Case in point: At 12, Jobs wanted to build a frequency counter, but he didn't have the parts. Ever sensible, he suspected that Bill Hewlett, then the CEO of HP, might have some extras. And so, with the bizarre confidence of an 8th grader, he found Hewlett's number in the telephone book and called it.
"He answered the phone and he was real nice," Jobs recalled in a 1985 Playboy interview. After a 20 minute chat, Hewlett agreed to give Jobs the parts — and he also offered him a summer job at HP, assembling frequency counters. "Assembling may be too strong," Jobs corrected himself. "I was putting in screws."
Later, Jobs reflected on the experience again, prescribing a similar course for even post-pubescent job seekers. "Most people don't get those experiences because they never ask," he said in a 1994 interview. They should. "I've never found anyone that didn't want to help me if I asked them for help."
The secret is to make the call, he said. "Most people never ask, and sometimes that's what separates the people that do things from the people that just dream about them."
