There was a time when Apple was a party company

Something about great fall weather near salt water brings back memories of the days when going to an Apple corporate event for employees was not exactly what I would call training for the next year.  While these events were often the time that employees got their dose of Apple mental koolaide, the beverage of choice was beer and lots of it.  The locations were often exotic, like Hawaii or Florida.

It is fortunate for several executives that my memory is a little hazy on some of the details of these events, but as I recollect, most of the really decadent Apple events in my 1984-2004 Apple career took place during Steve's absence.

I think perhaps the one which stands out the most took place I believe in the fall of 1987 in Boca Raton.  In those days the saying was that you would never attend an Apple sales conference in the same place twice, because no place was crazy enough to have Apple back.

I can still remember walking with an Apple Canada executive when we met two high level Apple corporate executives on the way to visit our Apple International "party."  They were immediately warned that all executives were being thrown into the swimming pool.  They quickly turned around to go change clothes.  Sure enough as soon as they arrived, they were thrown in the pool and unfortunately one of them injured his back and had to delay his entrance into a new job among Apple executives.  That same evening in the pool, I had a narrow escape from a famous Apple II executive who was looking for some revenge on employees.  I had been quietly drinking my beer in a corner of the pool, but I had to abandon some good beer to escape even though I was innocent.

That same event had featured a well known Apple executive from Europe presiding over a beach side greased water melon hunt. He watched the event from a throne while dressed in robes.

Later in the evening after every employee and executive had been dunked in the pool, I can remember a key lime pie fight.  I had to hose my sandals off before going to bed that night.

The Boca event was memorable for two other reasons, the first is that some Apple employees had a battle with fire extinguishers in the executive offices of the hotel.  There was so much damage that the rumor was that Scully had to sign a check in the millions to keep Apple from being thrown out at dawn. 

The second thing was Jefferson Airplane was flown in for our entertainment on the last day of the conference.  I think the company also had to pay for a golf cart and rental car that were left at the bottom of a lagoon. 

Among the folks who enjoyed themselves the most, I think the Australians and Canadians had to be listed at the top.  I am pretty sure it was some US based employees that caused the damage.  I always assumed that if Canadians had been involved we would not have gotten any product for the next year. 

The higher education group at Apple was also infamous for having some pretty amazing parties.  Just after I came over to the group, I started hearing about the "toga" party that had set some kind of record for drunken partying .  It did not take long for me to see how the higher education group partied. 

It was like a college beer bash at sales meetings in the evening with the higher ed folks.  There was also a fair amount of pairing off with other employees. In fact at one of my first higher education sales meetings, I got the surprise of my business career.  My roommate had spent the whole conference trying to see how many beds he could be in before we headed back to Washington from Palm Desert.  I had an early morning flight the next morning so I had, horror of horrors, gone to bed before mid-night the last night.  Some time in the early morning, I half awoke to some giggles.  It was my roommate bringing a lady to bed with him.  I managed to sleep through most of their antics since my flight was only a few hours later.

Not more than a couple of years later, I had to admonish a couple of my sales reps for not showing up for a meeting.  It was well known by the group that they had retired to a bedroom for some extra-curricular sex.  Being the manager, I was the last to know, but I was not very surprised since one of them had at one time bedded down with my former roommate.

Apple during its early years had a history of unbelievable sales incentive trips built around their "Golden Apple Club" which was reserved for sales people in the top ten percent of performers each year.  My wife and I visited Vienna, Sydney, Munich, Banff, Ireland, London, Paris, Salzsburg, and Switzerland on various trips.  These trips were events that individuals could never have duplicated without thousands and thousands of dollars.

On one trip which started in Vienna, Apple chartered a private train to take us to the second stop which was Interlaken in Switzerland.  The train stopped some place high in the Alps so we could get out and have a snowball fight.  Each night on the trip, usually you would find an expensive regional gift waiting for you after the unbelievable evening meal.  For many years Apple even paid the taxes on the trips for employees.

On the trip to Munich, Apple rented 100 Audis and Mercedes for a high speed scavenger hunt with a camera.  Of course in Munich we also rented a beer hall for some serious beer consumption.

There was a pub crawl tradition among the executives who went on the trips.  On our trip to Ireland, I can well remember having to interview with the vice president of sales who had been a pub crawl the day before.  Fortunately he had a few holes of golf the morning before I interviewed so I got my position as a higher ed manager.

As in any company, there were people who would get wasted at the drop of a hat and plenty that had enough sense to observe from the side lines.  The sales incentive trips were a great opportunity to meet executives.

I did learn that ice fishing in the cold Canadian Rockies probably is not going to be the time or place to warm the heart of a Texas based Apple sales executive.

The sales incentive trips were by no means drunken events like some of the sale conferences. There is nothing like taking your wife or husband along to at least slow the flow of the beer.  The sales incentive trips were perhaps extravagant, but to the wives or husbands who often saw little of their significant other during the seventy plus hours of weekly work required in Apple's early days, these trips were a way of saying thanks.  By in large they were the most professional incentive events I ever attended.

As Apple aged, the sales conference parties toned down.  One of the last ones I can remember had a memorable moment when the VP of Apple Sales unintentionally drove a vintage Harley off the stage into the audience.  Fortunately no one was hurt.

Of course I think when Steve came back, the big events had already ended, but if there were any vestiges of that left Steve cleared them out along with the Apple sabbatical and matching donations to charity.  I would still bet that providing an enjoyable and effective sales conference is not high on Steve's list, but it is hard to say.  It might have moved up a notch or two since it appears rewarding the inner circle with specially priced options isn't such a good idea. 

At one time you came away from an Apple sales conference with enough energy and enthusiasm to change the world.

I do not know how other high tech companies in the eighties and nineties handled their sales conferences, but I do know the joke used to be that HP's was a tailgate in the company parking lot with soda and saltines.  Apple's age of decadence probably needed to end.   I certainly wasn't sorry to see it go since my serious beer drinking days ended after a record setting beer contest in college the night Richard Nixon was elected.

I heard that Apple did not flog its business sales force this year at their sales conference.  That I would take as a positive sign.  I am also glad to see Apple has restored some sales incentives trips to their business division which for many years was in the wilderness while the education group continued with annual award trips.

That in itself is a symptom of the challenges in the Apple culture where there are just as many contradictions as examples of excellence. 

Comments

[Norman Ferguson]

IIRC, that sales conference in Boca Rotan was the first time in several years that the Systems Engineers (for outsiders, they were the pre-sales engineers associated with the sales force) did not go to the sales conference. Instead we all got sent (in early August, IIRC) to Tulane University for a week for a TechCamp.
Still, the ratio of party time (on Bourbon St) to study time was about the same as the sales conferences.

[John M]

Somehow I just can't see anyone throwing Steve in the pool and expecting to continue the career once the party's over...

[Daryl Tschoepe]

I don't know whether or not Boca was with our without SEs, that was before my time, but the first SummerCamp in New Orleans was in 1989 I'm pretty sure. Two years after Boca.

I'd say the drinking was much heavier. The morning classes were pretty lightly attended all week long. Just to prove no one learned anything, a few years later we did one in Colorado Springs and the SEs stayed in a hotel that had a brew pub in the basement. Ouch.