The ENTIRE History of Apple in 14 Minutes — Transcript

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1. 0:00In 1997,
2. 0:01Apple was losing so much money that
3. 0:04analysts openly wondered whether the
4. 0:06company would survive the year. 25 years
5. 0:08later, it was worth more than $3
6. 0:11trillion, more than the entire economy
7. 0:14of most countries on Earth. This is how
8. 0:16a company that started in a garage
9. 0:18nearly died, came back, and changed the
10. 0:20way the world lives. The story begins in
11. 0:23the 1970s in a quiet stretch of
12. 0:25California full of orchards, electronic
13. 0:28shops, and engineers who tinkered after
14. 0:30work. One of those engineers was Steve
15. 0:33Wozniak, who worked at Hewlett-Packard
16. 0:35and spent his evenings building
17. 0:37computers for fun. At the time,
18. 0:39computers were huge, expensive machines
19. 0:42that belonged to universities and big
20. 0:43companies. Wozniak was part of a small
21. 0:46club of hobbyists who believed ordinary
22. 0:48people should be able to own one. In
23. 0:511976,
24. 0:52Wozniak designed a simple computer
25. 0:55board, better and cheaper than anything
26. 0:57the hobbyists had seen. His friend Steve
27. 1:00Jobs, 5 years younger, had a different
28. 1:03talent. Jobs did not care much about the
29. 1:05circuitry. He cared about what people
30. 1:07would want. He looked at Wozniak's board
31. 1:10and said they should not just give the
32. 1:12design away. They should sell it.
33. 1:15To raise money, Jobs sold his Volkswagen
34. 1:18van and Wozniak sold his scientific
35. 1:20calculator. Together, they scraped
36. 1:22together about $1,300.
37. 1:25They brought in a third partner, an
38. 1:27older engineer named Ronald Wayne, who
39. 1:29drew the first company logo and wrote
40. 1:31the instruction manual. On April 1st,
41. 1:341976,
42. 1:35the three of them signed an agreement
43. 1:37and Apple Computer was born. Why Apple?
44. 1:41Jobs had recently spent time on an apple
45. 1:43farm and he liked how friendly the word
46. 1:45sounded. It was simple, not
47. 1:47intimidating, and it would appear in the
48. 1:49phone book before Atari, where Jobs used
49. 1:51to work. Ronald Wayne owned 10% of the
50. 1:55new company, but he was nervous. Jobs
51. 1:58was already taking on debt, and Wayne
52. 2:00feared that if the business failed, he
53. 2:02would be the one stuck with the bills.
54. 2:04Just 12 days after signing, he sold his
55. 2:07entire stake for $800.
56. 2:10That 10% would be worth tens of billions
57. 2:13of dollars today. Their first real
58. 2:15customer came from a local computer
59. 2:17store called The Byte Shop. The owner,
60. 2:20Paul Terrell, ordered 50 computers at
61. 2:22$500 each, but with one condition. He
62. 2:26wanted them fully assembled, not as
63. 2:27kits. It was far more than the partners
64. 2:30could afford to build, so Jobs talked
65. 2:32electronic suppliers into giving him
66. 2:34parts on credit, 30 days to pay. The
67. 2:37team built all 50 in a few weeks inside
68. 2:40the Jobs family home and garage in Los
69. 2:43Altos. That machine was called the Apple
70. 2:46I. They priced it at $666.66
71. 2:51because Wozniak liked repeating numbers.
