Oral History of Joanna Hoffman

Interviewed by Marguerite Gong Hancock, Hansen Hsu and Marc Weber on 2018-01-22 in Mountain View, CA X8464.2018
© Computer History Museum

Joanna Hoffman was born in 1955 and lived in Soviet Armenia and Poland until 1968. She was then able to immigrate to the US at the age of 13, after her mother had married an American and moved to Buffalo NY. She learned English quickly and excelled in school. She was fortunate to be guided into some high-quality schools where she could study physics and calculus. Her interest in physics led her to enroll in MIT, where she felt “at home” and had a wonderful college experience.

While at MIT, she developed an interest not only in physics, but archaeology, which in turn led her back to Europe for a time. Through personal connections, she eventually found her way to Silicon Valley and Xerox PARC. From there, she found her way to Apple, where she worked with Jef Raskin and eventually Steve Jobs. Her major focus at Apple was in user interface design and marketing and was the author of the Macintosh business plan.

* Note: Transcripts represent what was said in the interview. However, to enhance meaning or add clarification, interviewees have the opportunity to modify this text afterward. This may result in discrepancies between the transcript and the video. Please refer to the transcript for further information - http://www.computerhistory.org/collec... (The document contain the transcript of both sessions)

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Lot number: X8464.2018
Catalog number: 102738710