You can just read his story (which has been on HN several times): http://www.pacifict.com/Story/

That was a _very_ different time.

Got a summary for those of us who can't listen right now?

Guy long-term sneaks into Apple buildings to get his passion project shipped with Apple's first PowerPC Macs.

But my summary really doesn't do the interview justice. Highly worth listening to.

Note that the Graphing Calculator story is not something that could work after approximately the turn of the century. Security tightened up considerably sometime around then.

Possibly, but a great deal of security only works because people never really tests it.

There’s a few cases of people walking into ‘secure’ data centers plugging in their laptops only to realize they’re at the wrong company. People while swipe badges, act befuddled because it didn’t work, and then get let into the building. Or get out of an elevator with a bunch of people and just walk in as part of a crowd which holds the doors for each other.

The "badging" culture at Apple is pretty extreme. It is routine and totally expected for a low-level worker bee to watch and call out a VP behind him who fails to badge through any external or internally locked door. One of the highlights of my time there was once having to remind Craig Federighi that he forgot to badge into a secured area.

Also related to the "secret projects" culture there. Being high on the hierarchy doesn't matter to secret project roster. Security is that key to how Apple operates.

Reminds me of a privacy training I had to do at Apple. They made a point in the invite to be on time because they had a lot to cover and lateness would not be tolerated. A VP rolled in 2 minutes late and tried the “do you know who I am” thing. The instructor basically said “I don’t care. You are late. Go away and reschedule for another time”. I loved that he could just shut down a VP like that.