Pang: One thing about the pirate metaphor is that it has a kind of machismo that made me wonder if there were any issues for women working at Apple.
Kare: My answer is exactly what Caroline Rose said. I felt as if I could do my job, and that was not any kind of problem or issue. I can't recall her words exactly, but whatever she said, that's what I think, too.
Pang: Sandy Miranda said that women were in more positions of authority at Apple than anywhere else she'd worked in.
Kare: We had a female CFO [chief financial officer, Debbie Coleman], and lots of women in senior positions. And Steve Jobs never had any trouble with that.
Pang: You were creative director at Apple for a couple years.
Kare: After the Mac shipped, and-- I can't remember exactly what stage the product was in, but I was recruited by Tom Suiter to go work in Creative Services, at a time when it seemed as if the main Mac development was over. I was always impressed by Tom: I thought he was really creative, and capable, and was particularly interested in working with him. He's very talented, and went on to co-found the CKS Group.
But I realized, by working in Creative Services at Apple and NeXT, that what I really wanted to do was to be back doing bitmaps. And I've been doing that ever since.
I realize that I was very, very lucky to have that job at Apple, because I find it really interesting to solve that problem of, How do you make a concept in 16-by-16 black and white dots? I'm still really interested in that. I really like doing things in color, but if I could pick a project that I would start tomorrow, it would be redoing the phone graphics for Nokia cellphones. That would be a good match for me.