The Neighbor Who Changed Everything
Steve Jobs was six or seven years old. A man named Larry Lang moved in down the street.
Lang was an engineer at Hewlett-Packard. A ham radio operator. He was into electronics. He took the kid under his wing.
An HP engineer moved in down the street. He taught a kid to build things.
What Heathkits Taught
Heathkits were products you bought in kit form. You paid more than the finished product. That was the point.
They came with detailed manuals. Color-coded parts. A theory of operation. You built the thing yourself.
Two lessons came from that. First: you understood what was inside a finished product. Second: you believed you could build anything.
Heathkits cost more than the finished product. That was the point.
The Illusion Shattered
Before Heathkits, products were mysteries. A television set appeared in your house. You had no idea how it worked.
After Heathkits, the mystery vanished. A TV was just parts and logic. Jobs had built other kits. He could build a TV too.
Everything became the result of human creation. Not magic. Not mystery. Just people making things.
Before: magic. After: just parts and logic. I could build that.
The Confidence That Built Apple
That childhood experience gave Jobs a tremendous degree of self-confidence.
Through exploration and learning, you could understand things that seemed impossibly complex. You could take them apart. You could build them.
Apple did not start with a business plan. It started with a kid who believed nothing in the world was beyond his ability to make.
Apple started with a kid who believed he could build anything.