Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs (9 page)

It’s been a crazy weekend. On Friday the story hit the papers about our announcement that we have hired lawyers to investigate ourselves. Since then, every day, there have been more stories, all of them based on leaks and “sources close to the matter.” I’ve been back and forth on the phone with Ross Ziehm and Tom Bowditch and Moshe Hishkill, our head of security, trying to find out who’s talking to the press. We’re pulling phone logs, scanning emails, but so far we can’t find anything.

But that’s behind us. Today there is peace. I can feel it. Today I refuse to read any newspapers or watch the news on TV. Today I will only focus on restoring my strength. By eight in the morning I’ve finished my workout, showered, and downed a fruit smoothie that Breezeann prepared for me. Breezeann is a true flower child California chick, raised by hippie parents in the Santa Cruz mountains, in a cabin with no running water or electricity. The only question I asked her during her job interview was how many times she had taken acid. “Oh, man,” she said, “I dunno, but, like, a lot? Like I couldn’t even count even?” The only question she had for us was, “Um, like, I wouldn’t have to wear like business type clothing or anything, right?”

In other words: perfect. She also happens to have long blonde hair and a killer body and she bears a strong resemblance to the naked chick on the cover of the “Blind Faith” album. I think about her every morning when I’m beating off in the shower, and I’ve been wanting to bone her forever. But every time I ask her to sleep with me she threatens to rat me out to Mrs. Jobs, and I have to give her a raise. She’s now making two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. I don’t know what we’d do without her.

“Namaste,” I tell her as I’m leaving. I do a little bow. “I honor the place where you and I are one.”

“Yeah,” she says, without looking up from washing the blender in the sink. “Keep dreaming, sport.”

Then it’s off to Apple headquarters for my weekly high colonic. Yes, it’s a holiday, and yes, my colonic tech, Kuso Sukatoro, isn’t exactly psyched about coming to work. So much for that famous Japanese work ethic.

“You clenching,” Kuso says. “Not good. You need relax.”

We work on it, and eventually I’m fully refreshed. Right after the butt blast I ride a Segway down to the back of the campus to the commando barracks. Moshe Hishkill is waiting for me. Moshe is a former general in the Israeli army. He’s got this huge scar, as wide as a finger, down the left side of his face, and a messed-up left eye that looks like egg yolk. We’ve left medical catalogs on his desk, open to the page with eyepatches; he doesn’t seem to get the hint.

Moshe introduces me to a guy named Mikhail, one of the Russian hackers from our Windows Virus Creation Team (WVCT). “Operation Wavecat,” as we call it, employs some of the best virus writers in the world, who do nothing but create malware to mess up Windows computers. I figure if Microsoft really wants to keep copying everything we do and stealing all of our ideas, the least we can do is repay the favor by making their knock-offs not work right.

But right now Mikhail is working on a different project. He’s trying to find our leaker. He’s a tall guy, dark-haired, with a few days growth of beard. He looks like he hasn’t slept for a while.

“I’ve checked the Apple email and phone system,” he says. “Is nothing there. Then, I check—”

He stops and looks at Moshe. He’s worried, I guess, about how much he should say in front of me.

“It’s okay,” I say.

Moshe nods.

He goes on. “I check email addresses that have sent or received anything with Apple email address. Nothing. I check home phones of Apple employees. I check personal email addresses, if we know them. I check cell phones. Is not one hundred percent. But anyway, I get nothing.”

“Yeah. That’s what I figured. Worth a try, though. Thanks.”

I start to leave.

Moshe says, “Wait. There is something.”

“Only a clue,” Mikhail says. “We have database of phone numbers and email addresses for reporters, Wall Street analysts, business partners, suppliers, customers. I pull information for any reporters who write stories this past weekend. Look. This one. Here. Girl from
Wall Street Journal.
”

He pulls up a page on his screen. It’s an AT&T phone bill for Erika Murphy, a
Journal
reporter in San Francisco. He scrolls through the list of her incoming and outgoing calls over the past two months.

“This one,” he says, stopping on a line. “Here. And here again. And here, an incoming call. Here, an outgoing call. A dozen calls with same number. So I pull up some other reporters. Same number calls three other people.”

“That’s not an Apple number.”

“No, certainly not.”

“What is it? A cell phone?”

“A SIM card. But we can tell where it was used.”

“How do you do that? Satellites or something?”

“Don’t ask,” Moshe says.

“It’s a weird thing.” Mikhail turns from his screen and looks at me. “You know anyone in the Cayman Islands?”

By the time I get home Larry has already arrived.

“It’s definitely weird,” he says, when I tell him about the phone calls from the Cayman Islands.

“No talking about work,” Mrs. Jobs says. “Just for tonight. Okay?”

“What else are we supposed to talk about?”

“I don’t know. How about books,” she says.

We look at her.

“Movies? Politics? The war in Iraq?”

We sit there for a couple of minutes, stymied. Finally Mrs. Jobs goes into the house to get a drink and Larry says, “Did you hear about Jeff Fernandez? He’s selling his house. Legal bills.

He’s going to be ruined.”

“Jesus.”

“Yup. It’s bad, brother.”

Breezeann fires up the grill and cooks up some mind-blowing tofu steaks and grilled veggies. After dinner we walk to the park to watch the fireworks. We all go “ooh” and “aah” at the right moments, and we walk home saying how great the show was this year and pretending that everything is going to be okay.

