The New York Times published a blog post on April 1, interviewing veteran employee Chris Espinosa as Apple celebrated its 50th anniversary. Hired in 1976 at the age of 14, he rode a moped to work and became employee No. 8. He is now the only remaining founding-era veteran still with the company.
As cited in the blog post by IT Home, Espinosa’s start at Apple dates back to a Wednesday afternoon in 1976, when the 14-year-old rode his Puch moped a mile and a half to work. Too young to obtain a driver’s license, he could only commute between school and work on this small motorcycle.
His employer was the then little-known Apple Computer Company, and his job was to demonstrate the Apple II to potential customers and write programs for it.
Half a century has passed, and although Espinosa’s role has changed several times, he has never left. Now 64, he has become an increasingly rare figure in today’s economic landscape: someone who has spent his entire career with a single company.
In Silicon Valley, where startups sprout like mushrooms and collapse overnight, and software engineers and product managers switch jobs every few years, “lifers” like him are exceptionally scarce.
Reflecting on those years, he fondly recalls the golden era of “creating the whole industry from scratch,” where everything from computer retail stores to business software awaited definition. Even after enrolling at the University of California, Berkeley, he continued to write user manuals for Apple part-time, eventually dropping out in 1981 at Steve Jobs’ persuasion to return—and he never left again.
These long years were not without challenges. Espinosa admits that in the years before Jobs’ return, the company was permeated with an “arrogant” atmosphere and underwent multiple large-scale layoffs. He even once felt lost without a college degree but ultimately chose to stay.
Addressing the impetuous trends in today’s tech circle, Espinosa speaks candidly. He points out that many companies come and go, merely trying to cash in before the bubble bursts—a style that is not Apple’s way.
