File:Oral History of Dan'l Lewin

Description
Interviewed by John Markoff, on 2015-06-01 in Mountain View, California, X7515.2015 © Computer History Museum

Dan’l Lewin was a computer sales and marketing pioneer at some of Silicon Valley’s most iconic companies and his career mirrors the technological developments of the early personal computer era to 2015. Lewin describes his early life, traveling the country with his mother and professional wrestler father. On graduation from high school as a nationally-ranked swimmer, he was accepted at Princeton and majored in political science.

On graduation, he moved out west to Northern California, in part to cover a gambling debt. Lewin worked at several menial jobs before beginning work for Sony Business Recording Systems, where he excelled at sales of tape recorders to hundreds of businesses in Silicon Valley. During a meeting with Steve Jobs concerning Sony’s new 3.5-inch floppy disk drive — which was ultimately chosen for Apple’s new Macintosh computer — Jobs eventually recruited Lewin into Apple.

While at Apple, Lewin took on many roles, his most significant being leader of sales and marketing for the educational market, which both brought the Mac to a new generation of potential customers and significantly boosted the Macintosh’s initially lackluster sales.

Lewin eventually left Apple to work with Jobs again at NeXT, about which he describes several fateful decisions faced by the company. After several years at NeXT, Lewin went to work for GO Corporation, a maker of mobile computing devices, which ultimately failed.

Lewin then founded Aurigin, a patent and intellectual property firm, as well as Kidsoft (children’s software). In 2001, Lewin was recruited by Microsoft, where he developed business relationships with companies and individuals in Silicon Valley in order to promote Microsoft locally in the Valley region. He describes his role as being a kind of ‘mayor’ for Microsoft.


 * Note: Transcripts represent what was said in the interview. However, to enhance meaning or add clarification, interviewees have the opportunity to modify this text afterward. This may result in discrepancies between the transcript and the video. Please refer to the transcript for further information - http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102740097

Visit computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories/ for more information about the Computer History Museum's Oral History Collection.

Catalog Number: 102740096 Lot Number: X7515.2015