
Dave Needle and the Story of the Amiga Computer [video] - velmu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nesWip4Nft0
======
tasty_freeze
I interviewed at 3DO and one of the people I interviewed with was Needle. I
recall hearing that the guy only wore t-shirts, and never wore one twice.

At the time I thought that the only way that could happen is if he had a
network of friends who supplied him with a steady stream of shirts. It was
hard to imagine a person spending the time and money if they had to do it all
themselves.

~~~
MrTonyD
When I worked for Steve Jobs he would often change clothes several times per
day. More than once when I was in his office when he would take off his
custom-made, imported dress shirt and put on another from a huge wall closet
in his office. Same for his pants. He would throw them away (our trash was
incinerated at the time). When he showed up in his old Pumas or black
turtleneck or bowtie or beat up Levis we knew that he expected to be seen by
the public or the press - he was in his "costume". He literally bought custom
shirts by the hundreds and thousands and they were delivered in cargo-
containers. It was when I worked for Steve that I realized that my philosophy
that "the rich deserve their wealth" and "it's their money" were completely
wrong and even immoral.

~~~
pkaye
Was this before he returned back to Apple? I though he always wore black
turtlenecks when he returned to Apple.

~~~
MrTonyD
Steve rotated his "costumes". I handled some of NeXT's strategic technical
accounts and also worked on some special projects in Engineering. The bowtie
and turtleneck were unusual at the time, since he seemed to favor the Pumas
and beat-up Levis when he was being seen by the public. I think he felt that
the bowtie and turtleneck had run their course.

Something that people don't appreciate is that Steve was a marketing person -
and he described himself in that way. He carefully crafted his image and
carefully selected his words. His success was not based on his personality in
the way that so many people seem to think. There are lots of short-tempered
and demanding people who are complete failures. I wish that the business
community could understand that - they seem fixated on the superficial.

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frik
I just read about the 3DO console (that he also co-invented) and how 3DO (VC
funded company) had troubles 17 years ago in "The Internet Bubble" book
(1999).

Sad to see this picture
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Dave_Nee...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Dave_Needle_Amiga_30.jpg)
and read about his dead, RIP!

 _" [...] And this high-stakes competition never rests. Just within this last
year [1998], two huge anti-Microsoft deals came down when two pairs of Kleiner
Perkins portfolio companies dramatically combined - AOL with Netscape and At
Home with Excite. The goal in these two Kleiner Perkins partner-orchestrated
moves was clearly to consolidate forces in the Internet portal space and keep
Microsoft MSN online service to distant competitor. In such efforts to seek
advantage over Microsoft and dominate the Internet industry, Kleiner Perkins,
whether intentionally or not, has been a huge contributer to the inflation of
the Internet Bubble. [...]"_ (from the book mentioned above on page 71, dated
1999) I think, we can all be grateful that MSN (a CompuServe and AOL alike
competitor on steroids) lost and the open World Wide Web won. Coming back the
Amiga video, not always the better tech wins.

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dang
We merged
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11144751](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11144751),
which announces his death, into this one, which has a nice interview (and also
was posted earlier).

~~~
igrekel
Its only when reading the comments that I realized he just passed away. A more
telling title would be helpful.

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sgt
Seems the wiki article has been updated with the news
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Needle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Needle)

~~~
melling
Not much information there. Not even a date of birth. Here's another interview
with him.

[http://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com/2012/09/dave-
needl...](http://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com/2012/09/dave-needles-one-
of-kind-federation.html)

~~~
gbraad
I had difficulty finding his birthday. He was honored with the page, ...
Responded jokingly about bday as it wasnt important until he would die.

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mariuolo
How sad. He didn't look that old, does anyone know what happened to him?

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sgt
Seems like a cheerful and friendly guy. RIP.

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gbraad
RIP

