For anyone interested in NeXT, I very strongly recommend Randall Stross's
"Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing"[0]. The book -- written when NeXT was barely breathing and Jobs had been left for dead -- is extraordinary, and I think much more revealing of Jobs than Isaacon's biography of him. (Having read Stross, it is galling how little ink Isaacson dedicates to NeXT, as it's impossible to imagine that Jobs' experience at NeXT didn't shape him upon return to Apple!) If you're curious, we also discussed NeXT on Oxide and Friends, very much informed by Stross's book.[1]
I can't recall if it was this book or another book about Jobs/NeXT, but there was a section talking about the compensation for NeXT employees.
Jobs decided to do the egalitarian/open ideal wrt employee compensation - there was a publicly-visible spreadsheet that showed EVERY EMPLOYEE'S salary.
This openness worked in the beginning of the company when there were few salary levels. But after a few rounds of evaluation/promotion, employee salary levels diverged a lot. Grumbling ensued. Spreadsheet disappeared.
Oh, it was definitely in there! And in fact, my introduction to the book came by way of its discussion of compensation at NeXT: someone (still unknown!) on Oxide and Friends indicated that Oxide's compensation model looked like that of early NeXT -- and the dollar figure (adjusted for inflation) is even roughly the same! We recounted all of this in an On the Metal episode on Oxide and Friends.[0]
What truly turned NeXT into crazy story is Jobs's obsession on the fully automated construction line. If the young Jobs's could have settled for the original color of the CAMs it may have been a recoverable issue. Jobs's insistence on a better color for the CAMs threw off the tolerances of the machinery when they were repainted.
Choose your battles wisely. Jobs only succeeded in hardware after hiring Tim Cook.
It would be fun to see this episode transcribed. I listened to it back in the day when I saw it on Twitter Spaces, but there's a lot of interesting stuff in there.
I second the recommendation for Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing. Really fascinating book. I love books that are written during an event because they lack the hindsight of books written once time has passed so they have different perspectives than later books on the topic.
Thank you for turning me onto this! I found and listened to the episode[0], and the review was outstanding: I really didn't like the book, and it was frankly a relief to hear Siracusa just absolutely light the book up. Thank you for pointing to it!
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/226316
[1] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/next-object...