 Upon graduation, he found that accounting firms and banks did not consider him employable because of his blindness.His college counselor persuaded General Electric to hire Newcomb in their data processing department at the Hanford Project in Richland, Washington, where he was employed for three years.In 1980, in Palo Alto, California, Newcomb met Bill Porter who had recently purchased an Apple II computer with the idea that a personal computer could be used to buy and sell stock, but having no means of accessing the necessary information with his modem.