All posts tagged: steve jobs

Exodus and Exile: Before Steve Jobs Could Make a Historic Comeback at Apple, He Had to Walk Out First

Exodus and Exile: Before Steve Jobs Could Make a Historic Comeback at Apple, He Had to Walk Out First

Published by Sam Flores

Steve was thoroughly fed up with John. He wanted control of his company once again, so he decided to put a coup in motion. After Apple secured the rights to sell personal computers in China, Steve accepted an invitation to travel to Beijing to speak at the Great Hall of the People. He anticipated that John would want to come too and invited John on the trip. Then, once John signed on, Steve bailed, leaving John to travel to Beijing by himself. With John out of the country, Steve planned to go to the board and convince them to make him the CEO. Upon John’s return, Steve would go to him and triumphantly demand John’s resignation. He could see it all so clearly. John waited to start the meeting until Steve, who was running late, arrived. It was an ambush—Steve thought John was in China. When Steve entered the room, John stared at him from across the hardwood table. “It’s come to my attention that you’d like to throw me out of the company,” he …

Tim Cook’s Legacy Is Turning Apple Into a Subscription

Tim Cook’s Legacy Is Turning Apple Into a Subscription

Published by skeptic

Tim Cook’s tenure as CEO at Apple, which is coming to a close September 1, will likely be defined by operational efficiency and financial growth, ushering Apple into its trillion-dollar era. But his most significant achievement might be in doubling down on Apple’s services business, which includes iCloud, the App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV+, News+, and more. It’s the subscription layer on top of iOS, and almost all of the services apps are tightly integrated with Messages, the glue that keeps people stuck to their iPhones. During Apple’s most recent earnings report, for the quarter ending December 2025, its services business reached an all time revenue record of $30 billion. This was a 14 percent jump from the same quarter the year prior; services was also a bigger money-making business than Mac, iPad, Apple Watch, Home, and other accessories combined. For the entirety of fiscal year 2025, Apple services generated more than $109 billion for Apple, again, up 14 percent from 2024. When Cook first took over as CEO in 2011, “services” weren’t even …

Apple CEO Tim Cook Is Stepping Down

Apple CEO Tim Cook Is Stepping Down

Published by skeptic

Tim Cook is stepping down as the CEO of Apple and transitioning to a role as the company’s executive chairman, effective September 1, the company announced on Monday. John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, will replace Cook as CEO. Cook’s departure had been speculated upon in recent months, with Apple being perceived as lagging in AI developments in an era when every other Big Tech company has thrown significant resources and billions of dollars in capital expenditure at developing advanced AI. Cook’s time as CEO of Apple will still be marked by tremendous growth for the company. When he took over as CEO, the company’s market capitalization was around $350 billion; it is now north of $4 trillion. Some of the projects developed under Cook, such as Apple’s self-driving car, failed to gain traction and were ultimately shuttered. At the same time, Apple’s accessories unit, which include the best-selling Apple Watch and AirPods, and its services business, which keeps consumers locked into Apple hardware, were advanced during Cook’s tenure. Cook first joined …

How the Vision Pro Rollout Inflamed Tensions at Apple

How the Vision Pro Rollout Inflamed Tensions at Apple

Published by skeptic

To roll out its new mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro, Apple devised a plan almost as intricate as the device itself. In January 2024, Apple summoned hundreds of retail employees to its campus in Cupertino to train them on the Vision Pro’s features. The company asked them to sign nondisclosure agreements swearing them to secrecy about the device, and even about where in Cupertino the training occurred. While on Apple’s campus, they were required to place their phones in GPS-blocking Faraday bags. Employees who had completed a day or two of the training were not allowed to describe the experience to other retail employees who were about to receive their first demo, so as not to step on the novelty. It all heightened the romance when the workers finally tried out the headset. Corporate officials showed off the way the device could transport them to an assortment of landscapes, seascapes, and moonscapes, or re-create the sensation of watching movies on a big screen. “Coming back from Cupertino, it was genuinely the coolest fucking thing I’ve …

Apple Still Plans to Sell iPhones When It Turns 100

Apple Still Plans to Sell iPhones When It Turns 100

Published by skeptic

Apple is allergic to nostalgia. In 2008, when the Macintosh was about to turn 25, I mentioned it to Steve Jobs and he instantly shut down the discussion. “If you look backward in this business, you’ll be crushed,” he told me icily. “You have to look forward.” Now that Apple’s 50th anniversary looms, however, the company is begrudgingly engaging in a series of concerts and commemorations, and we’re being blitzed by books, articles, and oral histories of the company’s early years. Rather than join the crowded trek down memory lane, I asked Apple to do what Jobs suggested—look forward. What does Apple want to happen in its next 50 years? Earlier this month, I sat down with two senior executives to discuss just that. One was Apple’s SVP of worldwide marketing, Greg Joswiak, aka Joz, who joined Apple in 1986. The other was SVP of hardware engineering John Ternus, the putative front-runner to succeed Tim Cook as Apple’s CEO. He’s been with the company for 25 years. I also chatted briefly with Cook himself, just …

