After a bit of hiatus, we’re back with another Amazing Apple Anecdote. This week we learn about Steve Jobs’s tactic to get an investment: hiding the Porsches parked in front of the office to make it seem like they had less money.
Forbes reports:
Randy Adams, using some of the cash he’d earned from the sale of his company, bought a Porsche 911 at the same time Jobs did. To avoid car-door dings, they parked near each other–taking up three parking spaces between them. One day Jobs rushed over to Adams’ cubicle and told him they had to move the cars.
“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 moved the cars around to the back of NeXT’s offices in Palo Alto, Calif. and Perot invested $20 million in the company in 1987 and took a seat on the board.
An even better idea would have been to get people with really bashed up, broken cars to park outside instead. Perhaps NeXT would have got $40 million.
That’s it for this week, but we’ll be back next weekend with more. For now, enjoy!`