72. 2:54Only about 200 were ever built, but it
73. 2:56proved something important. People would
74. 2:59pay real money for a computer. Now, Jobs
75. 3:02wanted something bigger. Not a circuit
76. 3:04board for hobbyists, but a finished
77. 3:06product that anyone could plug in and
78. 3:08use. Wozniak designed it. Jobs shaped
79. 3:11it. The Apple II had a built-in
80. 3:13keyboard, color graphics, and a sleek
81. 3:16plastic case that made it look more like
82. 3:18a home appliance than a piece of lab
83. 3:20equipment. To fund it, Jobs convinced a
84. 3:23former Intel executive named Mike
85. 3:25Markkula to join. Markkula helped write
86. 3:28the business plan, put in his own money,
87. 3:31and guaranteed a quarter of a million
88. 3:33dollars in bank credit. In return, he
89. 3:36became a third owner of the company and
90. 3:38its first chairman. The Apple II
91. 3:40launched in 1977
92. 3:42and became a hit. Then, in 1979,
93. 3:46a new program called VisiCalc arrived,
94. 3:49the first spreadsheet for personal
95. 3:51computers. Suddenly, the Apple II was
96. 3:54not just a toy for hobbyists. Businesses
97. 3:56bought it to run their numbers. In just
98. 3:593 years, Apple's sales grew from under
99. 4:01$1 million
100. 4:03to more than $100 million. In December
101. 4:05of 1980, Apple went public. The stock
102. 4:09sold out within minutes. It was the
103. 4:11biggest stock market debut since the
104. 4:12Ford Motor Company in the 1950s, and it
105. 4:15made more people instant millionaires
106. 4:17than any company before it. Steve Jobs,
107. 4:20just 25 years old, was worth more than
108. 4:22$200 million.
109. 4:25But Jobs was already thinking about what
110. 4:27came next. Before the company went
111. 4:29public in 1979,
112. 4:31he had visited a research lab owned by
113. 4:33Xerox, where he saw a computer that used
114. 4:37little pictures and a pointing device
115. 4:39called a mouse instead of lines of typed
116. 4:41commands. Within minutes, Jobs
117. 4:44understood that this was the future.
118. 4:47Everyone would use computers like this
119. 4:49one day. Apple's first attempt to build
120. 4:51it was a machine called the Lisa. It was
121. 4:53powerful and advanced, but it cost
122. 4:56almost $10,000,
123. 4:58and almost nobody bought it.
124. 5:00So Jobs took over a smaller project, a
125. 5:03team of engineers working on a cheaper
126. 5:05computer called the Macintosh. He ran
127. 5:07them like a rebel crew, even flying a
128. 5:10pirate flag over their building. The
129. 5:12Macintosh launched in January of 1984
130. 5:15with a single commercial during the
131. 5:17Super Bowl,
132. 5:18directed by Ridley Scott. It showed a
133. 5:20gray, lifeless crowd staring at a giant
134. 5:23screen until a lone runner smashed it
135. 5:26with a hammer. It aired only once, but
136. 5:28it became one of the most famous
137. 5:30advertisements of all time. The Mac sold
138. 5:33well at first, then sales dropped. It
139. 5:35was slow, it had very little memory, and
140. 5:38there was almost no software for it. At
141. 5:41the same time, Jobs had a growing
142. 5:43conflict with the man he had personally
143. 5:45hired to run the company, John Sculley,
144. 5:48a former Pepsi executive.
145. 5:50Jobs had convinced him to leave Pepsi
146. 5:52with a famous question. Did he want to
147. 5:54spend the rest of his life selling sugar
148. 5:56water, or did he want to change the
149. 5:58world? Now, the two men were fighting
150. 6:01over the company's future. In 1985,
151. 6:04Apple's board sided with Sculley and
152. 6:06stripped Jobs of his role running the
153. 6:08Macintosh. Jobs resigned that September.
