An interview with Apple's first CEO, Michael Scott

Business Insider conducted an excellent interview with Apple's first CEO, Michael Scott. In it Scott spills some details about the very first days of Apple. There are little interesting details such as the Apple employee numbering scheme, which came out of necessity. Bank of America, where Apple opened its first bank account, required that all employees have numbers for payroll purposes. Scott took number 7, even though chronologically he was Apple's fifth employee: "I was employee number seven, because I wanted number seven... I was 007, of course, as a joke."

Scott also reveals plenty of anecdotes about Steve Jobs, like his attention to details and products, but not to people: "They spent weeks and weeks arguing exactly how rounded [the Apple II case] would be. So that attention to detail is what Steve is known for, but it also is his weakness because he pays attention to the detail of the product, but not to the people. To me, the biggest thing in growing a company is you need to grow the people, so it's like being a farmer, you need to grow your staff and everybody else too as much as you can to enable the company to grow, just as much as you need to sell the product."

The entire article is well worth a read. It's also interesting to learn that Apple's first CEO is now working on a bona fide Star Trek tricorder: "I'm working on a tricorder. It's from the first Star Trek. It's a handheld gadget where you hold it out and it tells you what something was. So I'm working on the libraries that would let you take something the size of a cell phone and if you're walking out the trail, aim it at a rock, and it'll tell you whether it's a sapphire, and emerald, etc. So the technology is there now. What's not there is the library routine that tells you what things are." That sounds like a heck of a feature for future iPhones. Steve Jobs, are you paying attention?