I saw Andy Hertzfeld give an inspiring and uproariously funny talk at Google New York back in March, providing something of a director’s commentary for his fantastic book of Macintosh folklore. It went a good deal over time, but still felt way short.
The talk was a candid cutting-room-floor walkthrough — covering stories that were left out of the book, some because they were a bit too racy. A favorite of these was about Apple’s internal “contests” for breaking (yes, breaking) copy protection on newly released software so it could be freely distributed inside the company (about 45 minutes in). The climax involves Woz, floppy disks, a clothes iron, and Pierre Curie.
And, of course, my favorite image from the talk has to be Steve Jobs giving the finger (above and flickr) to the IBM building in Midtown Manhattan. The publisher begged Andy to include the photo, but he just couldn’t do it.
I had the great fortune of having dinner with Andy afterwards and found him just as humble and thoughtful in person as his stories might lead you to believe. The video of Andy’s talk is finally online. Highly recommended. As for what Andy’s up to now that he’s employed by Google, it appears to be anybody’s guess.
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