Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are you? You know? Last week
Speaker 1: I mentioned on a tech News episode that Johnny I've
Speaker 1: a Sir Jonathan a k a. Jonathan Paul I've has
Speaker 1: pretty much completely broken ties with Apple and that this
Speaker 1: is a big deal at the very least, it's what
Speaker 1: you would call an historic moment. So Johnny, who spells
Speaker 1: his name j O n Y because of course he does,
Speaker 1: first joined Apple way back in and had a hand
Speaker 1: in designing tons of Apple products, from the iconic iPhone
Speaker 1: to Apple's spaceship headquarters. He's had a hand in all
Speaker 1: of that. His reputation is one of perfectionism and critical
Speaker 1: attention to the smallest of details. He also earned a
Speaker 1: reputation for being somewhat coddled by Apple. You know, you
Speaker 1: could say that reputation might be unfairly earned, but he
Speaker 1: has one, and some would even say he cared far
Speaker 1: more about the form of a product than he did
Speaker 1: for the function, and he certainly had issues with that
Speaker 1: throughout his career. But today, I thought we would go
Speaker 1: into a lot more detail on his life, In fact,
Speaker 1: so much detail that it's going to require more than
Speaker 1: one episode. So this is part one. And before I
Speaker 1: really get started, I want to shout out a book
Speaker 1: that I used as a primary source for this episode
Speaker 1: or these episodes. That book is titled After Steve, How
Speaker 1: Apple Became a trillion dollar Company and Lost its Soul,
Speaker 1: And it's written by Trip Michael. Now, as that title suggests,
Speaker 1: the book primarily focuses on what happened at Apple in
Speaker 1: the wake of Steve Jobs's death in two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: and how folks like Tim Cook and Johnny I've would
Speaker 1: change the course of the company and somewhat kind of
Speaker 1: battle against each other in that process. It's a good book,
Speaker 1: and while the title does indicate a particular perspective and
Speaker 1: narrative there, it is not just an opinion piece. In fact,
Speaker 1: Michael cites more than four hundred fourteen sources. I know
Speaker 1: because the PDF that comes with the audio book has
Speaker 1: sixty two pages. That's just a list of all the citations.
Speaker 1: He also includes a bibliography of works that complement his own.
Speaker 1: Those works include books and movies and more. It's really
Speaker 1: impressive stuff. Anyway, I don't know Michael personally. I have
Speaker 1: no connection to him. I don't have any connection to
Speaker 1: this book. I just thought I would give it a
Speaker 1: shout out if you are interested, because the information I'm
Speaker 1: going to be talking about here a lot of it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot more detail in the book. But it's
Speaker 1: not the only source I used, but it is a
Speaker 1: prime source. And also, like I said, I got the
Speaker 1: audio book, so it's available on platforms like Audible. So
Speaker 1: let's get to Johnny I've and Apple. Johnny I've was
Speaker 1: born near London in nineteen sixty seven. His father was
Speaker 1: a teacher who taught design and technology at what we
Speaker 1: would consider the high school level. His mother taught theology
Speaker 1: and later on became a therapist, and I've's grandfather was
Speaker 1: a machinist and Johnny's father, in addition to his teaching job,
Speaker 1: had also tried his hand at silversmith ing. So Johnny
Speaker 1: quickly was attracted to the process of creating things, not
Speaker 1: just designing them, but actually fabricating them. And like a
Speaker 1: lot of kids who would later get into fields like engineering,
Speaker 1: Johnny would take stuff up heart to learn how it worked.
Speaker 1: I don't know what his success rate was for putting
Speaker 1: it back together again, but he certainly took it apart
Speaker 1: to understand how things worked. His father would teach him
Speaker 1: how to sketch out ideas before committing to build them,
Speaker 1: and I gave Johnny an appreciation of design. He would
Speaker 1: ask his father endless questions about how things were built
Speaker 1: and why they were built the way that they were so,
Speaker 1: not just how did they put this together, but why
Speaker 1: did they choose this method over some alternative method. When
Speaker 1: he was still a child, his family relocated to a
Speaker 1: rural neighborhood about two hours north of London. Johnny enrolled
Speaker 1: in a school called Walton High School, where he continued
Speaker 1: to develop his skills in art and design. He also
Speaker 1: became active in various social issues like feminism and things
Speaker 1: of that nature. Uh he wasn't nearly as strong in
Speaker 1: most of the traditional curriculum at school, but that really
Speaker 1: didn't concern him very much because from the beginning, his
Speaker 1: plan was to attend a technical college after high school,
Speaker 1: and a technical college wouldn't require high marks in those
Speaker 1: classic subjects. I've also attended a summer program that had
Speaker 1: a focus on design with I've learning more advanced drafting techniques,
Speaker 1: as in like draftsmanship. So it married his love of
Speaker 1: art with his love of design and engineering. And as
Speaker 1: a senior project I've said about designing a working portable projector.
Speaker 1: Uh So, the projectors that were being used in his
Speaker 1: high school were these big heavy things. They're very clunky
Speaker 1: and cumbersome. You couldn't easily move them from classroom to classroom.
Speaker 1: So I've thought, here's a challenge. Here's here's something that
Speaker 1: I can solve. I can create a projector that is portable,
Speaker 1: that's easier to move around. So he made a projector that,
Speaker 1: when it was in its collapsed form, was like a briefcase,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty heavy one. And when it opened, hydraulic
Speaker 1: arms would unfold the projector and it would immerge urge
Speaker 1: into place as a fully working projector. And people who
Speaker 1: saw it said that just watching it kind of unfold
Speaker 1: itself was a very satisfying experience, like everything moved just so,
Speaker 1: and it was like an early example of i've's attention
Speaker 1: to detail and creating things that have a pleasing effect
Speaker 1: on the person looking at them. Anyone who is familiar
Speaker 1: with Apple products knows that that's a big selling point
Speaker 1: for the stuff that's come out over the last couple
Speaker 1: of decades. I've attended Newcastle Polytechnic largely thanks to a
Speaker 1: scholarship that was provided by a guy named Philip Gray.
