Apple's HR policy dictated that each employee was supposed to receive a performance review from their manager every six months, which helped to determine salary increases or possibly an award of additional stock options. But as the end of 1982 approached, I hadn't received my review for more than eight months.
This wasn't very surprising, since Bob Belleville, my boss and our software manager, wasn't getting along well with the software team. He thought some of us were intrinsically unmanageable and that we didn't respect him enough. Bob had replaced Rod Holt as the overall engineering manager in August, responsible for both hardware and software, and had just hired a new software manager, Jerome Coonen, who was slated to begin in January, which would allow him to further distance himself from the software team. But he still had to deal with us directly one last time to write our 1982 reviews.
By the end of January, everyone on the team had received their review except me. Others mentioned Bob had acted strangely during their reviews, making cryptic remarks they didn't understand, so I wasn't particularly looking forward to mine. I occasionally interacted with Bob, but he was reticent around me, not saying much, seemingly hiding behind his enigmatic, tight-lipped smile. Finally, after another couple of weeks, Bob's secretary called to arrange an appointment, presumably for my belated review.
The meeting was scheduled for 5 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon in mid-February. Bob was waiting when I entered his corner cubicle. I asked him what was up. He said he didn't want to discuss it in the office and suggested we talk on a walk around the block. That was fine with me, but now I was even more apprehensive—generally, walks around the block were reserved for firing, demoting, or convincing someone to stay after they'd quit.
Bob waited until we were a full block away from Bandley 4 before speaking.
"Well, Andy, you're not going to like hearing this, but you're a big problem on the software team, and I'm giving you a negative review for the last six months of 1982."
I knew Bob disliked me, but I was still shocked. For the last two years, I'd been working my heart out, devoting my life to the Macintosh—seven days a week—holding the project together after Bud returned to medical school. I was doing two full-time jobs: writing the Mac Toolbox in assembly language by night and helping everyone else with whatever was necessary each day.
"How can you say that?" I responded, horrified. "I accomplished everything I was supposed to, and a lot more besides." All my previous reviews at Apple were extremely positive, including the last one from Bob, so this was new to me.
Bob unfurled his mirthless grin. "Oh, don't get me wrong. I think your technical work was perfectly adequate during the review period, and I don't have a single criticism of it. That's not the problem. I have no complaints about your technical work." He paused, took a deep breath, and continued.
"The problem is with your attitude and your relationship with management. You're consistently insubordinate and don't respect lines of authority. I think you're undermining everyone else on the software team. You're too big for your britches."
At that point, as he probably expected, I broke down into tears. The Macintosh was the center of my life, and it was suddenly clear I'd have to quit. I couldn't work for someone who said this, no matter how much the project mattered to me.
Perhaps Bob was a little taken aback by my tears, so he tried to soften things. "Listen, this could be a very expensive conversation. It could turn out to be either very good or very bad for both of us. I'm trying to get you to see that if you listen to me, things could turn out very well for us."
I had no idea what he meant or how a bad review could possibly be good for me. "What do you mean, undermining the team?" I managed to choke out. "I'm always trying to help everyone else. Give me one example of someone I've undermined."
"Larry Kenyon," Bob replied. "You're stifling Larry Kenyon. He's someone with a good attitude, and you're keeping him from realizing his potential."
I always thought I'd gotten along great with Larry. I'd recruited him to the Mac team after working with him on Apple II peripheral cards in 1980, then handed off the low-level OS work to him while I focused on the Toolbox. I thought Larry was a terrific programmer and a great all-around person, treated him with the highest respect, and always enjoyed working with him. I suspected I knew what Bob meant—I