“You can’t have meat. I’ll make you an exact list of the type of food we want to serve. You can’t get out of this menu and every change we have to talk about personally”. In 1981, Jonathan Rotenberg I had negotiated for months with one of Boston’s most recognized star chefs, Odette Berry. The dinner should not be wrong dish. ” Who is coming ? President ?. Rotenberg looked at her somewhat stressed. “No. Steve Jobs”.
The boy was only 18, but he was curious about computers and passionate about the world. To still be a teenager founded the Boston Computer History Society, which eventually became one of the largest personal computer user organizations in the world. At that time, few talked about computers, and Rotenberg’s ability to bring together such dispersed people attracted a lot of attention: among them, those of Bob Washburn – a regional sales manager who worked in a promising computer company called Apple Computer Inc.
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“I want Steve Jobs and Wozniak to come”
Photo: Jonathan Rotenberg
Rotenberg asserted that the two founders of Apple will be speaking at their brand-focused tech event, called “Applefest”. The boy organized everything at 18 but it was not just anything: it was the first Apple-specific computer show and the first platform from which IDG (International Data Group) launched something called MacWorld Expo. Does that tell you anything? This is where in 2007 Steve Jobs himself introduced the iPhone.
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The presence of the two visible Apple officials wasn’t the only big presence at the event. Among them were none other than Wall Street Journal technology editor Dick Schaffer; Bernie Goldhirsh, founder of Inc. magazine, and technology reporter for the Boston Globe. However, the one Rotenberg had studied in detail was his childhood idol, Steve Jobs. You could say that she had arranged all this to meet him.
Chef Odette and this boy had organized a dinner for seven deliciously elegant and innovative courses. An absolutely vegetarian menu specially designed for Jobs. “It will not be a vegetarian hippie dinner. Each dish will be extremely elegant and unique”.
The secret of the man of secrets
When the dinner started, Jobs realized that the 18-year-old he was not the typical boy of his age. Your worries, your curiosity and ability to understand eccentricities and the bar so high that he had himself, caught his attention. His ambition and his extreme taste for detail too.
The dishes on this menu were almost a oda in the spring – freshly picked, fresh and fragrant vegetables… The chef and the organizer impressed the guests. However, Rotenberg had an ace up his sleeve. A secret about Steve Jobs that few knew at the time.
When Apple started to find success, the name got a lot of attention. Obviously, naming a tech company after a fruit wasn’t very common – spreading the urban legend that the apple was Steve Jobs’ favorite fruit. However, this was not entirely true (he loved them yes, but not as much as people thought): despite the fact that Jobs had been a “fruitarian” for several years, hardly anyone knew that his real favorite fruit was the strawberry – something that, for some reason (perhaps to continue to feed the mythology of “apples”) Jobs wore like a secret.
That’s why the boy asked the chef to prepare something unique with strawberries, something innovative: more like a small work of art made of this fruit than a plate of food. When this dish arrived at the table, Rotenberg continued to stare into Jobs’ face, who smiled broadly and looked at the waiter when he saw this. “We heard you like strawberries…”, he told him. Next, Jobs put a generous helping on his plate, still smiling at the wink.
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Jonathan Rotenberg and 1981
All this made Jobs realize the bravery and thoroughness of this boy. After dinner, the guests went to Rotenberg’s parents’ home in Beacon Hill. “To have liqueurs and Biscotti, a classic dessert after dinner”. In reality, young Jonathan’s plan was to find some time alone to talk to Jobs and the future of Applefest.
They walked together, and this 18-year-old boy dazzled a Jobs vicious other vendors in the valley, while listened to the challenges and all he could do if he allowed him to contact Apple’s marketing department. Jobs gave him a golden pen with the Apple logo and took him by the shoulder as they walked down that street: “Could you call my assistant next week?” I want you to fly to California so we can sit down and talk about it. Jobs told him.
Three years later, the technological milestone of January 1984 – the Macintosh – makes its first public appearance in the world. And it was, neither more nor less, than at the Boston Computer History Society – with a plethoric job surrounded by its team of geniuses fighting against the blue giant. The friendship of Rotenberg and Jobs lasted for several more years: about everything that happened between them during this period, Jonathan wrote a soon-to-be-released book entitled “My teacher, Steve Jobs”.
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