Worming Into Apple*

[Mac Reporter]

Wired News reports:
By Leander Kahney*
02:00 AM Dec. 27, 2004 PT

In 2000, writer Rodney Rothman spent three weeks pretending to be an employee of a Silicon Alley company, writing up the experience for The New Yorker as "My Fake Job."

Seven years earlier, in 1993, programmer Ron Avitzur pulled a similar stunt. But unlike Rothman, who was avoiding wasting his days in his apartment masturbating, Avitzur was extremely productive.

Avitzur sneaked into Apple's California HQ for six months to write a software program that, through luck and hard work, is still included on every Mac sold today.

Unemployed and living on savings, Avitzur worked 12-hour days, seven days a week, to create Graphing Calculator in the unlikely hope that Apple would bundle it with new computers.


Not only did he toil for free, Avitzur persuaded another unemployed programmer, Greg Robbins, to sneak into Apple with him. He also paid subcontractors out of his own pocket, and eventually convinced entire teams of testers and researchers to refine his software.

Meanwhile, Avitzur and Robbins worked in vacant offices, avoided Apple security and gained access to the campus by tailgating employees as they showed up for work.

"We really thought this was the most important software to get to schools and the best way to get it into schools was to get it installed on every machine," said Avitzur. "We thought we were artists, and it was the responsibility of artists to get the work out there. That motivated a lot of what we were doing. But we were loose cannons and we didn't answer to anyone. There was no accountability. It was a lot of fun."
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