Steve Jobs once hid his Porsche 911 to convince an investor that Apple needed money and ended up securing a $20 million deal
- Steve Jobs once had to hide two Porsche 911 company cars
- Fellow NeXT employee Randy Adams revealed Jobs’ secret
- The idea was to make NeXT look poor ahead of a $20m deal
Published on Feb 11, 2025 at 4:00 PM (UTC+4)
by Jack Marsh
Last updated on Feb 11, 2025 at 4:09 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Tom Wood
Back when Apple had begun to enter freefall following its first wave of PC success, Steve Jobs had to hide his own Porsche 911 from an investor who came to his offices to strike a $20 million investment, which ultimately saved the company.
Despite a hiatus between 1985-1997, Steve Jobs was integral to everything that Apple has become.
The American businessman is largely responsible for turning around the company which was on the verge of bankruptcy despite pioneering the PC industry with the Macintosh.
And, if it wasn’t for a tiny detail such as hiding Steve Jobs’ company Porsche on the morning of a game-changing investment meeting, things might have been very different for the iPhone brand.
DISCOVER SBX CARS: The global premium car auction platform powered by Supercar Blondie
Steve Jobs had to hide two company Porsche 911 before major Apple deal
Funnily enough, Steve Jobs owed a lot to split-decision thinking with his cars.
It was the sale of his $1,300 Volkswagen Bus that funded the creation of Apple’s first-ever PC.
After that, Jobs fell in love with sports cars, so much so that he got a brand-new identical Porsche every six months.
However, one of his earliest Porsche 911 cars had to be hidden from an investor meeting for his company NeXT, which soon merged with Apple.
In a story told to Forbes, Software Engineer Randy Adams, formerly of Jobs’ company NeXT, revealed that the two had to dart around their facility to hide their beloved sports cars to make a key investor think they weren’t flush with expendable cash.
“He said, ‘Randy, we have to hide the Porsches. Ross Perot is coming by and thinking of investing in the company, and we don’t want him to think we have a lot of money,'” Adams said.
Before Perot arrived, both Porsche 911 cars were moved to the back of NeXT’s offices in Palo Alto, Calif.
Jobs and Adams’ Porsche 911 sports cars were company-issued, as were the many other cars from his beloved brand that he would give out to the best-performing employees.
The investment deal was struck and NeXT continued to make software for the next few years before merging with Apple, which saw Jobs return to the company that he started, taking the reins as CEO again.
Sadly, Jobs died in 2011, but his legacy lives on to this day.