Speaker 1: Philip Gray was a managing director for Robert's Weaver Group,
Speaker 1: that's an architecture firm in the UK. And part of
Speaker 1: this deal was that I've would agree to work at
Speaker 1: Robert's Weaver Group as an intern while attending college, and
Speaker 1: then would work there full time after graduation for some
Speaker 1: amount of time. I'm not sure how much, but that
Speaker 1: was all part the agreement. Now, one story Michael relays
Speaker 1: in his book After Steve is particularly amusing. While he
Speaker 1: was at college, I've was living on a pretty tight budget,
Speaker 1: and he also had a long distance girlfriend whom he
Speaker 1: would write to regularly. Now this is in, you know,
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen eighties, before the real days of texting
Speaker 1: and email, so we wrote letters to each other back
Speaker 1: in those days, physical letters. Now I've decided to attempt
Speaker 1: something somewhat cheeky. He didn't know if it was gonna work.
Speaker 1: He drew the picture of a stamp on an envelope
Speaker 1: and it was in all ways with a normal stamp
Speaker 1: identical like he He copied it precisely and just drew
Speaker 1: it directly on the envelope itself. Put a letter to
Speaker 1: his girlfriend and there sent the letter off, and she
Speaker 1: sent back a response which told I've that he could
Speaker 1: sketch a convincing enough copy of an official stamp to
Speaker 1: fool the post office into carrying the mail to its destination.
Speaker 1: And I'm a little tickled that the guy who would
Speaker 1: later be largely responsible for how popular certain apple products
Speaker 1: would become was playing with counterfeiting back when he was
Speaker 1: in college. There's more to that story, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to leave that to Michael's book to flesh it out.
Speaker 1: So if you want to hear more about that and
Speaker 1: the silly turn it took, you should check out the book.
Speaker 1: While the style at the time, as Grandpa Simpson would say,
Speaker 1: was to favor a chaotic collection of shapes and bright colors,
Speaker 1: that wasn't i've's preference. Now, if you don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about, in the nineteen eighties, things went a
Speaker 1: bit haywire in the design world. All you have to
Speaker 1: do just go on a search engine and search for
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties style that's all you have to put in,
Speaker 1: and you will see what I mean. It was a
Speaker 1: troubled time of different shapes and and neon colors in
Speaker 1: no particular organized form, and I've hated all of that chaos.
Speaker 1: He preferred the more simple linear style of an earlier
Speaker 1: art movement within art and architecture, and and uh products
Speaker 1: even called bow House. Now that's not the band with
Speaker 1: Peter Murphy in which we would learn that Bella legos
Speaker 1: he is dead. That is an amazing song and a
Speaker 1: phenomenal band. And if you don't know it, well, I
Speaker 1: think I just out of myself as a goth. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm talking more about an art and architectural movement that
Speaker 1: originated in Germany. The focus in bau House was to
Speaker 1: find a synthesis of aesthetic and function, and that's really
Speaker 1: what I've preferred to just those weird shapes and colors
Speaker 1: of the dominant nineteen eighties designs. He saw those as
Speaker 1: being ugly and grotesque and superfluous and unnecessary. He he
Speaker 1: felt that you really should have a product where everything
Speaker 1: that is in that product is necessary for that product
Speaker 1: in some way, that less is more. Meanwhile, I was
Speaker 1: getting practical experience. As an intern at the Roberts Weaver
Speaker 1: Group firm, he received assignments to create pitches for clients,
Speaker 1: so he wasn't just you know, running errands or running
Speaker 1: support for designers there. He was actually put in charge
Speaker 1: of a few projects. I would bristle whenever someone would
Speaker 1: ask him to compromise on his design, and he didn't
Speaker 1: really like doing that. It was something that kind of
Speaker 1: revealed to him that design consultant is a tough gig
Speaker 1: because you are not the final voice on the approach
Speaker 1: to design. Your your client has input, and that can
Speaker 1: be a difficult thing. I could respect this because as
Speaker 1: someone who is a writer, h there were times when
Speaker 1: I would submit articles to an editor and received feedback,
Speaker 1: and my first response was always to get angry at
Speaker 1: the feedback. Not a mature response, but it was how
Speaker 1: I would feel. I would think, like, oh, they don't
Speaker 1: get what I'm going for here. Usually that wasn't really
Speaker 1: the case, because I unlike I've am not brilliant. I've, however,
Speaker 1: bristled because he felt that he really did have the
Speaker 1: best idea and he hated having to compromise on that.
Speaker 1: That also meant that some other folks over at the
Speaker 1: Roberts Weaver Group felt that he probably wasn't a good
Speaker 1: fit for the company because the secret to being a
Speaker 1: great consultant is being adaptable and being able to, you know,
Speaker 1: incorporate client feedback into designs. So they felt that maybe
Speaker 1: this would not be the right fit for him. Now,
Speaker 1: one thing that I've encountered around this time was an
Speaker 1: Apple Macintosh computer. Those originally were launched in ninety four.
