Andy Grove vs. Steve Jobs. It's No Contest. And Why Steve Made Me Swear a Personal Oath to Him.

The death last week of Gordon Moore, a founder of Intel and the definer of the often-misquoted Moore's Law, reminds me of the incredible week I had meetings with Intel founder and CEO Andy Grove and Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs, two of the biggest titans of Silicon Valley in their prime, and it is a story I have been meaning to share for more than 25 years.

I was a partner manager at Adobe, and I managed the Intel and Apple accounts. Apple's stock was tanked and near the lowest price ever at $0.15 adjusting for stock splits. Adobe was trying to distance itself from Apple to keep its stock from getting hammered further also.

Adobe was leaning in on the PC market by porting all of its software to the Wintel Duopoly, which is something Intel and Microsoft forbade us to say or write.

Andy Grove and 3 colleagues arrived 5 minutes early at the new Adobe headquarters in downtown San Jose, and I went down to the lobby to pick them up. I gave Andy my business card, and he gave me his. We got into the elevator; I wanted to talk with Andy, so I said, "Congratulations on the Time's Man of the Year Award." "Oh, thank you," he replied with no pretension. Then what do you say? Turns out that was not really a good conversation starter.

VP of Marketing Bob Roblin opted out of the Andy meeting and gave my boss Dana major anxiety. He said, "well, what could be more stressful, presenting to God?" That's how big a deal Andy Grove was in 1998. One of the recognized great men of the world. During the meeting Andy listened to the discussion and PDF-no-matter-what pitch patiently, with great focus, and the apparent interest of a proud uncle.

After we finished, he said "I have never used PDF or had anyone send me one," and we said we could send him one a little too desperately. He did not seem persuaded that it was strategic. Intel was interested in discussing straight-to-silicon printing with Adobe, which Adobe did not seem to recognize as an interesting opportunity.

Andy made me feel good about talking to him, and all the Intel people I knew said he had that effect on everyone. He could remember Intel employee's names he had met once or twice, even though the company had tens of thousands of employees. There was something completely consistent and appealing about Andy Grove. Andy made me like Intel Pentium chips even more and the PCs that used them despite my aversion to Microsoft.

A few days later the Adobe team went to Apple headquarters at One Infinite Loop in Cupertino. Apple people met us and escorted us to the elevator and then backed up and took the stairs and met us on the 3rd floor and showed us into the conference room Steve Jobs used--might have been the board room. Employees did not use the elevator in that building because if Steve got in the elevator with you, he would often ask you what you did. If he did not like your answer, he would note your name from your badge and go back to his office and have you fired and escorted out.

I had heard that when Jobs walked into a room, that there was an energy and buzz that came with him. He was 20 minutes late to the meeting, and there was no significant increase in energy when he finally walked in. He did not apologize for being late, of course, and revved up his pitch of why Adobe should not give up on Apple and keep porting and developing software for the Mac. I know, it sounds ludicrous now, but Apple was nearly irrelevant in 1998 and possibly going bankrupt.

Jobs was a good pitchman and storyteller. He was a bit defensive but also honest and vulnerable about problems he had not solved yet. Net-net he told us he was about to launch a $90 million campaign, which I would see later was the iconic "Think Different" campaign with images of Einstein, Picasso, Mandela, Lennon, and more. He did think big and different.

Then he turned to something in the middle of the table covered in a sheet. He said now he was going to show us a new computer that would revolutionize the industry like nothing that had come before.

But before he did, he asked us to raise our right hand and swear that we would keep what we were about to see confidential. We had had a corporate NDA in place for more than 10 years, and he knew that, but he asked for the oath anyway. I looked left and right across the Adobe side of the table, and my executives were raising their right hand in obedience waiting for the prompt on the oath. "I swear I will not leak any information about what I am about to see." We all said it. It felt weird.

Satisfied he whipped the sheet off of the iMac, the first product using what would become that iconic translucent plastic in aqua and other bright pastel color options. Computers the colors of flowers. It was unheard of. It had no floppy drive, but it did have an ethernet port. It was pretty big and weighed 38 pounds and had a handle on the top. I asked Steve if it was portable, and he thought and did not reply, so I added "Luggable?" and he shrug-nodded.

The Adobe people were quiet and seemed a bit intimidated. My boss had planned to shake Apple down and ask them to pay us to develop software for Apple, but he chickened out big time after Steve said he would do just about anything but that.

After the presentation, I was the only one who went around the long table to introduce myself, shake his hand, and I presented my business card to Steve. He took my card and stared at my title: Strategic Partner Manager. He looked me up and halfway down and seemed mighty unimpressed at how young I was. I waited for him to give me his card, and of course he did not; he did not have business cards. He was Steve Jobs.

He said, "Apple should be your most strategic partner." He had a point and of course would prove it bringing the stock up to $13.36 split-adjusted before he died in 2011--89X higher than the day we met.

I felt so much smaller talking with Steve than Andy. I disappointed Steve. Steve made me doubt myself; Andy made me excited and motivated to partner with him. Steve seemed so much smaller than Andy to me.

When I got home, my wife asked me how was meeting Steve Jobs, and I said it was pretty good, but I was reluctant to say anything for fear of violating my oath to Steve Jobs and avoided talking about the product even after the product was released. Stronger than any NDA I ever signed for sure.

Steve knew Andy was a big deal and asked him to invest in Apple and join the board in 1978. Andy invested a few thousand but did not take the board seat. Andy was a friend and mentor to Steve throughout the decades, including for Steve's battle with cancer.

I never bought an Apple computer or iphone after meeting Steve. I was team Andy and still am, but I am glad I had a chance to meet with both of them that incredible week.

So farewell to Gordon Moore, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs. The Valley is not the same without you.