Daniel Kottke () is an American businessman known for being a college friend of

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...

and one of the first employees of Apple Inc.

Early life and education

Kottke was born on April 4, 1954, in

Bronxville, New York Bronxville is a Administrative divisions of New York#Village, village in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County, New York (state), New York, United States, located approximately north of Midtown Manhattan. It is part of the Administ ...

. Kottke first met

when they were both undergraduates at

Reed College Reed College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus in the Eastmoreland neighborhood, with Tudor-Gothic style architecture, and a forested canyon nature preserve at ...

in 1972. In 1974, Kottke and Jobs made a trek in search of spiritual enlightenment to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

to visit Neem Karoli Baba at his

Kainchi Nainital ( Kumaoni: ''Naintāl''; ) is a city and headquarters of Nainital district of Kumaon division, Uttarakhand, India. It is the judicial capital of Uttarakhand, the High Court of the state being located there and is the headquart ...

ashram An ashram ( sa, आश्रम, ) is a spiritual hermitage or a monastery in Indian religions. Etymology The Sanskrit noun is a thematic nominal derivative from the root 'toil' (<

They then made a long trek up a dry riverbed to an ashram of

Haidakhan Babaji Haidakhan Babaji, simply called Babaji by his students and devotees, was a religious teacher who appeared near the village of Haidakhan in northern India (Uttarakhand) and taught publicly from 1970 until his death in 1984. He has a following in ...

."Interview: Apple Employee No. 12 Dan Kottke on Company's Earliest Days and the College Steve Jobs"
KQED, November 25, 2011. After returning from India, Kottke transferred to

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1975 as a literature and music major. He stayed in touch with Jobs and they traveled together to fellow Reed College classmate

Robert Friedland Robert Martin Friedland (August 18, 1950) is an American/Canadian billionaire financier in the mining industry. Since the early 1980s, he has specialized in securing funding for the exploration and development of mineral and energy resources and ...

's All One Farm.

Career

Apple

During his junior year at Columbia in 1976, Kottke was asked by Jobs to become involved in a hobbyist computer project where he assembled and tested the boards during the summer. He also arranged for Kottke to work "for an hourly rate part-time assembling circuit boards for a company called Call Computer" that didn't require technical expertise. It was during that summer that Kottke realized his own interest in computers. Kottke stated in an interview with KQED/ PBS that both he and Jobs's sister Patty (who was also assembling boards while watching TV) were the first part-time employees of Apple, while

Bill Fernandez Bill Fernandez is a user-interface architect and innovator who was Apple Computer's first full time employee when they incorporated in 1977 and was issued badge number 4. He is the son of Jeryy Fernandez and Bambi Fernandez (both Stanford Uni ...

was the first full-time employee. In 1977, after graduating from Columbia, Kottke joined Apple as full-time employee #12. It was at that time that Jobs, Kottke, and Jobs's girlfriend Chrisann Brennan shared a house near the Apple office in

Cupertino Cupertino ( ) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 57,82 ...

. Kottke spent an additional eight years with Apple debugging

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

printed circuit boards and building Apple III and

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

prototypes as well as working on the design for the Macintosh keyboard. The Apple II gained a sizable amount of popularity, eventually becoming one of the best selling personal computers of the 1970s and early 1980s. Kottke was also one of the original members of the

development team and his signature can be found embossed on the internal wall of early production Macintosh computers. Jobs, however, refused to grant Kottke stock in the new company, stating that he "will give him zero" (co-founder

Steve Wozniak Stephen Gary Wozniak (; born August 11, 1950), also known by his nickname "Woz", is an American electronics engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, inventor, and entrepreneur, technology entrepreneur. In 1976, with business partner Steve ...

would later give Daniel some of his own shares in Apple). In her memoir of her life with Jobs, Chrisann Brennan states that she later asked Kottke about not receiving the stock options and that he replied: "Oh that ... Steve had offered me a job in marketing ... but I wasn't interested in marketing because I had something like a fever to understand the technology ... so I never pursued the marketing opportunity." In addition, in 1982 when ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

'' magazine featured a major, but unflattering, profile of Jobs, he publicly "berated" Kottke for confirming the fact to ''Time'' that he had a daughter, Lisa Brennan.

Representations in film

Documentaries

* '' Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine'' (2015)

Feature films

* ''

Pirates of Silicon Valley ''Pirates of Silicon Valley'' is a 1999 American biographical drama television film directed by Martyn Burke and starring Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates. Spanning the years 1971–1997 and based on Paul Freiberge ...