154. 6:11He sold almost all of his Apple stock,
155. 6:13keeping just a single share. He was 30
156. 6:16years old and he had been pushed out of
157. 6:17the company he started. Over the next
158. 6:20decade, Apple slowly lost its way. The
159. 6:23Mac still had loyal fans, especially in
160. 6:25design and publishing, but Microsoft had
161. 6:28released Windows, which ran on cheap
162. 6:30computers from dozens of different
163. 6:31companies. Apple refused to compete on
164. 6:34price and kept its machines expensive
165. 6:37and closed. Meanwhile, its products grew
166. 6:40confusing. At one point, Apple was
167. 6:43selling dozens of different Mac models
168. 6:45with names and numbers that even its own
169. 6:47employees struggled to explain. One
170. 6:50ambitious product, a handheld device
171. 6:52called the Newton, flopped and became a
172. 6:55joke. The company went through three
173. 6:57different chief executives in the 1990s
174. 7:00and each could not stop the decline. By
175. 7:031997,
176. 7:04Apple had lost well over a billion
177. 7:06dollars in two years and its share of
178. 7:08the computer market had shrunk to a
179. 7:10sliver. Some experts openly said it
180. 7:13might be only months from running out of
181. 7:15cash. Meanwhile, Steve Jobs had been
182. 7:18busy. He started a new computer company
183. 7:20called NeXT, which built powerful,
184. 7:23beautiful machines for universities.
185. 7:25They were too expensive to sell in large
186. 7:27numbers, but the software inside them
187. 7:29was years ahead of its time. He also
188. 7:31bought a small computer graphics
189. 7:33division from filmmaker George Lucas for
190. 7:35$10 million,
191. 7:37including money he invested in the
192. 7:38company. It became Pixar. In 1995, Pixar
193. 7:43released Toy Story, the first fully
194. 7:45computer animated movie, and its stock
195. 7:48offering made Jobs a billionaire. Then
196. 7:50came a surprise. In late 1996,
197. 7:54Apple was desperate for a modern
198. 7:56operating system to replace the aging
199. 7:58Mac software. Its leaders searched
200. 8:01everywhere and finally decided to buy
201. 8:03NeXT for $429 million.
202. 8:07The deal brought Steve Jobs back into
203. 8:09the building, first as an adviser.
204. 8:12Within months, he had taken control, and
205. 8:14in September of 1997, he became interim
206. 8:18chief executive. Apple's founder had
207. 8:20come home.
208. 8:21His first move was to cut. Apple had
209. 8:24dozens of products, so Jobs drew a
210. 8:26simple grid on a whiteboard. Two
211. 8:28columns, consumer and professional. Two
212. 8:32rows, desktop and portable. Four
213. 8:34products and nothing else. He ended the
214. 8:37Newton and shut down the program that
215. 8:39let other companies build Mac clones.
216. 8:42Engineers were stunned, but the focus
217. 8:45saved the company. Next, he did
218. 8:47something that shocked the industry.
219. 8:49At a conference in August of 1997,
220. 8:52Jobs announced that Apple's greatest
221. 8:54rival, Microsoft, would invest $150
222. 8:58million in the company. The crowd booed,
223. 9:01but the money kept Apple alive, and the
224. 9:03deal ended a long legal fight and let
225. 9:06Jobs turn his attention to the future.
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229. 9:15to cover.
230. 9:16In 1998, Apple released a new computer
231. 9:20designed by a young British designer
232. 9:22named Jony Ive. It was the iMac. It
233. 9:25looked like nothing else on the market
234. 9:27with a curved translucent shell in a
235. 9:29bright blue color and a handle on top.
236. 9:32It was easy to set up and plugged
237. 9:34straight into the internet. It also
238. 9:36dropped the floppy disk drive, which
239. 9:38many people thought was a mistake. It
240. 9:40was not. The iMac sold hundreds of
241. 9:42thousands of units in a matter of weeks,
242. 9:45and Apple returned to profit that very
243. 9:47year. The comeback had begun, but the
244. 9:49biggest breakthrough was still ahead. In
245. 9:512001, Apple opened its first retail
246. 9:54stores and released a small white device
247. 9:56called the iPod. Its promise was simple,
248. 9:59a thousand songs in your pocket. At the
249. 10:02time, digital music was a mess of
250. 10:04illegal downloads and clumsy players. In
251. 10:062003, Apple opened the iTunes store,
252. 10:10where you could buy a song for 99 cents,
253. 10:12giving the music industry a legal
254. 10:14alternative to piracy. The iPod, with
255. 10:17its white earbuds, became the most
256. 10:19recognizable gadget of the decade, and
257. 10:22Apple was no longer just a computer
258. 10:23company. Then Jobs took the biggest risk
259. 10:26of his career. He realized that cell
260. 10:29phones were about to swallow music
261. 10:31players, cameras, and much more.
