Legendary Apple Engineer Rejected for Genius Bar Job

A computer engineer who, during his 21 years at Apple, persuaded Steve Jobs to migrate the Mac computer from PowerPC processors to Intel chips, had his application for a job at the Genius Bar in an Apple store rejected. JK Scheinberg retired eight years ago, but wanted to return to the workplace, The New York Times reports.

“I’m lucky enough to get my tech support from JK Scheinberg, the engineer at Apple who led the effort that moved the Mac to Intel processors,” The New York Times’ Ashton Applewhite wrote. “A little restless after retiring in 2008, at 54, he figured he’d be a great fit for a position at an Apple store Genius Bar, despite being twice as old as anyone else at the group interview. “On the way out, all three of the interviewers singled me out and said, ‘We’ll be in touch,’ ” he said. “I never heard back.””

Applewhite points to the Genius Bar overlooking Scheinberg as an example of its ageism, in addition to its anecdotal preference for young, good-looking staff members. Given the pedigree of someone like Scheinberg, it seems like a reasonable conclusion to draw.

Scheinberg is one of the unsung heroes responsible for the success of modern-day Apple. His wife, Kim, summarised his influence thusly (via MacRumours):

“At this point, JK has three PCs in his office at Apple, and another three in the office at home, all sold to him by a friend who sells custom built PCs (can’t order them through the usual Apple channels because no one in the company knows what he’s working on). All are running the Mac OS. 

In JK’s office, Joe watches in amazement as JK boots up an Intel PC and up on the screen comes the familiar ‘Welcome to Macintosh’. 

Joe pauses, silent for a moment, then says, “I’ll be right back.” 

He comes back a few minutes later with Bertrand Serlet [VP of Software for Apple]. 

Max (our 1-year-old) and I were in the office when this happened because I was picking JK up from work. Bertrand walks in, watches the PC boot up, and says to JK, “How long would it take you to get this running on a (Sony) Vaio?” JK replies, “Not long” and Bertrand says, “Two weeks? Three?” 

JK said more like two *hours*. Three hours, tops. 

Bertrand tells JK to go to Fry’s (the famous West Coast computer chain) and buy the top of the line, most expensive Vaio they have. So off JK, Max and I go to Frys. We return to Apple less than an hour later. By 7:30 that evening, the Vaio is running the Mac OS. [My husband disputes my memory of this and says that Matt Watson bought the Vaio. Maybe Matt will chime in.] 

The next morning, Steve Jobs is on a plane to Japan to meet with the President of Sony.”

Image courtesy of JK Scheinberg (Twitter).