John Couch Early Apple

John Couch started his career at Hewlett-Packard before joining Apple in 1978. He was quickly appointed head of the Lisa project, a position that Steve Jobs coveted. Steve's constant interference with the Lisa team made Couch force him out, which led to Steve's taking over the Mac project. Eventually, Couch left Apple in 1984, before Steve hired him back in 2002 to run the company's education efforts. He disclosed in Spring 2020 that we was working on a book about his time at Apple, with a working title My Life at Apple and The Steve I Knew (source).