Speaker 1: He admired the sign of the computer, and he loved
Speaker 1: the marketing campaign that launched the Macintosh. Now, in case
Speaker 1: y'all don't remember, I'm sure a lot of you are
Speaker 1: familiar with this commercial because it was a famous commercial
Speaker 1: directed by Ridley Scott, of all people, and it played
Speaker 1: during the Super Bowl in so it really got a
Speaker 1: lot of eyeballs on it. But in case that's well
Speaker 1: before your time you don't know what I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: the commercial played off the oppressive themes of George Orwell's
Speaker 1: Night four, the novel. So in this commercial, everything looks
Speaker 1: very gray and dim, and you have this group of
Speaker 1: drone like employees are clad in this baggy gray clothing
Speaker 1: shuffling into a theater and they're a film is playing
Speaker 1: that consists of a closeup of a man's face, and
Speaker 1: that man is yelling out essentially fascist propaganda that also
Speaker 1: stresses that conformity is key. Then a woman runs in,
Speaker 1: this athletic woman holding a sledgehammer, and she does a
Speaker 1: hammer throw. She twirls around and throws the sledge hammer
Speaker 1: through the screen. And then you hear a narrator say,
Speaker 1: quote on January, Apple will introduce the Macintosh, and you'll
Speaker 1: see why nine four won't be like four end quote.
Speaker 1: And the commercial is again one of the most famous
Speaker 1: of all time. It implied that the PC industry was
Speaker 1: one of forced uniformity and there was no personality to
Speaker 1: the products, and the ad didn't even show the Macintosh
Speaker 1: computer itself. The Macintosh is nowhere to be seen in
Speaker 1: this original version of the commercial. The ad just claimed
Speaker 1: that Apple was going to forge a new path all
Speaker 1: on its own, and I've absolutely loved the advertisement. Now,
Speaker 1: before he would graduate Newcastle Polytechnic, I've had to present
Speaker 1: what the college referred to as a blue Sky project.
Speaker 1: This was meant to show off a design without having
Speaker 1: to worry about the constraints of actually being able to
Speaker 1: make the thing, so students were given a lot of
Speaker 1: leeway they could they could propose things that weren't necessarily
Speaker 1: technically possible at the time. I've thought up of a
Speaker 1: way to pay for items using a medallion like device
Speaker 1: that could, when brought into close contact with a point
Speaker 1: of sale register, transmit payment wirelessly. So he was essentially
Speaker 1: thinking about a way to replace credit cards and to
Speaker 1: have a more elegant means of being able to transfer funds,
Speaker 1: and it was a predecessor to contactless payment that would
Speaker 1: evolve many many years later. I'ves design intrigued, the judge
Speaker 1: invited to score students submissions, to the point where, according
Speaker 1: to Michael's book, that judge so impressed asked how high
Speaker 1: a score he could give I've And traditionally a seventy
Speaker 1: would be considered an A, and the judge was told
Speaker 1: he could score it however he thought was appropriate, so
Speaker 1: he gave I've a ninety, when usually seventy would be
Speaker 1: the top result, which is a big old yell zam.
Speaker 1: Al Right, We've got a lot more to say about
Speaker 1: Johnny ives early days, including his move to Apple, but
Speaker 1: before we do that, let's take a quick break. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're up to nine and that was a year that
Speaker 1: would bring a big change to Johnny I've's life. The
Speaker 1: Roberts Weaver Group folded. There was a big financial crisis
Speaker 1: in the UK, a recession, and one of the victims
Speaker 1: of that recession was this consulting firm, the Robert's Weaver Group.
Speaker 1: So i was no longer obligated to work at this
Speaker 1: company because the company had essentially gone away, So instead
Speaker 1: he joined a design consultancy company called Tangerine lowercase tea
Speaker 1: kind of funny that he would take on a gig
Speaker 1: at a company named after one type of fruit, and
Speaker 1: then would become famous for working at a different company
Speaker 1: named after a different kind of fruit. In fact, he
Speaker 1: would make the transfer from one directly to the other.
Speaker 1: Clive Grenier, who had met I've a couple of years earlier,
Speaker 1: was largely responsible for recruiting I've to join Tangerine, and
Speaker 1: I've quickly got to work on several different projects, including
Speaker 1: one that was to design sinks sinc basins. Really, that
Speaker 1: one didn't go so well because i'ves very um remarkable
Speaker 1: pitch was one that the company just wasn't comfortable adopting.
Speaker 1: It was a little too aggressive in its departure from tradition.
Speaker 1: And that's another case where i was getting a little
Speaker 1: frustrated that as a consultant he couldn't necessarily design something
Speaker 1: and have it stay his design and have it remained unchanged,
Speaker 1: that he would have to bow to client wishes. So
Speaker 1: he then was brought in on a project called Juggernaut,
Speaker 1: and Juggernaut was a project that involved Grenier. It also
Speaker 1: involved one of the co founders of the company and
Speaker 1: I've and the client in this case was a tiny
Speaker 1: little computer company called Apple. Juggernaut was a project aiming
Speaker 1: to create some novel computer and tablet designs. I think
Speaker 1: there were four devices in total, including a tablet with
Speaker 1: a separate keyboard, a couple of portable computers, a couple
Speaker 1: of desktop computers that kind of thing. I've was in
Speaker 1: charge of, mainly working on the tablet concept, and he
Speaker 1: was also given the task to pack up and ship
Speaker 1: the prototypes which they made out of a phone, and
Speaker 1: send those to Apple. So I've took meticulous care and
Speaker 1: packaging these prototypes. You know, he wrapped each one very carefully.
Speaker 1: He packed them into the box so that there'd be
Speaker 1: no chance of them being damaged unless you know, something
Speaker 1: crazy happened to the box. He even included some folded
Speaker 1: Tangerine branded shirts in the box as well, And this
Speaker 1: was a very early example of making the process of
Speaker 1: unboxing a Johnny I've designed project a real experience. That
Speaker 1: that it would show that there was an incredible amount
Speaker 1: of consideration in just the packaging of the product, but
Speaker 1: let alone the design of the product. This would be
Speaker 1: something that Apple would embrace after I've would join the company,
Speaker 1: largely really after I've joined the company and Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: would return to it. Apple was impressed with this presentation
Speaker 1: and the designs, and they invited the Tangerine t to
Speaker 1: come out to California and to present their ideas in person.