262. 10:34If someone else built that device, it
263. 10:36would destroy the iPod, Apple's
264. 10:38best-selling product. So, he decided
265. 10:40that Apple should do it first and
266. 10:42replace its own hit before anyone else
267. 10:45could. In January of 2007, on a stage in
268. 10:48San Francisco, Jobs announced three new
269. 10:51products. A wide-screen iPod with touch
270. 10:54controls, a revolutionary mobile phone,
271. 10:57and a breakthrough internet device. He
272. 10:59repeated the three names, then asked the
273. 11:02audience if they understood. They were
274. 11:04not three separate devices. It was one
275. 11:07device, and it was called the iPhone.
276. 11:10It went on sale that June. It had no
277. 11:12physical keyboard, which many critics
278. 11:15thought was a fatal flaw. They were
279. 11:17wrong. A year later, Apple opened the
280. 11:20App Store, letting outside developers
281. 11:22build programs for the phone.
282. 11:24This turned the iPhone from a gadget
283. 11:26into a platform, and it launched an
284. 11:28entire industry of mobile apps, games,
285. 11:31and services. In 2010, Apple released
286. 11:34the iPad, creating yet another category.
287. 11:37By then, Apple had changed from a
288. 11:39struggling computer maker into the most
289. 11:41important technology company in the
290. 11:43world. But Steve Jobs was sick. He had
291. 11:46been diagnosed with cancer in 2003, and
292. 11:48his health got worse.
293. 11:50In August of 2011, he resigned as chief
294. 11:53executive and handed the job to Tim
295. 11:56Cook, the operations expert who had
296. 11:58joined Apple in 1998.
297. 12:00Just weeks later, on October 5th, Steve
298. 12:03Jobs died. He was 56. Many people
299. 12:07wondered whether Apple could survive
300. 12:09without him. Cook answered by running
301. 12:11the company in a very different way.
302. 12:13Jobs was a visionary, obsessed with
303. 12:16products. Cook was a master of
304. 12:18logistics, building one of the most
305. 12:20efficient supply chains in the world.
306. 12:22Under him, Apple launched the Apple
307. 12:24Watch in 2015 and AirPods in 2016. It
308. 12:28also grew a huge services business with
309. 12:31the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, and
310. 12:34more, which brought in steady revenue
311. 12:36every month. In 2020, Apple stopped
312. 12:39using Intel processors in its computers
313. 12:41and began designing its own chips. They
314. 12:44were faster, more efficient, and gave
315. 12:46Apple even more control over everything
316. 12:48it built. The numbers became staggering.
317. 12:51In August of 2018, Apple became the
318. 12:54first American company to be worth $1
319. 12:56trillion.
320. 12:58Two years later, it passed $2 trillion.
321. 13:01By January of 2022, it had reached $3
322. 13:04trillion. Today, Apple earns nearly $400
323. 13:07billion a year in revenue and has sold
324. 13:10more than 2 billion iPhones. In 2024, it
325. 13:14launched its Vision Pro headset, a bet
326. 13:16that computers will move off the desk
327. 13:18and onto our faces.
328. 13:21Apple's story is not a simple rise.
329. 13:23It was built by two friends in a garage,
330. 13:26nearly destroyed by its own mistakes,
331. 13:28and saved by a founder who returned and
332. 13:31had the courage to say no.
333. 13:33It is a story about focus, about taking
334. 13:35risks, and about being willing to
335. 13:37replace your own best product before
336. 13:40somebody else does. And it all started
337. 13:42with a circuit board, a Volkswagen van,
338. 13:45and a calculator.