How I Became Mac Marketing Director - The Real Story

When I first arrived in March 1982, there were just 18 people in the Mac group. Johanna Hoffman worked on marketing related projects, and young Chris Espinosa handled technical documentation. Almost everyone else was technical. Except for Berry Cash (see photo).

A few months earlier Steve had hired 44 year old Cash, and named him to be the Mac marketing director.

During Berry’s career, he had worked closely with some great technology leaders and investors: Ben Rosen, LJ Seven, Rod Canion, and others. Steve had met Berry during the very early days of Apple as a result of Berry’s executive role at Mostek, an early chip manufacturer located in Texas. Mostek sold chips to Steve and they had taken a liking to each other. 

By 1980 Berry had left Mostek and Steve convinced him to help out on the Mac project. Berry was recovering from prostate cancer and had just gone through a divorce. He lived in Dallas and needed to be close to his two children. Nonetheless Steve convinced him to fly back and forth to the Bay Area on a weekly basis.

So upon joining the Mac team as a product manager, I officially reported to Berry Cash. Berry had lots of great experience in building technology companies and bringing products to market. He was fun, mature and strategic - and I enjoyed working for him. Initially we worked on assembling the first version of the Mac Product Introduction Plan (PIP).

Within a short period of time Berry informed Steve that he could no longer commute back and forth. He needed to be in Dallas fulltime. And he quit the Mac group. He went on to form the Texas-base venture capital firm Berry Cash Southwest Partnership, affiliated with Menlo Park-based Interwest Partners.

Steve immediately sent a memo to the company that said:

“I’m disappointed to announce that Berry Cash has resigned as Mac marketing director for personal reasons. Until we can find someone great to replace Berry, I’ve appointed Mike Murray as our acting marketing director.”

Now, it’s possible to read Steve’s quote in one of two ways:

1. Mike Murray has no chance of becoming our marketing director because he’s not great, and he’ll never be great.
2. Mike Murray has the chance of a lifetime to begin “acting like the marketing director".

Being born with the gene for optimism and hope, I instinctively opted for #2 and began to “act like the marketing director”. And I remembered a quote I once read, “Start acting like the person you want to become.” This was a golden opportunity and I couldn’t pass it up. I was actually excited! 

Over the next couple months Steve brought in many marketing director candidates for us to interview. And there were some very good ones. But for one reason or another, I was always able to point out a concern or flaw in each of the candidates. Steve would agree with my concern – and the candidate would not receive an offer.

Eventually, either my acting proved to be credible, or Steve simply ran out of candidates, and he named me as the Mac marketing director. 

However, I don’t recall ever being called “great”. 

(Berry -- if you have a chance to read this, please know of the positive influence you had on me, even though our time together was so short!)