Mannerisms

Moritz, a Welshman, emigrated to the US and first made his name there as a Time reporter who, in 1982, inveigled Steve Jobs into being allowed to mingle with the team creating the Mac.

The previous year, Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Soul of a New Machine had told the story of how Data General built a new mini-computer. The book was a huge success, and Jobs probably wanted the same sort of history to be written about the creation of the Mac.

One of the Mac team, Andy Hertzfeld, recalls Steve Jobs telling them. "Mike's going to be our historian so you can tell him everything."

Time magazine then started thinking about making Jobs its 1982 'Man of the Year'. Moritz did some interviews at Apple which, it was assumed, were to gather material for the story. But Time then switched tack to give the award to the Mac as the Machine of the Year.

Along with the citation for the award to the Mac, was an accompanying profile of Jobs. This contained some derogatory remarks such as two colleagues' quotes:  'He (Jobs) would have made an excellent King of France', and "Something is happening to Steve that's sad and not pretty.'

Shortly after all this, Hertzfeld recalls: "Steve told the software team. 'If any one of you ever talk to him (Moritz) again you'll be fired on the spot."

A few years later, Moritz left Time and joined Sequoia, the Californian VC company, where he made his millions.