My favorite Tramiel story was the one where he went to visit one of the plants and entered through the loading dock. He saw a guy leaning against a wall inside.
Jack walked up to the guy, pulled out a pad and wrote a note instructing the company cashier to give him a severance check for $1000. Jack handed him the note, told him he was fired and to get his money and get out of his factory.
The guy was pretty happy about it all. He was a truck driver waiting to be unloaded.
I occasionally still each lunch with this guy. :-) Dr. Tramiel and one of my colleagues are best of friends.
Dr. Tramiel has a PhD in Astrophysics from Stanford BTW.