By Ken Luskin
[email protected] October 28, 2014 PART I: People & Strategy The Brilliance of Steve Jobs was in building a team of geniuses Virtually everyone in the world knows that Steve Jobs was the driving force behind the success of Apple. Unfortunately, few of them understand that without the team of technical gurus Jobs assembled, his visions would not have become reality. Without a Microprocessor Brain, the iPhone would not exist Inside every “smart” computing device is a microprocessor, considered the brains of the device. When Jobs was creating what is now known as the iPhone, he needed a special microprocessor, which could make it through the day without draining the battery. Jobs first approached Intel, the company that was supplying the microprocessors for the entire MAC line. Intel was not interested in supplying a relatively low cost mobile chip, because the bean counters and FAB guys had no vision. So, Jobs built a team of top mobile microproprocessor engineers, licensed the ARM architecture, and created a chip that became the brains of the iPhone and iPad. Apple buys P.A. Semiconductor in 2008 to keep Apple’s microprocessors on the cutting edge With this acquisition Apple received a group of highly innovative engineers, including ex AMD employee Jim Keller. From a VentureBeat article: “Keller spearheaded the development of Apple’s custom mobile processors — including the A4 in the iPhone 4, the A5 in the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, and the A5X in the new iPad — all of which have managed to keep Apple’s mobile devices on the cutting edge.