Daniel Kottke

Daniel Kottke
Daniel Kottke, January 2007
Nationality	American
Education	Columbia College, B.A. Literature and Music, 1977 Reed College (no degree)
Known for	College friend of Steve Jobs and early employee of Apple Computers

Daniel Kottke was a college friend of Steve Jobs and one of the first employees of Apple Inc.

Kottke first met Steve Jobs when they were both undergraduates at Reed College in 1972. In 1974, Kottke and Jobs made a trek in search of spiritual enlightenment to India to visit Neem Karoli Baba at his Kainchi ashram. When they got to the Neem Karoli ashram, it was almost deserted because Neem Karoli Baba had died in September 1973. Then they made a long trek up a dry riverbed to an ashram of Haidakhan Babaji. In India, they spent a lot of time on bus rides from Delhi to Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.

After returning from India, Kottke transferred to Columbia College in 1975 as a literature and music major. He stayed in touch with Jobs and they traveled together to fellow Reed College classmate Robert Friedland's All One Farm.

During his junior year at Columbia in 1976, Jobs asked Kottke to become involved in a hobbyist computer project where he assembled and tested the boards during the summer. He also arranged for Kottke to work "for an hourly rate part-time assembling circuit boards for a company called Call Computer" that didn't require technical expertise. It was during that summer that Kottke realized his own interest in computers. Kottke stated in an interview with KQED/PBS that both he and Jobs' sister Patty (who was also assembling boards while watching TV) were the first part-time employees of Apple, while Bill Fernandez was the first full-time employee.

In 1977, after graduating from Columbia, Kottke joined Apple as full-time employee #12. It was at that time that Jobs, Kottke, and Jobs' girlfriend Chrisann Brennan shared a house near the Apple office in Cupertino.