People Who Always Make Their Dreams Come True Ask For Help, According To Steve Jobs

People Who Always Make Their Dreams Come True Ask For Help, According To Steve Jobs

Published by Jenni Sidey

There are certain traits that people have to cultivate if they want to become the best versions of themselves, like confidence. However, according to Steve Jobs, there is one often-overlooked trait that is more important than all the rest: asking others for help. To some, this may be one of the hardest things to do. Nobody wants to appear weak or incapable, especially in a professional space, but asking for help is a subtle act of bravery that can open the door to numerous opportunities. People who always make their dreams come true have mastered asking for help, according to Steve Jobs. In an interview from 1994, Jobs highlighted the habit that led him to success. He insisted that asking for help had allowed him to live out his dreams. “I’ve actually always found something to be very true, which is, most people don’t get those experiences ‘cause they’d never ask,” Job said. “I’ve never found anybody that didn’t want to help me if I asked them for help,” he continued. His message is meant …

Steve Jobs Talks iBook, AirPort, and More in Newly Surfaced 1999 Video

Steve Jobs Talks iBook, AirPort, and More in Newly Surfaced 1999 Video

Published by skeptic

A newly surfaced internal 1999 Apple campus video of Steve Jobs provides a rare, unfiltered look at the company’s post-turnaround strategy. The video is a recording of a July 27, 1999 employee gathering at Apple’s Cupertino campus, uploaded by former Apple software engineer Akira Nonaka, who worked at Apple from 1991 to 2000. The 15-minute talk appears to have been recorded informally, likely by an employee present at the event, and has apparently not previously been shared online. The remarks come just two years after Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, when the company was struggling financially and had a fragmented product lineup. The speech directly followed Apple’s Macworld New York 1999 appearance, where it unveiled the iBook G3, its first consumer laptop in years. Jobs said the event drew nearly 50,000 attendees and received extensive media coverage, and he credited teams across the company for delivering the product. We introduced our iBook and everybody loved it and the show was amazing. It was the biggest New York Macworld ever… you should be really proud …

The Untold Story of the Birth of the iPhone

The Untold Story of the Birth of the iPhone

Published by skeptic

The invention that turned Apple into a world-beating, billion-selling, society-changing colossus was not a laptop or a music player; it was the iPhone. It seemed to appear in 2007, fully formed, beautifully conceived, self-assured, and conceptually obvious. But behind the scenes, the iPhone we know today was made possible by more than bold bets, fanatical attention to detail, brilliant design, and a vision for the future; there were also false starts, last-minute redesigns, and a few strokes of luck. For starters, the product Apple set out to build first was not a phone. It was a tablet. Interdisciplinary teams at Apple are always experimenting with fledgling technologies. “There’s hundreds of little startups that are just poking around, doing stuff,” says sensors VP Myra Haggerty. “Sometimes someone’s like, ‘Hey, come look at what we’re working on!’ Then you go into some random lab somewhere, and they’re doing this really cool thing. ‘What could we do with this?’” Take, for example, Duncan Kerr’s projector demo. In 1999, Kerr, a British designer with a polymath design background—engineering, technology, …

Tim Cook Reflects on Joining Apple and Steve Jobs

Tim Cook Reflects on Joining Apple and Steve Jobs

Published by skeptic

In an August 2024 letter published by The Steve Jobs Archive today, Tim Cook reflected on joining Apple and what he learned from working with Steve Jobs. Jobs convinced Cook to join Apple in 1998, to help turn around the company: I’ll never forget that first conversation with Steve. At the time, Apple had been struggling and Steve was working to right a ship that had drifted in his absence. Many people doubted the company could survive, and I was warned that accepting a job there would come with risks. But when Steve spoke, any trepidation I harbored instantly dissolved. I had never met someone with so much passion and vision. He spoke with charisma and clarity—about a future where technology could unlock a wellspring of human creativity and potential, connecting us and uplifting us in ways even he had yet to imagine. Cook said joining Apple was the best decision he ever made: In Steve, I found an incredible mentor who inspired me to grow and challenge myself in new and important ways. And …

Apple Check Signed by Steve Jobs Sells for 4,800× Its Original Value

Apple Check Signed by Steve Jobs Sells for 4,800× Its Original Value

Published by skeptic

RR Auction has announced that an Apple check signed by the company’s co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak fetched a whopping $2.4 million at auction this week. The check was for $500, meaning that it sold for 4,800× its original value. According to RR Auction, the $500 check was issued to printed circuit board designer Howard Cantin, shortly after Jobs and Wozniak opened Apple’s first bank account. Cantin was responsible for translating Wozniak’s Apple-1 schematic into a manufacturable printed circuit board, leading to Apple’s first commercial product. Dated March 16, 1976, the Wells Fargo check is marked “No. 1.” It was issued a few weeks before Apple Computer was officially founded on April 1, 1976. “This is the most important financial document in Apple history,” said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction. “It captures Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak’s first true business transaction, and the final result shows that collectors recognized its significance above any other Apple material ever brought to market.” Popular Stories Apple Unveils First New Products of 2026 Apple today …