Oral History of Joanna Hoffman Part 2

Interviewed by Marguerite Gong Hancock, Hansen Hsu and Marc Weber on 2018-03-09 in Mountain View, CA X8786.2019
© Computer History Museum

This oral history is the second of three conducted with Joanna Hoffman. As noted in the first interview, she grew up in Eastern Europe, but was able emigrate to the US and attend MIT. Upon graduation, she moved to the west coast, where she worked at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) before moving on to Apple. While at Apple she worked closely with Steve Jobs on the original Macintosh Computer. After Jobs was forced out of Apple, she decided to join him at NeXT. When NeXT was sold to Apple, she took a “health break”, before diving into General Magic.

Throughout the interview, Joanna provides a fascinating, first person insight into what it was like to work for Steve Jobs, at both Apple and NeXT, the “why” behind the key decisions made by each of these companies, as well as the excitement and camaraderie which developed in each of these very important companies.

* 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)

Visit computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories/ for more information about the Computer History Museum's Oral History Collection.

Lot number: X8464.2018
Catalog number: 102738755