GoKawiilIt used to be common in Japan for someone to spend their entire working life at a single company, but it’s almost unheard of in the US.
However, Chris Espinosa, Apple employee number eight, has done just that – and says he has no plans to go anywhere else …
He first started working at Apple in 1976 on a part-time basis at the age of just 14. His role then was to write software for the Apple 1 computers made in Steve Jobs’ garage, and to demonstrate the machines to potential customers.
A profile in The New York Times says that his job has changed many times in the company’s 50-year history, but he is still an employee there today. He said at one time he was told that it was only his long service that protected him from one of the company’s many rounds of layoffs over the years.
Apple laid off staff “again and again and again,” Mr. Espinosa said. His manager told him that he had been spared because he had worked for the company for so long that his severance package would be too expensive. “I was wondering what I was going to do because I had no college degree and I had only worked at one company,” Mr. Espinosa said. Then he figured: “I was here when we turned the lights on. I might as well stick around until we turn the lights off.”
He’s still there today, now part of the tvOS team.
Photo: 9to5Mac/Meredith Espinosa–CC4.0/Carles Rabada