Welcome to Internal Tech Emails: internal tech industry emails that surface in public records. 🔍 If you haven’t signed up, join 60,000+ others and get the newsletter:
Steve Jobs emails Paul Rand
Subj: Howdy
Date: Sat, Mar 2, 1996 1:25 PM EDT
From: Steve Jobs
To: Paul Rand
Paul,
A friend of mine just gave me your email address, and I couldn’t wait to drop you this line. I hope this finds you and Mirian well and in good spirits. I imagine you both at home, looking out the window into your cold, barren Conneticut meadow.
Things are well with me. My family continues to grow, with the birth of our daughter Erin in August. She is a delight, and the entire miracle of it all still stops me in my tracks now and then. Reed is four and a half, and he is a wonderfully curious boy. Lisa is finishing her last year in high school and is off to Harvard next year. I guess Lisa’s impending departure from the nest makes me realize that Reed and Erin will leave too soon as well. Life is fleeting....
Paul, your NeXT logo continues to serve us well. The company has not yet achieved the success of your logo for it, but we are still trying. Some new products look very promising, so maybe this time next year we will grow into our logo after all.
Its been a long while since we have spoken, but you are both in my thoughts often.
Steve Jobs
Date: Sun, Mar 3, 1996 10:29 PM EDT
From: Paul Rand
Subj: Reply to howdy
To: Steve Jobs
Dear Steve
Thanks for your nice letter. Congratulations .
Were both in good form, W e n ow have two grandchildren. One is tackling the computer, and the other is tackling anybody that gets in his way.
Incidentally, my new book is coming out next week; please send me your home address so I can send you a copy.
Love from Marion. Keep in touch.
Best to your growing family.
Paul
Subj: Re: Reply to howdy
Date: Mon, Mar 4, 1996 11:30 AM EDT
From: Steve Jobs
To: Paul Rand
Paul,
[REDACTED]
Looking forward to reading you new book. I guess one decides to give away all of one’s secrets and special perspectives at some point, before they are lost forever. Since I am sure that you are going to live to be at least 150 years old, you may have begun too early...giving your competition a leg up.
Best,
Steve
This document was originally reported in Steve Jobs in Exile, Geoffrey Cain’s excellent book about Jobs’s wilderness years building NeXT. The document is part of the Paul Rand papers at Yale.
Previously: Steve Jobs emails himself (September 2, 2010)
Previously: Steve Jobs emails Bill Gates (February 3, 1998)
Previously: Steve Jobs negotiates Apple’s deal with Microsoft (July 24, 1997)
Previously: 25+ documents from Steve Jobs in the full archive
Inside The Tech Emails Files
See how the biggest companies in tech actually operate — in their own words.
The Tech Emails Files are 300+ internal documents pulled from court filings we track year-round. Strategy memos. Board emails. Messages between CEOs and execs at Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Tesla, and more.
Investors use it to understand how leadership actually thinks. Journalists use it for primary sources. Founders and operators use it to study how the biggest companies make decisions.
Upgrade to a paid subscription, and you’ll unlock access to the full archive:
John Sculley: Apple is suing Steve Jobs
September 23, 1985
As you know, the last week has been a difficult one for Apple. We were faced with an unpleasant series of events which led to Steve Jobs’ resignation as chairman of the board of Apple. Now we are moving into another week, with another major decision. I wanted you to know about it in advance, why it was made, and what it means to you.
After long and careful deliberation, Apple’s board of directors and officers have decided to file a lawsuit against Steve. It wasn’t an easy thing to do and the company tried very hard to avoid litigation. But in the end, the protection of Apple’s shareholders, employees and technology had to be the overriding concern.
The lawsuit centers on Steve’s responsibilities as chairman of the board to protect Apple’s shareholders and employees, and not to allow its proprietary information to be used in any way which is contrary to the best interests of the company.
As you know, on September 12, Steve told the board he was starting a new company that wouldn’t compete with Apple and that he wouldn’t be recruiting any Apple managers to join him. But the next day, he announced that five Apple managers were joining him. Apple asserts Steve secretly made plans for the new company while serving as Apple’s chairman, that he falsely represented his company and intentions to the board, that his company was designed to compete with Apple, and that he plans on using Apple’s confidential and proprietary information in his new company.