Speaker 1: So Johnny I've got to go to California. I think
Speaker 1: that at that point it was his second time traveling
Speaker 1: to California. He had already been there once and found
Speaker 1: it really appealing. Well, while he was there, I've was
Speaker 1: taken aside a couple of times by Apple executives and
Speaker 1: essentially told that he had a job with Apple if
Speaker 1: he wanted one, that he could come over and join
Speaker 1: their team. His colleagues over at Tangerine would tell him
Speaker 1: back in the UK that really he had no options.
Speaker 1: He had to take up that offer. They were very
Speaker 1: generous in saying, this is an incredible opportunity. You will
Speaker 1: do amazing things there. You should take the job. So
Speaker 1: in the fall of nineteen, I've would relocate, he would
Speaker 1: change his home address from London to San Francisco and
Speaker 1: he would join Apple. Now, the Apple of nineteen was
Speaker 1: very different from the Apple of today thirty years later.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was really different from the Apple of
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, that's when the iPhone debut, or even
Speaker 1: the Apple of two thousand one, when the company unveiled
Speaker 1: the iPod. The Apple of n while founded by some
Speaker 1: somewhat rebellious techno anarchist types, which might be going a
Speaker 1: bit far, but Steve Jobs and Steve Wosniac both enjoyed
Speaker 1: thumbing their noses that respectability and authority back in the day. Well,
Speaker 1: now that company was in the hands of a different
Speaker 1: set of leaders altogether. So it's probably a good idea
Speaker 1: to do a quick rundown on what had happened at Apple,
Speaker 1: because that's a very important component of this overall story.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna give a cliffs notes version of Apple's
Speaker 1: history leading up to nine and a little bit beyond. Actually,
Speaker 1: so back in the nineteen seventies, Steve Jobs and Steve
Speaker 1: Wozniak created a partnership and then later brought in another
Speaker 1: person named Mike Markola to turn that partnership into Apple Incorporated. Now,
Speaker 1: the first Apple model was really more of a hobbyist
Speaker 1: kit than a out of the box computer. And while
Speaker 1: hobbyists were interested in the Apple One, that really wasn't
Speaker 1: a suitable product for the mainstream. And that would change
Speaker 1: dramatically with the introduction of the Apple two line, a
Speaker 1: fully built computer system, and ultimately the Apple Too line
Speaker 1: would include numerous offshoots. You know, you'd be like the
Speaker 1: Apple to see, the Apple to E, the Apple to G,
Speaker 1: and the list goes on. The Apple Too would be
Speaker 1: a truly enormous success for the young company. So Jobs
Speaker 1: and Wozniak founded Apple, but neither of them would be
Speaker 1: the person to lead the company. Mike Markola, who I
Speaker 1: said earlier he was a primary investor in Apple. He
Speaker 1: owned like twenty of Apple in the early days. He
Speaker 1: brought in a guy named Michael Scott, not that one,
Speaker 1: to serve as the first CEO for Apple because Markola
Speaker 1: felt that neither Jobs nor Wozniak really had the experience
Speaker 1: to lead a company. They they had the vision, but
Speaker 1: not the know how, so Michael Scott would serve as
Speaker 1: CEO until by then he had made some serious waves
Speaker 1: in the company and and some pretty pretty big enemies
Speaker 1: as well. In early one, he famously fired about half
Speaker 1: the team responsible for designing the Apple Too because he
Speaker 1: said they were redundant. He said, we don't need all
Speaker 1: these people because the folks that we've got, like, we've
Speaker 1: got twice as many as we need. Let's get rid
Speaker 1: of them. He also made some pretty harsh comments about it.
Speaker 1: He at one blind had said that as soon as
Speaker 1: it stops being fun working for Apple, he was going
Speaker 1: to quit, and instead he said, you know what, I've
Speaker 1: rethought it now. I figure I'm going to keep firing people, uh,
Speaker 1: in order to make it more fun to work at Apple,
Speaker 1: Which that's pretty brutal like that. I'm sure it was
Speaker 1: kind of an off the cuff, humorous remark, but it
Speaker 1: comes across as as pretty nasty when you consider this
Speaker 1: is the livelihood of people we're talking about here. So
Speaker 1: he was effectively removed from power after making that statement,
Speaker 1: though he would actually stay on for several more months
Speaker 1: before officially retiring. Mark Coola would take over as CEO
Speaker 1: duties for the time being, which would actually stretch on
Speaker 1: for a couple of years, at which point in the
Speaker 1: company would then bring on a man named John Scully
Speaker 1: to be the new CEO and president, and it was
Speaker 1: Scully's involvement that would lead to Steve Jobs leaving Apple.
Speaker 1: So Jobs was already proving to be a marketing genius.
