Ed Woolard, his mentor on the Apple board, pressed Jobs for more than two years to drop the interim in front of his CEO title. Not only was Jobs refusing to commit himself, but he was baffling everyone by taking only $1 a year in pay and no stock options. "I make 50 cents for showing up," he liked to joke, "and the other 50 cents is based on performance." Since his return in July 1997, Apple stock had gone from just under $14 to just over $102 at the peak of the Internet bubble at the beginning of 2000. Woolard had begged him to take at least a modest stock grant back in 1997, but Jobs had declined, saying, "I don't want the people I work with at Apple to think I am coming back to get rich." Had he accepted that modest grant, it would have been worth $400 million. Instead he made $2.50 during that period.
( Walter Isaacson )
[ Steve Jobs ]
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