'' (1999), with

Marcus Giamatti Marcus Bartlett Giamatti (born October 3, 1961) is an American actor. He is best known for being a regular member of the cast of the CBS drama series ''Judging Amy''. Early life Giamatti was born on October 3, 1961, in New Haven, Connecticut, and ...

as Kottke: In an interview with ''

Slashdot ''Slashdot'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''/.'') is a social news website that originally advertised itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It features news stories concerning science, technology, and politics that are submitted and eval ...

'', Kottke stated that ''Pirates of Silicon Valley'' was "a great movie. Noah Wyle was just uncannily close to Jobs. Just unbelievable. I found myself thinking it was actually Steve on the screen." He also stated that in the film there were "all these scenes of the garage where it's like half a dozen people working, busily carrying things back and forth, and oscilloscopes" when he ottke"was really the only person who worked in the garage. Woz would show up once a week with his latest to test it out, and Steve Jobs was on the phone a lot in the kitchen." * '' Jobs'' (2013), with Lukas Haas as Kottke: In an interview with ''

'', Kottke stated that he was consulted on early versions of the screenplay for ''Jobs'' and noted, "Ashton's very good. I have no complaints with him at all, no complaints with his portrayal of Jobs. The complaint that people would rightly have about the film is that it portrays Woz as not having the same vision as Steve Jobs, which is really unfair." He also said that the early versions of the screenplay "were painful. Really painful. I forwarded the first draft to Mike Markkula because they wanted his feedback, and Mike took such a bad reaction to it, he wouldn't have anything more to do with the project. By the time it got to the fourth draft, it was okay. It wasn't making me cringe." Kottke also outlined various areas that were both accurate and inaccurate in the film.

was part of the same interview but stated that he didn't see the film because "the whole thing is a work of fiction, and I don't want to be upset by all the things that the screenwriter has invented and don't represent the truth." Kottke responded that he didn't think of the film as fiction because "I was involved early on in the film, and they really, sincerely tried to make it as accurate as they could." In the same interview,

and Kottke commented on the characterization of Rod Holt (portrayed by actor Ron Eldard). Kottke disputed the characterization, noting that: "What completely cracked us all up is the scene where Rod arrives for the first time. Rod comes up wearing leathers, riding up on a motorcycle with long hair ... he's like this motorcycle dude. It just cracked us all up." Fernandez, who had not seen the film at the time of the interview, was also surprised by this portrayal. Holt, however, (according to Kottke), "thought it was hilarious." As for why he may have been characterized this way, Kottke states that, "Rod was really into dirt bikes. And I never saw him riding one, but he talked about it all the time. So the author just had him riding up on a motorcycle. I liked that guy. I met him on the set. I had no idea who he was when I met him because he doesn't look at all like Rod, he has long straight hair and he's wearing leathers." Fernandez, who was equally amused by this vision of Holt responded by asking, "Who could this possibly be in the Apple universe? ... It seems to me that there's a lot of fan fiction about Apple Computer and about Steve Jobs, and I think that this is the biggest, flashiest piece of fan fiction that there's been to date." The TV show ''

John Wants Answers ''John Wants Answers'' is a local television show that airs on public-access television channel KMVT 15 in Mountain View, California. The show covers current events, social issues, and civics. There are occasional musical guests and other perfor ...

'' took

, Kottke, and

Andy Hertzfeld Andrew Jay Hertzfeld (born April 6, 1953) is an American software engineer and innovator who was a member of the original Apple Macintosh development team during the 1980s. After buying an Apple II in January 1978, he went to work for App ...

through the film scene by scene and discussed how the events actually occurred. * ''

'' (2015), mentioned in dialogue. In an interview with CNN, Kottke states that seeing the movie was a bit of a shock to him and that he enjoyed it very much. "It took me a few days after seeing the film ... I was surprised to see what a dominant character Lisa became. I found that very gratifying to see. It was very much a caricature ... utAaron Sorkin did such a good job."

References

External links

* Edwards, Jim.
These Pictures Of Apple's First Employees Are Absolutely Wonderful
' – ''

Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...

'', December 26, 2013.
Mac@30 Rod Holt, Daniel Kottke and Woz discuss Early Apple
Macintosh Anniversary, January 27, 2014. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kottke, Daniel American computer businesspeople American computer programmers American computer scientists Engineers from California Apple Inc. employees Place of birth missing (living people) Apple II family Computer designers Living people People from Palo Alto, California Reed College alumni Columbia College (New York) alumni 1954 births