Chris Espinosa
Chris Espinosa (/ˌɛspɪˈnoʊzə/) is a senior employee of Apple Inc., officially employee number 8.[1] Having joined the company at the age of fourteen in 1976 when it was still housed in Steve Jobs's parents' garage, writing software manuals and coding after school, he is the company's current and all-time longest-serving employee.
Chris Espinosa | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | September 18, 1961 |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | University of California, Berkeley |
| Occupation(s) | Engineer, Inventor |
| Known for | Longest-serving Apple employee |
Career
Espinosa met Steve Jobs at Paul Terrell's Byte Shop while Jobs was installing an Apple I, and later befriended Steve Wozniak. Espinosa had been warned against the two by his teachers at Homestead High School, where they had also been students.
In 1976, the 14-year-old Espinosa became employee number eight at Apple, as one of the youngest employees. He began writing BASIC programs in Jobs's garage. He and other early employees slept underneath their desks. He has worked his entire life at Apple, with the exception of a brief hiatus during which he studied at the University of California, Berkeley,[2] where his freshman advisor was graduate student Andy Hertzfeld, who along with Barney Stone, had started a local Apple user group.[3] In 1981, Jobs convinced Espinosa to drop out of Berkeley to work in Apple's publications department. Although Espinosa did not participate in the company's initial public offering, Wozniak had offered up to 2,000 pre-IPO shares at $5 a share to each of a group of 40 employees, including Espinosa, who he thought were undervalued, which became known as the WozPlan.[2][4]
Espinosa has worked in a variety of positions and departments at Apple.[2] He has contributed to the classic Mac OS, A/UX, HyperCard, Taligent and Kaleida Labs (as project manager in the AIM alliance),[5][6] AppleScript, Xcode, macOS, and the iOS Family Sharing system.[7] He is a frequent speaker at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference and occasionally appears as a panelist at its Stump the Experts session.
In media
Actor Eddie Hassell portrayed Espinosa in the 2013 film, Jobs.[8]
References
- "Who is the longest-serving Apple employee?". Macworld. Retrieved November 15, 2022.
- O'Grady, Jason D. (December 30, 2008)). Apple Inc. (Corporations That Changed the World). Greenwood, p 30. Archived at Google Books. Retrieved October 18, 2015.
- Pang, Alex (13, June 2000). "Interview with Chris Espinosa". Stanford University.
- "Jobs (2013)". History vs. Hollywood. Retrieved October 18, 2015.
- "Taligent moves up ship dates, may offer components in '93". MacWEEK. Vol. 7, no. 4. January 25, 1993. p. 3. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- Levy, Steven (January 10, 1994). "Mac vs. the 'Dweebs'". ComputerWorld. Vol. 28, no. 2. p. 83. Retrieved June 23, 2020.
- Kosner, Anthony Wing (June 14, 2014). "Apple's New Family Plan Makes It Easy To Solve The iTunes Identity Crisis". Forbes. Archived from the original on November 10, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2017.
- Cwelich, Lorraine (August 16, 2013). "Eddie Hassell Talks 'Jobs', Working with Ashton, and Driving Fast Cars". Elle.
External links
- Personal Twitter page
- Lemmons, Phil (February 1984). "An Interview: The MacIntosh Design Team". Byte Vol 9, No 2
- "The Original Macintosh: Anecdotes about the development of Apple's original Macintosh, and the people who made it (4 stories)". Folklore
- Holland, James (February 24, 2011). "Apple’s longest serving employee: It's not Steve Jobs". Electricpig.