Speaker 1: He was known more for his feel for design, his
Speaker 1: vision of what could be popular, and his ability to
Speaker 1: sell the designs, rather than as say an engineer or
Speaker 1: a computer scientist. So he wasn't really thought of as
Speaker 1: the person who can make stuff work. He was the
Speaker 1: person who could see how a particular presentation of technology
Speaker 1: could have a really powerful impact on customers. Jobs had
Speaker 1: seen designs at the Xerox Park facility that's p a
Speaker 1: r C. And those designs convinced him to incorporate some
Speaker 1: of those ideas into Apple products. You could say that
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs effectively he stole ideas like you know, the
Speaker 1: computer mouse and the graphics user interface from things that
Speaker 1: he saw at the Xerox Park facility, or you could
Speaker 1: just say he was inspired by it. Really just depends
Speaker 1: on your point of view and his work to to
Speaker 1: do this, like his work to make this computer a thing,
Speaker 1: made Jobs something of a target for Scully, who had
Speaker 1: come over from PepsiCo in order to lead Apple. Jobs
Speaker 1: had a reputation of being very difficult to work with,
Speaker 1: and as he spearheaded projects that would evolve into a
Speaker 1: very unsuccessful computer platform called Lisa. It was a very
Speaker 1: expensive computer, didn't sell well at all, and was considered
Speaker 1: a flop, an expensive flop at Apple. He also had
Speaker 1: a real direct hand in the much more successful Macintosh platform.
Speaker 1: But jobs involvement with Macintosh was really disruptive too. You
Speaker 1: had the existing Macintosh team that had been working on
Speaker 1: the computer system before Jobs essentially invaded and took over
Speaker 1: the project, and this caused an enormous amount of disruption
Speaker 1: within that team. Uh, those stories are pretty fascinating on
Speaker 1: their own, but you know, it goes beyond what we
Speaker 1: want to talk about today. So the Apple board of
Speaker 1: directors became concerned about Steve Jobs because the projects he
Speaker 1: was heading up were costing a huge amount of money,
Speaker 1: but they had a questionable record when it came to
Speaker 1: success in the actual marketplace, and Scully was told that
Speaker 1: he needed to contain Jobs, and ultimately Scully would strip
Speaker 1: Jobs of most of his authority, pushing him to the
Speaker 1: periphery of Apple and Markola actually cited was Scully now
Speaker 1: the guy who had originally invested in Jobs and Wosniacs
Speaker 1: idea ended up siding with the new leader of Apple,
Speaker 1: and Jobs, hurt and infuriated, left the company in nineteen.
Speaker 1: There's some versions of the story that say that he
Speaker 1: was effectively fired or at least given so little to
Speaker 1: do that he had he was, at least in in
Speaker 1: practical terms, no longer working for Apple. There are other
Speaker 1: versions where he took a much more active stance and
Speaker 1: and quit in um the company because of this this
Speaker 1: opposition he faced. So it really again depends upon whom
Speaker 1: you believe. The outcome is the same either way, and
Speaker 1: I don't think it ultimately matters. UM. It does sound
Speaker 1: Scully did Jobs dirty, but Jobs himself what didn't do
Speaker 1: many favors for himself by being um somewhat difficult to
Speaker 1: work with. Now let's flash forward to nine. We were
Speaker 1: in eighty five when Jobs left the company by ninety two.
Speaker 1: Apple had been operating without either of its co founders
Speaker 1: for seven years because Wozniak had effectively left Apple in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one after he had been severely injured in
Speaker 1: a plane crash, and in a more official capacity he
Speaker 1: left in nine eight five, but he to this day
Speaker 1: remains an Apple employee in a largely symbolic capacity. So
Speaker 1: would be the last full year of Scully leading Apple.
Speaker 1: He had initiated a project to create what he called
Speaker 1: a personal Digital Assistant or p d A, and yeah,
Speaker 1: Scully or someone on his team was the first to
Speaker 1: coin that term, and that would become the Apple Newton
Speaker 1: Message Pad, a product that would later invite ridicule due
Speaker 1: to overpromising an under delivering, particularly when it came to
Speaker 1: handwriting recognition. Scully had also made the decision for Apple
Speaker 1: to transition to run on the power PC microprocessor. That
Speaker 1: was a decision that would send Apple down a very
Speaker 1: rocky path. In fact, it was so rocky that ultimately
Speaker 1: it would threaten to bankrupt the company. Now I've joined
Speaker 1: Apple just as tensions in the company were growing, with
Speaker 1: different leaders in different departments playing tug of war of
Speaker 1: where the company should go. Scully would essentially get ushered
Speaker 1: out of Apple in early and a German leader named
Speaker 1: Michael Spindler came in to replace him. Not the time,
Speaker 1: Apple was on unsteady financial ground, having sunk a lot
Speaker 1: of money into the development of the Newton, which had
Speaker 1: turned out to be a flop, and had also experimented
Speaker 1: in other types of consumer hardware like digital cameras, and
Speaker 1: those experiments had also largely failed. So Spindler made another
Speaker 1: decision that further hurt the company. He allowed other companies
Speaker 1: to build clones of Apple products. Now, until this point,
Speaker 1: Apple was very careful to hold onto its own intellectual property.
Speaker 1: The company took a totally different route than what IBM did. See,
Speaker 1: IBM had used off the shelf components to build its
Speaker 1: personal computers, but that meant that other companies could also
Speaker 1: use those same components, plus get a licensed copy of
Speaker 1: the same operating system or or nearly the same as
Speaker 1: what IBM was using, and build IBM clones. There was
Speaker 1: nothing to stop them. There was no reason because there
Speaker 1: was nothing IBM trademarked on any of those things. They
Speaker 1: were all products that you could just buy and assemble yourself.
Speaker 1: The IBM clone market was largely responsible for convincing IBM
Speaker 1: to get out the computer you know, the consumer computer space,
Speaker 1: and Apple had dodged that problem by keeping everything in
Speaker 1: house until spind came in and changed course. Spindler would
Speaker 1: eventually get pushed out of Apple himself, and a new
Speaker 1: CEO named gil Emilio would come in. I'll talk more
Speaker 1: about him and his effects on Apple, and then how
Speaker 1: this ties into Johnny I've as well. After we come
Speaker 1: back from this break, Okay where we left off. Gil
Speaker 1: Emilio had just become CEO, replacing Spindler, and Emilia was
Speaker 1: known for rehabilitating companies that were in financial trouble, and
Speaker 1: by this point Apple was starting to flirt with bankruptcy.