On the day after
the holiday I arrive at work to find a handwritten note from Charlie Sampson informing me that he and his team would like me to come down and answer some questions. At the appointed hour I go to the Crosby room. They’re all lined up behind a long table. They have a stenographer, some recording equipment, and pitchers of water.

“Dudes,” I say, “what’s this? The Senate subcommittee?”

Nobody laughs.

“Seriously,” I say, “this looks pretty intense. Should I have a lawyer or something?”

“Do you think you need a lawyer?” Sampson says.

“That’s what I just asked you.”

“I think you should do what you think is best. If you feel like you can’t answer our questions without having a lawyer present, then you should get a lawyer. But this isn’t a court. We’re not here to decide if you’re guilty of anything.”

“All right,” I say. “Fire away.”

Sampson starts out asking some time-wasting stuff like my name and how old I am and how long I’ve worked at the company. For kicks I get a couple of them wrong, just to see if they’re paying attention. They are.

Sampson asks me what percentage of Apple’s outstanding shares I own. I tell him I have no idea.

“None at all? You mean you could own one percent or ninety percent, and you really don’t know?”

“I’ve told you this already. I’m no good with numbers. It’s part of the reason I left school. It’s a learning disability. I’m mathlexic.”

“Mathlexic?”

“It’s like being dyslexic, only with numbers.”

Sampson frowns. “This is a real diagnosis?”

“It’s either mathlexic or dysmathic. I can’t remember. One or the other.”

“Are you also dyslexic?”

I shake my head. “Just dysmathic.”

“I thought it was mathlexic,” one of the young guys says, in this
gotcha
voice.

“Oooh,” I say, “you caught me! Look, you Nazis, I told you I’m not sure what it’s called. And watch your tone, assholes. I’m the one signing your paychecks, remember?”

“That’s actually not true,” one of them says.

Sampson says we should move on. His helpers start firing questions at me. Normally in situations like this I can pretty much read people’s minds. It’s a form of extrasensory perception that I developed by working with a Zen master in Los Altos. On a really good day it’s almost like hearing a transcript of what someone is thinking. But today I’m getting static. Images, flashes. Stray words and phrases. Random stuff.

When I look at Sampson I get nothing at all. He stares back at me and does something funky with his eyes.

The helper named Chip says, “Do you recall a lunch meeting with Sonya Bourne on the thirteenth of July in 2001 at which you two discussed options grants?”

“Let me see,” I say. “2001? Thirteenth of July?” I close my eyes and wait a few seconds, as if I’m concentrating. “Ah, right. Okay. Yes. July 13, 2001. It was a Tuesday. We went to Il Fornaio in Palo Alto. I had a Waldorf salad and a bottle of San Pellegrino. I sent the salad back because there was mayonnaise in the dressing and had them make it again with a vinaigrette dressing, and the waiter said then it won’t be a Waldorf salad and I said that’s fine, bring me what I want. Waiter’s name was Anton. Six-one, slender, brown curly hair. Wore a silver ring on his right hand, middle finger. Timex sport watch on his left wrist. Sonya had a turkey club sandwich, no bacon, light mayo, and a Diet Coke with a wedge of lemon. No, strike that. Wedge of lime. The bill came to twenty-three dollars and nineteen cents. I left a two-dollar tip. Paid with a Visa card.”

Chip scowls. “So that’s a no?”

“Do you remember where you were on some random day five years ago? Come on.”

They start going on about how many options I received on what day and how many I exercised and how many I sold, and then how many I gave back in exchange for restricted shares, and what’s the value of those shares today versus when I got them, and wasn’t some of that money applied to the value of the jet that Apple gave me, and then they start going on about some Black-Scholes model or whatever to figure out the value of the compensation.

“Guys,” I say, “seriously, I have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s like you’re not speaking English.”

“Let’s try going over this again,” Sampson says.

“You can go over it all you want,” I say, “but I won’t understand a word. I told you, I’m dysmathic.”

“That’s going to be your defense?” Sampson says. “Seriously?”

“What can I tell you. It’s a disability.” I stand up. “Are we done?”

“No,” Sampson says. “Not even close.”

“Well,” I say, “I’m done. You guys can stay if you want.”

“There’s something
you need to see,” Paul Doezen says.

He’s waiting for me outside my office. He’s a mountain of a man, Buddha in a suit, grunting as he hoists himself up out of his chair.

He hands me a piece of paper. The paper contains rows and columns of numbers. It’s a spreadsheet. I detest spreadsheets. I refuse to read them.

“Just tell me what this means,” I say.

Paul explains that the key numbers are the ones in the right-hand column. They represent the number of Apple shares that are currently sold short in the market, meaning the number of shares held by frigtards who are betting that our stock is going to go down. The number, Paul says, has been growing steadily over the past month, starting right before the SEC hassle began.

“Notice I said
before
the SEC thing happened. What’s that all about, right? Someone knew there was bad news coming. And since then someone’s been shorting us like crazy. There’s a big spike right here. You see? And look at the daily volume. Then look at the ratio of shorts to daily trading volume, and the ratio of shorts to overall float. Look at the churn.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“Someone’s making a bet against us,” he says. “A big bet. And it looks like they’re trying to cover it up so we won’t notice it. The key is in the number of shares that get traded every day. That number for us has gone up by a huge amount all of a sudden, for no apparent reason. At the same time the number of shares sold short has gone way up too. It’s weird. I’m not sure if they’re connected. But they might be.”