Apple co-founder Steve Jobs will always be remembered for his polished product introductions, yet Gregor Bailar, who worked for him at NeXT Computer after he was ousted from the tech giant, saw a different side.
Mr Bailar recalls a hot-mic moment when Mr Jobs took the stage with a NeXT Cube prototype.
The stakes could not have been higher at the time. It was his first product introduction since being removed from Apple in 1985, and he needed the crowd's attention to get the world talking about his technology again.
"It should be running, it ain't running. Come on, come on," Mr Jobs said shortly after walking offstage when he turned on the NeXT Cube and promised the crowd they were about to experience the future.
The crowd in attendance at the Louise M Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco did not react to Mr Jobs's panicked off-stage comments. They couldn't hear him, but the mic was on for the camera that was recording the event.
The video from that camera was not seen by the public until 2016, when it was posted to YouTube.
"Come on, OK, there it is," Mr Jobs whispers as the computer finally boots up to thunderous applause.
Mr Bailar, who was NeXT's technical director and oversaw the details behind the Cube's debut demonstration, told The National: "I was talking with him back stage, assuring him, 'Yeah, it's coming'.
"We had rehearsed it many times, but we gave the start of the Cube a delay to give Steve time to walk off stage."
Mr Jobs, however, had apparently forgotten about the delay, hence his brief panic during the closely watched product introduction.
NeXT's introduction to the world that day was largely viewed as a success by the thousands in attendance and lauded in various media reports.
The event concluded with a unique presentation that would show off the NeXT Cube's powerful new chip that enabled pristine sound quality, which was demonstrated by having a violinist play a duet alongside the computer.
Mr Bailar said there had been several Cubes set up for various reasons to lessen the likelihood that the presentation would fail, and the sound for the violin duet wasn't coming from the NeXT Cube Mr Jobs was using on stage.
"There was a third Cube and that's where the sound came from," he said.
After leaving NeXT in 1992, Mr Bailar went on to work for Nasdaq and the National Wildlife Foundation, among other organisations.
With the help of Sotheby's, he is auctioning off the NeXT Cube, the exact same computer that gave a scare to Mr Jobs back in 1988.
He said he hoped that the NeXT Cube will be acquired by a museum or institution that will appreciate its importance.
"I have no need for the money or interest in cash - I just want it to find a good home," he explained.
The Cube, and NeXT overall, were considered to ultimately be a marketplace failure.
Apple acquired it in 1997, and the NeXT technology, which is also credited with giving rise to the internet, eventually became the modern Mac OS that billions of people use each day.
Mr Bailar said that his time working at Hewlett-Packard before joining NeXT helped to prepare him for the intensity of working with the mercurial personality of Mr Jobs.
"It was a lot harder in many ways than I ever thought it would be, but you get pushed and you do great things. That's the purpose of it," he said.
Sotheby’s lists the starting price for the NeXT Cube at $80,000.