Speaker 1: He would make more massive cuts to the budget, he
Speaker 1: would hold layoffs across the company. UH he authorized projects
Speaker 1: aimed at updating the operating system on Macintosh computers, and
Speaker 1: those projects would end up languishing due to feature creep
Speaker 1: and internal struggles in Apple. UH. It was another one
Speaker 1: of those cases where something going on inside Apple had
Speaker 1: the capacity to take the whole company down. Things looked
Speaker 1: really grim, so Apple's board of directors decided that Apple
Speaker 1: should acquire a little computer company called Next Big in
Speaker 1: little E, big X big T. That company was founded
Speaker 1: by drumroll please, Steve Jobs. The idea was that the
Speaker 1: operating system for Next computers, which were really interesting computers,
Speaker 1: but they were super expensive and they weren't really selling well,
Speaker 1: but that the operating system would become the foundation for
Speaker 1: the new mac Os, that the project that Amelio had launched,
Speaker 1: which was kind of mired in internal politics, would get
Speaker 1: pushed aside, and the Next operating system would be used
Speaker 1: as the the bedrock for mac Os. That meant that
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs came on board Apple as an advisor, but
Speaker 1: he didn't stay an advisor for very long. Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: was actually able to rest control of the company away
Speaker 1: from Emilio. Technically there was another CEO between Emilio and Jobs,
Speaker 1: but it's not really much point in talking about him.
Speaker 1: So he he leveraged the company's terrible market performance into
Speaker 1: an argument that only he, Steve Jobs, the co founder
Speaker 1: of Apple, would be able to set the company right.
Speaker 1: So Steve Jobs would become the interim CEO of Apple,
Speaker 1: and not that long afterward he would become just the
Speaker 1: plain old CEO. Like that, he would there be nothing
Speaker 1: interim about it, he would become the CEO. Now I
Speaker 1: give you that truncated history of Apple, because it's during
Speaker 1: these tumultuous years, the end of Scullies leadership at the company,
Speaker 1: the rise and fall of Spindler and Emilio, and the
Speaker 1: return of Jobs that I've began to establish himself within
Speaker 1: the company. And honestly, knowing what we do about what
Speaker 1: was going on at Apple, and how talented I've is
Speaker 1: as a person, it is more than a little bit
Speaker 1: surprising that he actually endured all of that chaos and
Speaker 1: that he stuck around long enough to have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to help redefine Apple's place in computers and personal electronics
Speaker 1: along with Steve Jobs's return. It's amazing he lasted that long.
Speaker 1: So when I've started in he was just the ninth
Speaker 1: member of Apple's design team. One of his first assignments
Speaker 1: was to work on the design of the second generation
Speaker 1: Newton message pad device. So I thought the first generation
Speaker 1: of the Newton was really too bulky, it was too unusual,
Speaker 1: it didn't feel good to hold, and then it lacked
Speaker 1: an aesthetic appeal that would invite users to pick up
Speaker 1: the device and actually use it. So i've's design would
Speaker 1: win him tons of awards, Like he redesigned the Newton
Speaker 1: message pad. He overhauled how it looked and how the
Speaker 1: cover would work with the device. He turned it into
Speaker 1: more like a uh spiral taw blit note book, you know,
Speaker 1: like an actual physical notebook with paper in it, and
Speaker 1: the lid of the Newton message pad, and this one
Speaker 1: would flip over the top on a hinge and fold
Speaker 1: against the back of the device, and in that hinge
Speaker 1: you would nestle the stylus for the device because this
Speaker 1: this is a tablet computer where you actually did have
Speaker 1: to use a stylus in order to interact with the
Speaker 1: tablet itself. And um, yeah, he got lots of accolades
Speaker 1: for this design that people thought that it was a
Speaker 1: brilliant approach. However, the products continuing issues with handwriting recognition
Speaker 1: really plagued the device and it just it was really
Speaker 1: raked over the coals critically. Now in case if you
Speaker 1: don't remember, the news and the whole idea was that
Speaker 1: you had a tablet computer that could accept your handwriting
Speaker 1: as input, so you would use a stylus, you would
Speaker 1: jot down notes on the screen, you know, writing it
Speaker 1: out in Longhand, and the computer would detect the movements
Speaker 1: of the stylist against the screen and interpret that as
Speaker 1: letters and then create a text version of whatever it
Speaker 1: was you were writing on the screen. But the handwriting
Speaker 1: recognition wasn't very good, so using a Newton could be frustrating,
Speaker 1: so frustrating that the Simpsons made a whole joke about
Speaker 1: it in an episode Eat Up Martha instead of Beat
Speaker 1: Up Martin. So I've had made the physical act of
Speaker 1: holding a Newton more pleasing, but the operations still fell
Speaker 1: far short, And to be clear, that was something that
Speaker 1: was totally out of Ive's control. He was working on
Speaker 1: the physical product design, not on the operating system or
Speaker 1: the software. Now. Reportedly, I was initially frustrated, and by
Speaker 1: some accounts he was miserable at Apple during this time period,
Speaker 1: and I said that it was remarkable that he didn't
Speaker 1: quit in those chaotic days. But by some accounts there
Speaker 1: were numerous times where he did consider quitting and was
Speaker 1: only convinced not to by his temp team leader, who
Speaker 1: is a man named uh Robert Brunner. He was the
Speaker 1: director of industrial design at the time, who was kind
Speaker 1: of telling I've like you need to stick around because
Speaker 1: things are going to change at this company, which was
Speaker 1: truly prophetic. So under Spindler, Apple's process had shifted from
Speaker 1: really focusing on aesthetics to focusing on performance, with more
Speaker 1: of an emphasis on processor speed and less care given
Speaker 1: to the design of the computers themselves. Really all about
Speaker 1: efficiency and power, which is such a stereotypical thing to
Speaker 1: associate with a German leader that I hesitated to even
Speaker 1: talk about it because it does feed into a stereotype.
