The Guardian has a great interview with Steve Wozniak and Andy Hertzfeld, two of the men who helped birth Apple and later the Macintosh:
“The Mac was kind of a funny hybrid between the two, and no one thought much of it,” he says. “Even after Steve Jobs took it over, a lot of people thought it was the Steve Jobs back-to-the-garage fantasy, that he was trying to pull Apple back to its roots with a small team who were very excited about what they were doing.”
Attitudes shifted quickly, however, thanks to mistakes elsewhere in the company. When the $10,000 Lisa failed to make an impact on its release in 1983, eyes began turning to Macintosh as a serious prospect.
“People started investing their hopes in the Macintosh,” says Hertzfeld, who now works for Google. “By the time the Mac shipped, it was kind of ‘bet the company’: it was clearly the most important thing at the company.