Steve Jobs' former intern reflects on working for the tech mogul: 'I worked 20 yards away from him every day'

As a teen, Chet Kapoor dreamed of working for tech mogul Steve Jobs.

One day, that dream became a reality when Kapoor was hired as an intern at software company NeXT, founded by Jobs.

"Steve was this iconic individual and I didn't know him … I was the guy that got coffee for the guy that made coffee," Kapoor — who is now CEO of generative AI company DataStax — told CNBC Make It.

"I was one step below the person that opened doors but that didn't matter because I worked 20 yards away from him [Jobs] every day."

Kapoor made his mark in Silicon Valley as CEO of cloud software company Apigee, which was acquired by Google in a $625 million deal in 2016. He has also held leadership positions at firms including Google and IBM.

However, he credits a lot of his success to his experience working as Jobs' intern in the early days.

Kapoor explained that he would focus on the questions that Jobs would ask in all-hand meetings more than anything else because it gave an insight into his thought process.

"That exposure was absolutely phenomenal," he said. "I can attribute a large portion of my success to my first two or three years at NeXT."

Kapoor, 57, was born in Kolkata, India, and recalled his mother taking him to the British Council library so he could read books while she went shopping.

"In 1983, I read this book called 'A Little Kingdom' and it was written by a guy by the name of Michael Moritz," Kapoor said. "This book was about two Steves: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. It was all about Apple. I was impressionable because I was 15 or 16."

"I was like 'this is who I want to go and work for' and it was very clear to me that I wanted to come and hang out and work with Steve Jobs," he added.

Inspired by the book, Kapoor took computer classes