Steve Jobs: Billion Dollar Hippy Page #5

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about the Apple phenomenon

is it goes in two halves.

In the 11 years

since Jobs left Apple,

the computer market

had changed radically.

Now Microsoft was the dominant

force in computing.

Its operating systems powered

nearly 90% of personal

computers in America.

Apple had tried to compete

by allowing other manufacturers

to make and sell copies

of its machines and software,

but it wasn't working.

The company had

lost its lead in the computer market,

customers were leaving in droves, the

company had no future, no roadmap.

The company was in serious trouble.

I, and other Apple users,

were being told with malicious grins

from our Windows-using friends that

if we wanted to keep our machines

we'd have to go to hobbyist shops

because there would be

no Apple computer.

At Next, Jobs had focused

on developing its powerful

operating system.

Apple needed just such a system.

Apple was in technical trouble.

Next was absolutely in financial

trouble, and the two came together.

Apple bought Next for $400 million.

It got the new operating system

it needed, and Steve Jobs.

Steve was truly excited to be linked

up with Apple again.

It was the company he founded,

the company he was kicked out of.

It's the company that had lost

its way, it was starting to fail,

so he had this opportunity to go back

and start fixing Apple at large.

A few days later,

Apple revealed just how much trouble

it was really in.

They announced that they were going

to lose something like $1 billion,

and back then $1 billion

was a lot of money.

I said, "Steve,

what did we just get ourselves into?"

And he was wondering himself! Because

this was a big surprise to us.

To bring Apple back from the brink,

Jobs had a conventional

business challenge.

He had to stop the company

haemorrhaging money,

but he also had to do more.

He had to help the company

rediscover itself,

and for that he thought he needed to

take it back to the future,

to the values that had built it

up in the first place.

He decided to put all of Apple's

products and people under review.

He was demanding, erm, he would not

hesitate to call someone

at two o'clock in the morning

if he had an idea

that he wanted to be pursued.

He had no time for people

that he did not respect.

It got so bad that people

were afraid to get into the elevator

with Steve.

He was on the fourth floor

of the first building

when you first come in, and it's

been rumoured that he's fired people

in that 25-second elevator ride

as he walked out of the elevator.

It wasn't just people who were axed.

Jobs ended the licensing of Apple's

technology to other companies,

and he killed off most of Apple's

product lines,

including a clunky handheld

device, the Newton.

He taught the company what

he learned

when he was at Next and Pixar,

which was focus matters.

Watching expenses matters.

We'll do more if we do less.

Here's to the crazy ones.

The misfits, the rebels.

The troublemakers.

Always the marketing man,

now Jobs started to talk Apple up

with a TV advert called

Think Different.

This emotional recasting

of Apple's rebel roots

was about more than just the brand.

The real reason Think Different was

created was for the employees.

It really meant a wake-up,

a call to action,

a call to arms for the employees to

say, "Wait a minute,

"we still have something great to

do for the world."

Because the people who are crazy

enough to think they can

change the world...

..are the ones who do.

After renewing Apple's sense

of its own identity,

Jobs needed a product

that could bring about

the company's financial revival.

He had a new vision

of what computers could be,

and it centred on an unknown Apple

employee, British designer

Jonathan Ive,

who'd been working on an unusual

prototype for a new computer.

He went into Steve's office,

and he came out ten minutes later,

and sort of leant against the wall,

not quite believing what he'd heard,

which was, "We're going to stop

everything at Apple and we're going

to make this prototype of yours."

Johnny said, "You do know that the

prototype is transparent and that's

how I want it to be?"

Steve said, "Sure."

This...is iMac.

APPLAUSE:

The whole thing is translucent,

you can see into it. It's so cool.

Jobs and Ive had put the design

of the computer centre stage.

It created quite a stir.

It looks like it's from another

planet, and a good planet!

AUDIENCE LAUGHTER

A planet with better designers.

Behold this extraordinary

transparent object.

It was friendly!

It's a silly thing to say!

It looked like a nice thing to own.

The back of this thing looks better

than the front of the other guy's

by the way!

This was a desktop computer

but conceived as a thing of

pleasure, ironic fascination.

It meant that, you know,

a computer wasn't just a dreary

piece of office equipment.

They look so good,

you kind of want to lick 'em.

The iMac fused striking design

with the ability to connect

to the internet easily.

Steve was super-proud of the design

and also the idea that he called it

the iMac and the "i" for internet.

The "i" was a stroke

of deft branding,

transforming the new impersonal

internet into something

more intimate.

The iMac was a huge success and

propelled Apple back into profit.

In four and a half months,

iMac has become the number one

selling computer in America.

The iMac was no better a product

than the computer it replaced

but it was packaged and marketed in

a way that became classic Steve Jobs.

It was the sort of packaging

that attracted people

who'd previously had no

interest in computers.

A third of sales were to those

who'd never bought one before.

Who'd have thought you could have an

emotional bond with your computer?

Apple wanted to change people's

relationship with computers.

Steve wanted it to be fashionable but

it was Jonathan who was saying,

"We have to make this

something that people will love."

The word "love" started becoming

part of Apple's motif.

And now there was a new

partnership at the heart of Apple.

Jonathan Ive and Jobs had a very,

very, very special relationship

and it was united by this

almost Zen-like meditative intensity,

which they both have.

Ive's approach to design

would be the new foundation on

which Apple's future would be built.

You've got this incredibly powerful,

this potent technology and people,

and I think design makes

a very sort of important, erm...

..I think, contribution

to the nature of that connection.

I think we're trying to create

products that make sense,

and that people really develop

some sort of affinity with.

They are products that become

personal.

There is a poetic dimension to

some technological artefacts

because they have been crafted into

it, and that is not accidental.

It's absolutely part of a mission,

a focus, and part of the

functionality.

And over the years,

Apple has generally

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