His personal secretarial staff was probably at least 5-10 people in total, with three shifts. Just having a megayacht[3] in a different time zone (e.g. in Europe) means you have to have three shift coverage to do management logistics for fueling/supply/HR/etc as it moves around between ports. They would already have his chauffeur’s number, and would be able to provide it to the people at the site (to enable a jp-jp conversation without sleepy California translators in the loop).
The personal (not even professional) staff of people that rich/busy are frequently larger than most small startups. If you add in managing their security detail, that of their family members, travel, yachts, 3-10 different residential properties, all the associated vendors, et c, it adds up fast. It’s a full time job for at least a half-dozen people if you have enough property and helicopters.
They’d also have private, direct numbers for a whole lot of extremely well-connected people who make it their business to pick up the phone when the three comma club calls them. He was running one of the largest and most important companies in the US at that time (separately from the fact that his personal fortune was immense), which means his staff would likely have access to many in government, military, diplomats, et c.
Recall that Apple built a special spy iPod firmware for a classified project for the DOE to do espionage[1]. Google’s LSE used to park and fill up their private (not Google - personal) jet at Moffet, a military airfield next to the Googleplex. (They even got the reduced, government-internal-only tax subsidized price for jet fuel.[2]) They’re connected.
The CEO of Apple (or Google, or Microsoft, et c) can, presumably, if necessary, speak to the POTUS same-day. Pulling some diplomatic strings to get a garden tour is entirely within the realm of believable.
Billionaires inhabit a different world.
[1]: https://tidbits.com/2020/08/17/the-case-of-the-top-secret-ip...
[2]: https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2013/12/13/inspector-gen...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_(yacht)
The personal (not even professional) staff of people that rich/busy are frequently larger than most small startups. If you add in managing their security detail, that of their family members, travel, yachts, 3-10 different residential properties, all the associated vendors, et c, it adds up fast. It’s a full time job for at least a half-dozen people if you have enough property and helicopters.
They’d also have private, direct numbers for a whole lot of extremely well-connected people who make it their business to pick up the phone when the three comma club calls them. He was running one of the largest and most important companies in the US at that time (separately from the fact that his personal fortune was immense), which means his staff would likely have access to many in government, military, diplomats, et c.
Recall that Apple built a special spy iPod firmware for a classified project for the DOE to do espionage[1]. Google’s LSE used to park and fill up their private (not Google - personal) jet at Moffet, a military airfield next to the Googleplex. (They even got the reduced, government-internal-only tax subsidized price for jet fuel.[2]) They’re connected.
The CEO of Apple (or Google, or Microsoft, et c) can, presumably, if necessary, speak to the POTUS same-day. Pulling some diplomatic strings to get a garden tour is entirely within the realm of believable.
Billionaires inhabit a different world.
[1]: https://tidbits.com/2020/08/17/the-case-of-the-top-secret-ip...
[2]: https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2013/12/13/inspector-gen...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_(yacht)