Speaker 1: But in this case that actually was what was going on.
Speaker 1: The idea was, oh, the actual physical design of these things,
Speaker 1: the appearance of them, that doesn't matter as much as
Speaker 1: how fast they are, how powerful they are, And I
Speaker 1: imagine for I'VE that had to have been torture. The
Speaker 1: design process was also chopped up. The team would have
Speaker 1: about half the time to go through the design process
Speaker 1: as they did before Spindler had become CEO. And like
Speaker 1: I said, Robert Brunner was the director of Industrial Design
Speaker 1: at the time and was the leader of the team,
Speaker 1: and he would stay on with Apple until ninety six. Slash.
Speaker 1: He was one of i've's mentors and really one of
Speaker 1: the chief reasons why I've was brought over to Apple
Speaker 1: in the first place, and he had a lot of
Speaker 1: faith in I've, which was really evident with what Brunner
Speaker 1: would then assign to I've. I was put in charge
Speaker 1: of refining the design for a Macintosh celebrating Apple's twentieth anniversary,
Speaker 1: the Anniversary McIntosh. In other words, I've plunged himself into
Speaker 1: the project. He looked at leaders and products across different industries,
Speaker 1: like products like speakers, to determine what designs were best
Speaker 1: and how Apple could learn from and then even improve
Speaker 1: upon the work that was being done by other companies.
Speaker 1: And he began to evaluate everything from the curve of
Speaker 1: the computer case to the materials that would be used
Speaker 1: for the computer itself. And I've finished design was beyond opulent.
Speaker 1: It was really taking design to the next level. The
Speaker 1: keyboard featured leather pads upon which users could rest their
Speaker 1: weary wrists. Uh. The keyboard was separate from the rest
Speaker 1: of the computer, and so you just which was unusual
Speaker 1: for Apple at the time because a lot of earlier
Speaker 1: Apple products, not all of them, but a lot of
Speaker 1: them had keyboards that were built directly into the computer
Speaker 1: case itself. So it's all like one big unit. The
Speaker 1: old Apple two's were like that. It also had a
Speaker 1: track pad. It was sort of the first Macintosh to
Speaker 1: have its own track pad. The computers was made out
Speaker 1: of a mixture of metal in parts and plastic and
Speaker 1: other parts, including plastic that had metal flaking inside the plastic.
Speaker 1: It had a flat panel display. It was the first
Speaker 1: Apple desktop to have a flat panel display. It was
Speaker 1: an l c D display. In some ways, you could
Speaker 1: see the foundation for what would become the iMac several
Speaker 1: years later, lurking in Ive's design of this computer. It
Speaker 1: also had a sideloading drive. It could have a floppy drive,
Speaker 1: or it could have a CD ROM drive. It had
Speaker 1: ports for television connectivity as well as ones that you
Speaker 1: could use to connect to an external sound system. But
Speaker 1: the computer itself sported prominent speakers to either side of
Speaker 1: the display, as well as its own subwhiffer, and it
Speaker 1: was a sound system that was designed and provided by Bows,
Speaker 1: so it had a good reputation behind it. That sub
Speaker 1: whiffer was separate from the rest of a computer. It
Speaker 1: also served as the power source for the device, so
Speaker 1: sort of like the power brick you might think of
Speaker 1: it that way, i've's team had worked very hard to
Speaker 1: make sure every single element was obviously intentional, that each
Speaker 1: point on the computer system was the product of informed decisions.
Speaker 1: The computer was attractive, It took up less space than
Speaker 1: other desktop computers at the time. It used much higher
Speaker 1: quality materials for everything from the chassis to the leather
Speaker 1: on the keyboard to the fabric that was covering the speakers.
Speaker 1: It had a cable management system built onto the back
Speaker 1: of the computer display slash speakers, slash you know, drives,
Speaker 1: and this was to help avoid the problem of having
Speaker 1: this beautiful design marred by a rats nest of cables
Speaker 1: behind it. So it was really a testament to Ive's
Speaker 1: approach to design. That whole idea of less is more,
Speaker 1: but less is more did not apply to the computer's
Speaker 1: price tag. Apple identified the target audience for this premier
Speaker 1: McIntosh the anniversary McIntosh as being the quote unquote executive market,
Speaker 1: presumably because only executives would ever be able to afford it.
Speaker 1: The retail price for the computer at the base model
Speaker 1: was just under seven thousand, five hundred dollars. That, by
Speaker 1: the way, was actually a markdown because the original price
Speaker 1: was predicted to be nine thousand dollars. Now that's already
Speaker 1: really expensive if we're just talking about how much you
Speaker 1: would pay for a computer today. But we also need
Speaker 1: to adjust for inflation because this was in on the
Speaker 1: twentieth anniversary of Apples incorporation. So if we adjust those
Speaker 1: figures for two thousand two dollars, we see that the
Speaker 1: original predicted price, which had been said at nine thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in today's dollars, that would be sixteen thousand, six
Speaker 1: hundred bucks. The adjusted price, that seven thousand, five hundred
Speaker 1: dollar price tag, that would be the more reasonable thousand,
Speaker 1: eight hundred dollars for that computer. So this anniversary edition
Speaker 1: of the Macintosh really the anniversary of Apple, not the
Speaker 1: anniversary of the Macintosh, but the anniversary of the company
Speaker 1: itself eight hundred bucks. As for the sales figures for
Speaker 1: the anniversary edition of the Macintosh, you could probably guess
Speaker 1: that that high price tag meant not very many units
Speaker 1: were sold. According to Nichol's book, Apple sold around eleven
Speaker 1: thousand units total. I'm actually shocked that it was that many.