In addition, both Steve and Rich Page (who is also named in the lawsuit) had agreed -- as a condition of their employment -- not to use confidential or proprietary information belonging to Apple for any competing enterprise, or in any way that wasn’t in the best interests of Apple. Rich had been working on a new generation personal computer and the company contends that Apple’s efforts on the project are to be used for the benefit of Steve’s new company.
No one is trying to prevent Steve from starting another company and continuing to bring innovation and creativity to the industry. However, the company firmly believes that if he does so, he must do it on his own -- not by using Apple’s confidential or proprietary information.
Through the legal action, Apple is trying to prevent Steve’s company from using the research and development efforts that legitimately belong to Apple.
The matter is now in the hands of our lawyers. Al Eisenstat, our general counsel, will probably be the only Apple person who will spend a substantial amount of time on the situation. However, it may become necessary from time to time to call upon a few of you for assistance.
For the rest of us, there is much work to do to keep the momentum growing for Apple. We’re encouraged by the strength our sales are showing, and the speed at which we’ve reduced our overhead. In fact, we have just told Wall Street analysts that they can expect better results for our fourth quarter.
We’ve introduced nine new peripheral products that are receiving very high marks from dealers, industry watchers and customers. Many are saying that this Christmas will be an Apple Christmas. We have a lean, competent and dedicated group of employees and a seasoned executive staff. We’re well poised for the current industry conditions, as well as for the growth which we believe will follow.
You are responsible for the renewed momentum we’re starting to build, and I thank each one of you for the contributions you’ve made toward our success. I’m confident and excited about Apple in 1986, and with your help, we’ll continue to achieve and set the pace for the industry.
John Sculley
President and CEO
This document was originally reported in Steve Jobs in Exile, Geoffrey Cain’s excellent book about Jobs’s wilderness years building NeXT. The document is part of the Apple collection at Stanford.
Previously: 25+ documents from Steve Jobs in the full archive
Mark Zuckerberg emails Meta Customer Support Escalations
From: Mark Zuckerberg
Date: Sunday, September 17, 2023
Subject: @jrecompanion on IG
Joe Rogan messaged me that posts on the Joe Rogan Experience Companion IG page keep getting flagged and deleted and that he got a message that the account is close to being deleted, but he isn’t aware of any policies the post violate.
Can you help figure out what’s going on here? Also, if we have a list of accounts that we double review before taking action on them, can we put Joe’s pages on that list to make sure we’re reducing false positives on his accounts as much as possible?
[This document is from New Mexico v. Facebook (2026).]
Previously: 35+ documents from Mark Zuckerberg in the full archive
Elizabeth Holmes emails Rupert Murdoch
From: Elizabeth Holmes
To: Rupert Murdoch
Sent: Tuesday, January 6, 2015 7:50 PM
It was wonderful to have you here today.
I so look forward to the opportunity to continue our conversations, including one day a more detailed conversation on China ...
I would be an honor to have you be part of our company.
Elizabeth
From: Rupert Murdoch
To: Elizabeth Holmes
Sent: Wednesday, January 7, 2015 7:03 AM
Thanks, Elizabeth. Enjoyed every minute of it. Any blood results? See you soon, Rupert.
Sent from my iPad
[This document is from U.S. v. Holmes (2022).]
X link
Threads link
Previously: Elizabeth Holmes emails Rupert Murdoch about WSJ story (September 8, 2015)
Previously: Elizabeth Holmes texts Sunny Balwani (December 27, 2014)
Previously: Elizabeth Holmes’s schedule (Circa 2005–2009)
A note from @TechEmails
Every year, I track hundreds of court cases and review more than 10,000 filings to bring you Internal Tech Emails. If you like @TechEmails, and would like to help make this work more sustainable, consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
You’ll be supporting the research that drives Internal Tech Emails, and will help ensure that it can continue publishing. And you’ll also receive access to the full archive of internal tech emails, with 300+ documents from Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Tesla, and more.
Thanks for reading!
-Internal Tech Emails
Sent from my iPad

