Steve Jobs was worth billions of dollars, but according to former Apple executive Scott Forstall, the Apple co-founder found an amusing way to use his famous $1 salary to his advantage in the company cafeteria.
The story was told by Forstall during a 2017 appearance at the Computer History Museum and covered by The Apple Post at the time. Forstall recalled that Jobs would insist on paying whenever the pair ate together at Apple’s Caffè Macs.
Employees paid for food by swiping their Apple badges, with the cost later deducted from their paychecks. Jobs, however, was famously paid a salary of just $1 per year.
Forstall said Jobs explained the joke to him after he questioned why the CEO would wait at the register to pay for both of their meals. Jobs pointed out that because the cafeteria bill was deducted from salary, he did not know who was ultimately paying when he swiped his badge.
Forstall jokingly characterized the billionaire Apple founder as putting one over on his own company a few dollars at a time.
The $1 salary was real. Apple’s 2007 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission states that Jobs had received a $1 annual salary since returning to Apple in 1997 and becoming interim CEO. His entire compensation for fiscal 2007 consisted of that $1 salary, although Jobs held substantial Apple stock and had previously received other awards.
The cafeteria itself was important enough to Jobs that he recruited restaurateur Francesco Longoni to overhaul it after returning to Apple. Caffè Macs became known for serving restaurant-quality food to employees at the company’s Infinite Loop campus.
Forstall’s story is a small glimpse of the more playful side of a figure usually remembered for intense product reviews, exacting standards and carefully rehearsed Apple keynotes. Fifteen years after Jobs’ death, it remains one of the more unusual stories from everyday life inside Apple during his time as CEO.