young men with a design for a personal computer. With that money, Apple Computer was incorporated in 1977. Mike was the first Apple chairman, and then a CEO of the company. Venture financing and a supply of engineers from Stanford, Berkeley, and other local universities exploded the quiet apricot orchards of Heart’s Delight into a bustling tech center of over 1M people. But there was a cost. The salaries tech companies could pay made home prices rise 2500% over my working lifetime. A house my wife and I bought for $60,000 in the ‘70s would go for nearly $2M today. Homelessness is a growing problem because of housing costs. Was tech a male dominated industry when you started? Has that changed? Tech was a boy’s club. (Check out one of the first Apple II advertisements.) Of the 1000 Freshman Electrical Engineering students at Berkeley in 1964, only six were women. Dances weren’t much fun. Early on, there weren’t many women in the hiring pool. It wasn’t until the late 70’s at Apple that I saw my first female professional job applicant. I hired her and she was a great addition to the team. What was it like working at a world leader in tech like Hewlett-Packard? I was very proud to be an HP engineer. We had a sign in the Lab: HP: Has to Perform. We designed elegant equipment, built to last. Back then Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard “managed by walking around”. I met Bill, and his son Jim played guitar at my wedding. Our team was pioneering computer-controlled microwave test equipment, doing things that hadn’t been done before. It was exciting to be an engineer there. You were one of the early employees at Apple. What was it like? I joined Apple in 1978 as employee #35 to build the product marketing and tech support departments. I was their first Product Marketing Manager. We didn’t have a building - just a couple of offices behind a restaurant in Cupertino. It was chaotic and amazing. I handled tech support. The day before I started work my boss, Mike Markkula, told me, “I’ll be out of town. There’s a stack of phone messages on my desk. Just start returning the calls.” Years later, I helped with the Apple Road Show where we loaded computers onto trucks emblazoned with the Apple logo and ran seminars and trade shows in different cities. What was it like working with Steve Jobs? I worked for Steve Jobs for a couple years. He was the most confident and single-minded person I’ve ever met, and I learned a lot from him. I liked him most of the time, but he could be abrasive too. Something he said to me one day that has stuck with me is, “Most people never do anything great because no one asks them to.” What would your legacy at Apple be? I believe I gave the company a human face. The first few hundred thousand Apple II’s went out with a letter from me offering support resources. Within the company I saw thousands of employees on their first day of training. It was my task to tell them the Apple story. What did you move onto after Apple? After Apple I formed Roybal Associates, a marketing consulting company. Most of my work for the next two decades was exhibit staff sales and presentation skills training. I also taught woodworking professionally and began volunteering in the public school system (which I still do). Then, in 2010, I met Satish Mirle who invited me to help him build what we now call MaiaLearning, where I am the VP of Marketing. What have been the most rewarding parts of your career in tech? I fell in love with computers as a freshman at Berkeley and love them still. Author Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” I’ve been honored to meet and work with some amazing magicians. In creating the modern computer industry, we literally changed the world. What advice would you give young people planning their careers? When you’re young and earning your spurs you’ll spend a lot of time working. Take time to figure out what you like and follow that. I used to tell my children, “Find something you like so much you’d do it for nothing. Then get someone to pay you to do it.” When developing the Apple II, they created a few in different colors. Steve Jobs eventually chose to produce them in a creme color. This is a photograph of Phil with the only known Apple II that was produced in red. 1977 advertisement for Apple II in Byte magazine
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