Avie Tevanian
American software engineerWikipedia
6
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3
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Search complete. 6 mentions across 3 episodes found for "Avie Tevanian".
Oct 8, 2026
Geoffrey CainGUEST
And I found that that's the case as I was writing this book, that Steve Jobs or the NeXT team would do something at the time that seemed small or not so relevant, and nobody could see what the future would look like.
Geoffrey CainGUEST
But Steve and his team, Avie Tevanian, Bud Tribble, they all had such a far-reaching vision that they would do something that seemed small, but when you actually looked at it, it was quite profound.
Geoffrey CainGUEST
They were taking object-oriented programming, and they were finding ways to layer it on top of these Sun SPARC stations.
Geoffrey CainGUEST
These Windows machines, Windows NT needed this sort of thing.
16 MINS LATER
Geoffrey CainGUEST
So NeXT gets the attention of Apple, and they decide that there's gonna be this thing called a shootout.
Geoffrey CainGUEST
That's what Gil Amelio, the CEO, calls it.
Geoffrey CainGUEST
They're gonna bring in Jean-Louis Gassée and Steve Jobs with Avie Tevanian, his software chief, and these two are gonna do their own presentations, and they're gonna decide, decide who wins.
Geoffrey CainGUEST
So Jean-Louis Gassée goes in, he goes in for his presentation.
Jason SnellHOST
You've heard about this gentleman.
Jason SnellHOST
It is Avie Tevanian, the co-creator of the Mach kernel at Carnegie Mellon, NeXT's software genius, who has really only ever worked at startups and now is going to be in charge of software at Apple, the Apple people, the NeXT people, and this, up to this point, completely disastrous, failed many, many times operating system project.
Jason SnellHOST
Look, Copeland failed so badly Apple ended up spending $400 million on NeXT.
Jason SnellHOST
They've done that now.
Jason SnellHOST
They've handed Avie Tevanian the keys.
Jason SnellHOST
He will ultimately, using that word again, rise to the occasion, but it will take much longer and be much more difficult than anyone really expects.
Jason SnellHOST
And that is another story for a future series on Designed in California.
Marcio SaitoHOST
About 25 years ago, I had a career conversation that stayed with me forever.
Marcio SaitoHOST
I was talking with A.V. Tevanian, he was Steve Jobs CTO at Apple, about taking on my very first technology leadership role.
Marcio SaitoHOST
I was young, ambitious, and frankly, terrified.
Marcio SaitoHOST
A.V. looked at me and said something simple.