Speaker 1: Um Also, reviewers kind of really criticized this particular computer,
Speaker 1: not for its physical design so much that wasn't really
Speaker 1: where they were sticking the criticism. It was more on
Speaker 1: the various functions of the computer and its features. They
Speaker 1: said that it wasn't particularly sophisticated compared to other computers
Speaker 1: at the time, that there were some technical, you know,
Speaker 1: downfalls of this machine, and so it didn't It wasn't
Speaker 1: considered a success, either financially or critically, although i've's approach
Speaker 1: was really unique and like i said, it's set the
Speaker 1: ground for future Apple products too. So Brunner, the director
Speaker 1: of industrial design at Apple, would actually leave the company
Speaker 1: while this anniversary edition of the Macintosh was still in development.
Speaker 1: Brunner had grown tired of the meetings and the politics
Speaker 1: within the company, so he recommended to his boss that
Speaker 1: Johnny I've been named the new director of industrial design
Speaker 1: at Apple. Apparently the original plan was to do a
Speaker 1: talent search across top companies around the world to bring
Speaker 1: in a new director, but Brunner warned that unless the
Speaker 1: promotion happened from within the department, Apple would be in
Speaker 1: danger of losing the whole design team, and ultimately I've
Speaker 1: would get the job. This was a pretty remarkable rise.
Speaker 1: I've had joined Apple in late and had become the
Speaker 1: head of his department had become a director at the company.
Speaker 1: This coincided with the lowest point in Apple's history prior
Speaker 1: to the return of ce Jobs. The tumultuous years at
Speaker 1: Apple under the rotating cast of CEOs was really destructive
Speaker 1: to the company. The company's co founder, a man was
Speaker 1: singular Vision was on the verge of coming back, and
Speaker 1: I would end up having a prominent role in the
Speaker 1: development of the company moving forward. But that was not
Speaker 1: always a guarantee because when Jobs first came back, before
Speaker 1: even becoming the interim CEO, he was at a meeting
Speaker 1: where he criticized the company's output in front of other
Speaker 1: Apple executives, including Johnny I've. He complained that the designs
Speaker 1: had shifted to being these boring, utilitarian and unremarkable form factors,
Speaker 1: something that was kind of hard to argue against because
Speaker 1: that's really where the focus had in. He seemed intent
Speaker 1: on overhauling Apple's entire design department, and that would include
Speaker 1: cleaning house and getting rid of many of the designers
Speaker 1: who were there, including potentially Johnny I've who had just
Speaker 1: become the director. So I've, as the department's new director,
Speaker 1: had to step up to justify the existence of his
Speaker 1: team that consisted of top designers who had come to
Speaker 1: Apple from some of the most prestigious design firms from
Speaker 1: around the world. So i'vean this team were really worried
Speaker 1: that they were soon to be replaced, and I've even
Speaker 1: went so far as to float the idea to his
Speaker 1: team about creating a design firm should they find themselves
Speaker 1: unemployed in the near future. But he also stressed that
Speaker 1: they should wait to hear Jobs as own decision about
Speaker 1: that first, and so things were kind of left up
Speaker 1: in the air until Jobs would pay a visit to
Speaker 1: the design team's office, and that's where we're gonna leave
Speaker 1: off for this episode. Now, I know that in the
Speaker 1: grand scheme of things, that's not much of a cliffhanger,
Speaker 1: because we all know Johnny I've would remain at Apple
Speaker 1: and be instrumental in the company's fortunes moving forward. But
Speaker 1: I figured we can at least pretend that there's some
Speaker 1: sort of tension there, and at the very least you
Speaker 1: can wonder how the heck did I've convince Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: that the design team had a lot to contribute and
Speaker 1: wasn't fully to blame for the bland products Apple was
Speaker 1: known for prior to Steve Jobs. As return, We're gonna
Speaker 1: leave that for the next episode, and we'll continue talking
Speaker 1: about the role that Johnny I've played in some of
Speaker 1: the most iconic products to come out of Apple, ones
Speaker 1: that would reposition Apple in the mind of the public
Speaker 1: and of the media, because at this point in Apple's history,
Speaker 1: the company was really in danger of becoming a nonentity.
Speaker 1: A lot of people had just written off the possibility
Speaker 1: of Apple ever being relevant of her again. So there
Speaker 1: was a remarkable turn of fortune that was to come.
Speaker 1: And while a lot of people would lay that at
Speaker 1: the feet of Steve Jobs, he was not the only
Speaker 1: reason why Apple was able to make a truly amazing recovery.
Speaker 1: We'll talk more about that in the next episode in
Speaker 1: this series. If you have any suggestions for topics I
Speaker 1: should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, please reach
Speaker 1: out to me. There are a couple of ways to
Speaker 1: do that. One is you can download the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app. It's free to download um and if you
Speaker 1: navigate over to the tech Stuff part of that app,
Speaker 1: you'll see a little microphone icon. Clicking on that will
Speaker 1: let you record up to thirty seconds of a voice
Speaker 1: message to me. You can even let me know if
Speaker 1: I can use that voice message in a future episode,
Speaker 1: and you can make requests there, or if you prefer,
Speaker 1: you can reach out over Twitter. The handle for the
Speaker 1: show is tech Stuff h SW and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart
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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.