Why did Steve Jobs have to hide his Porsche?

Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, was an entrepreneur and visionary who will forever be remembered for his creativity in writing a fundamental piece of technology history. As a testament to the imprint his talent has left on the world, there are more than a million messages from people from all over the planet, remembering him with love and admiration, all collected by Apple.com.

There are many anecdotes and curiosities known about him, even coming from Jobs himself. Before dying of cancer in October 2011, at the age of 56, he showed his willingness to tell the story of his successes.

After his death, many friends and colleagues recounted amusing episodes with him as the protagonist. An example was the story about the Apple founder's Porsche, told by Randy Adams and reported in Forbes.

The story dates back to 1985 when Steve Jobs had just left Apple and was working at his new company, NeXT Computer.

At the time, software engineer Randy Adams had been reluctant to join Jobs at NeXT Computer following his resignation from Apple.

Yet, Steve Jobs tried hard to get him back to work with him. He left this message on his voicemail: "You're blowing it, Randy. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and you're blowing it," as cited by Forbes. Finally, Adams accepted.

The two colleagues had bought the same Porsche model, the 911, and to avoid dents and scratches, they had decided to park them next to each other, occupying three parking spaces.

One day, however, Steve Jobs rushed into Randy Adams' office telling him that they had to make the cars disappear as soon as possible.

Adams' statement on Forbes: "I said, 'Why?,' and he said, 'Randy, we have to hide the Porsches. Ross Perot is coming by and thinking of investing in the company, and we don't want him to think we have a lot of money.'''

They hid the cars in the back of the NeXT Computer offices, at the company's headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

The meeting with Ross Perot (in the photo with Steve Jobs) generated the desired results: the entrepreneur invested around 20 million dollars in Jobs' new company, of which he was also a member of the board of directors.

Another funny memory of Adams was from the time Jobs made Bill Gates wait an hour before receiving him.

It was the fall of 1986, and Bill Gates showed up at NeXt for a meeting. The receptionist immediately alerted Jobs of the arrival of the Microsoft founder, but as Adams recalls, "I could see him sitting in his cube, not really busy. But he didn't get up or call Gates up."

In fact, he left him waiting in the lobby for an hour. That speaks to their rivalry." His words in Forbes

"In fact," he told Forbes, "he left him waiting in the lobby for an hour. That speaks to their rivalry."

Obviously, Adams and other engineers took the opportunity to have a chat with Gates: "We enjoyed it and spent an hour talking to him until Steve finally called him in."

Another anecdote that has now gone down in history about Jobs dates back to several years later, in 2007, a period in which he had already returned to Apple and was launching his first iPhone.

During the presentation of the first iPhone model, Steve Jobs stood in front of thousands of Apple fans at the Macworld Expo, and he called a sales point of the famous US coffee chain Starbucks to order... as many as 4,000 lattes to take away!

The Apple founder immediately hung up after saying to the barista: "No, just kidding. Wrong number. Goodbye!"

When Fast Company magazine tracked down the barista, they said: "I have never heard somebody order 4,000 lattes to go. I didn't say anything because I was shocked."

"But my first impression," the barista said, "was that he was just being humorous. He sounded like a gentleman."

These are just some of the anecdotes involving the famous entrepreneur. They are enough to demonstrate his creativity, resourcefulness, and sense of humor, characteristics that have allowed him to still be considered a fundamental figure in the history of the IT sector.