism, his bullying tactics and his evangelism for the person computer, in equal measure. He ended up with an insanely great career. :)

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I was on the scene at the time too, hired by the author of AppleWorks. The only reason AppleWorks became Microsoft Works for the Mac, a computer which desperately needed software at the time, was because the author of AppleWorks (Lissner) couldn't deal with Jobs despite being very willing. I'm not knocking Jobs, but Wozniak has every right to complain if that's what he chooses to do.

I have a personal revelation about that. Until Apple Works got under way, Apple was paying me a lot of royalty income for Apple Writer because I had negotiated a rather high percentage in the early days, before either Apple or I understood what a normal royalty rate might be. After seeing me refuse to accept a reduction in the rate, Apple got fed up and started the Apple Works project with a much more favorable arrangement with Lissner (I think he might even have been employed as a programmer). In principle that should have produced a good outcome, because Apple Works was a much more ambitious program that did a lot more than mine.

But after the Apple Works initial release, Lissner left and refused to work on the code base any more. So Apple asked me to take Apple Works over with the same arrangement Lissner had had, but by then, spoiled by the royalty arrangement and having heard too many stories about Steve's behavior, I refused.

In retrospect, I had no difficulties upgrading Apple Writer and accommodating user suggestions, because I was hundreds of miles away and I wasn't an employee. By the time Apple asked me to take over Apple Works, I understood that fully -- Lissner's circumstances were unbearable -- as a result of which there was no imaginable incentive that could have gotten me into a closer working relationship with Steve.

I remember some shouting on the phone between Lissner and Jobs but I was just a young pup at the time and didn't understand what was going on. I think all Lissner wanted was a little respect since AppleWorks was a major seller for the Apple II line, but Jobs being Jobs he probably came across like, so what, the Apple II is dead and the Mac killed it (he was right of course.) Lissner got rich anyway and lost he drive to work on the Mac version. Our small team in Santa Cruz continued to build it, then Gates came down to meet us and bought it. Works ended up being the first really useful program on the Mac, followed a little later by Excel. I remember hearing a lot of good things about Apple Writer, but of course I used AppleWorks. Those were heady times.

Thank you for your work. I greatly enjoyed using Apple Writer.

You're most welcome. At the time there was a rather stupid magazine article titled, "Will Success Spoil Paul Lutus?" When I saw it I laughed and said, "I hope so."

Did it? :)

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