From Steve Jobs garage to Tim Cook — Chris Espinosa, Apple’s longest serving man

Chris Espinosa, an Apple Inc employee who was hired by founder Steve Jobs himself, when the tech giant was still working out of Jobs’ parent’s garage, has become the company’s longest-serving employee, Hindustan Times reported.

Espinosa joined Apple as a part-timer at 14-years-old while still a school student in 1977. And when the corporate was incorporated that same year he become one of its earliest official employees — number 8. Apple was co-founded by Jobs and Steve Wozniac.

What He Worked On

When he joined in 1977 Espinosa worked on testing the Apple II BASIC operating system (OS) during his Christmas holidays.

Notably, despite the rising and falling tides at Apple, change in leadership and board tussles, Espinosa has been a constant at the office. He stayed with Apple when Jobs left in 1985 to found NeXT, and was stil there when Jobs returned in 1997.

After school he wrote software manuals and codes. Espinosa is Apple’s current and all-time longest-serving employee.

On Jobs and Apple

In an interview Espinosa called Jobs a “manical genius” who would “now allow inadequacy or compromise”. “He’s a maniac… a maniacal genius. His job is to stir up everything… He will not leave anything alone. He will not allow inadequacy or compromise to exist,” Espinosa said.

Notably, Espinosa, Jobs and Wozniac were all alumnus of Homestead High School and met Jobs while the tech wizard was installing an Apple I at a local shop.

Speaking to the media on Apple’ success, Espinosa in an interview credited “empathy, focus and impute”.

“There were three words. Empathy: know your customer, know what they want. Focus: do fewer things better. And impute: always carry value in everything you do. Those are things that we do today,” he said.

He also gained attention in May this year after flagging a fake “vintage” Apple employee badge on sale on eBay by identifying the errors.

“That wasn’t taken with a Polaroid with a flash. The laminate dimensions are all wrong. That’s a computer font, not an IBM Selectric Orator-type ball. That’s not my original sketch which was on a national engineering pad,” Espinosa pointed out.