Krazy Ken: with a Valuation of Over $2 Trillion and a Worldwide Iconic Brand, Apple Is Arguably the Most Successful and Infuential Company in the World
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Krazy Ken: With a valuation of over $2 trillion and a worldwide iconic brand, Apple is arguably the most successful and influential company in the world. But it wasn't always like that. In fact, there was a time when Apple co-founder Steve Jobs left the company in the early days when the Macintosh was only one year old. We'll talk about all that and more today on Apple Keynote Chronicles. Krazy Ken: Apple Keynote Chronicles is made possible by our awesome friends at Linode. With Linode, you can simplify your infrastructure and cut your cloud bills in half with their Linux virtual machines. To put it simply: If it runs on Linux, it runs on Linode. Krazy Ken: Hey guys, how are you all doing? If you're new here, welcome. My name is Krazy Ken, and welcome to the very first episode of Apple Keynote Chronicles. And our mission here is to chronicle every single Steve Jobs Apple Keynote, or "Stevenote", as we'd like to say. And we're not just going to talk about the physical events that take place on stage, but we'll also dive into the backstories, the products and our own personal experiences, too. And along the way throughout this journey, we'll have some other surprises, kind of woven in throughout time. Throughout this whole crazy ambitious journey, I am joined by Brad, the crazy guy who agreed to do this with me. Brad, thanks for agreeing to be on this show, which is probably going to consume about a year of our life force. Probably longer. Brad: Hey, you know, that's okay. We were just talking before we started recording that it's a very pleasant surprise. We've watched a lot of keynotes and have talked about keynotes and stuff. Krazy Ken: The new ones, yeah. Brad: The new ones. The new ones, and so, but then that got, you get into talking about it and you go back to the old ones. And I think we both just had a passion for it. So we're actually going, even these first ones we're going to talk about, I had never seen before. Krazy Ken: Right. Brad: So I'm really looking forward to doing it. Thanks for asking for having me. Krazy Ken: Abso-freaking-lutely. And of course, Brad's not going to be the only one here. He's kind of the main co-host, but we plan to have other special guests on the show. In fact, I've already had a few people tweet me. I've had two people tweet me that they were actually in the audience during some of the keynotes and one person who tweeted me was also a stagehand. He said he was a producer backstage or something like that. So if we can get more behind-the-scenes people on the show, that would be awesome, too. So lots of cool, potential surprises there to come. Krazy Ken: So we're starting at the beginning here, before Stevenotes were really a thing. This was before Apple events were really big. They are a show. They aren't just some product demo. They are a show. Millions of people watch them when they live stream them now. It has become a full-blown production, almost kind of like a mini Super Bowl for us computer guys. And the first major Apple Product Event was held at the Flint Center on January 24th, 1984. But we're actually going to rewind a little bit to late 1983 to the Sales Conference in Hawaii. Krazy Ken: So Steve Jobs is talking at this conference and he's setting the stage for where Apple is going to go in January, where they reveal the Macintosh to the public for the first time. Well, officially for the first time. It wasn't really a very well kept secret. You know what I mean? So Steve has this, I don't know, rallying speech or whatever you want to call it and feel free to chime in with any of your own adjectives, Brad. But he's kind of behind the podium setting the stage for like, "IBM is our enemy." Krazy Ken: IBM is dismissing the personal computer. And this was when the Apple II has already made like $300 million. That was a personal computer. But, IBM was in the mainframes and stuff. They weren't interested in the personal computer. But then what happens? IBM gets into the personal computer market in the early '80s with the IBM PC. So now Apple and IBM are the biggest competitors in the personal computer market in the early '80s. So then Steve is like, "Will they dominate the entire computer industry? Was George Orwell right?" There was this whole 1984, the book, 1984, mentality behind this whole thing where it's Apple trying to free people from Big Brother and the Thought Police and all that stuff. Steve Jobs: Well, Big Blue dominates the entire computer industry. The entire information age was George Orwell right about 1984. Krazy Ken: So then, Steve previews the 1984 ad to the whole audience. This was before it aired during Superbowl XVIII ... I believe it was Super Bowl XVIII, and the audience was going kind of crazy as you can hear. And there's an insane, I don't know how you want to define insane, but there's a pretty crazy backstory here. Did you look into the backstory of this commercial? Brad: Of the commercial? I've known of the commercial for before I had seen- Krazy Ken: Probably longer than me. Brad: Well, the commercial is yeah, it's a very famous commercial in the advertising world, and one of my favorite filmmakers, Ridley Scott- Krazy Ken: Oh, yeah. Brad: Is the maker of it. So, they really went all out for this and it's a powerful piece. This is still referenced today. Krazy Ken: It is. Yeah. Actually, I'm glad you brought that up because Epic Games is having this whole debacle with Apple right now. And what did they do with their press material? They made an animated version of this 1984 ad. Brad: I wouldn't be surprised if actually this is the most parodied ad of all time. Krazy Ken: It might be, actually. Brad: I bet there's a Simpsons version of it. Krazy Ken: There is a Simpsons version. Yup. Brad: A Family Guy, like name of the show. There's some version of this because Apple is kind of one of the most parodied companies. You know? Krazy Ken: Oh, totally. Yeah, they totally are. Yeah, I can confirm for sure there is a parody on the Simpsons. It was from the episode, MyPods and Boomsticks, that is one of the best episodes ever, in my opinion. Valve did a parody of it when they released Steam on the Mac. They had Dr. Breen on the Big Brother screen. It was really funny. And yeah, Epic did it. So that's at least three right there, and I'm sure there's a dozen. Brad: But no, I don't. I know the making of it, I know it's quite famous. But if there's more history to it, I'd love to hear it. Krazy Ken: Yeah, and I actually only learned about it more recently because I'm starting to sink my teeth into Walter Isaacson's biography, which by the way, is an amazing biography about Steve Jobs. We do have links in the show notes if you want to get it yourself. Chiat\Day was the agency behind this ad, and I believe Apple was using them for multiple things. Lee Clow was the creative director. And as you mentioned, Ridley Scott was the actual director-director. And I think at that time, didn't he just finish up Blade Runner or something? Brad: I can't, I think Blade Runner was maybe made in 1982 or something like that. Krazy Ken: '82, okay. Brad: So yeah- Krazy Ken: It was a pretty big hit, though. Brad: Yeah, I'm sure that's where a lot of the visual, it has the visual style of Blade Runner. Krazy Ken: Yeah. So Jobs was being pitched this idea that younger people in the counterculture saw computers as scary. Now I can't speak for myself. I didn't grow up during this time. But if you watch a lot of older movies, especially Sci-Fi, even Space Odyssey, you had the HAL computer, which was IBM, just minus one letter on each thing and you spell Hal. Brad: Oh. Krazy Ken: Yeah. Brad: I didn't know that. Krazy Ken: Little tidbit right there. Computers were kind of painted as scary, I guess you could say. But also in reality, they weren't really accessible to a ton of people. Apple was helping liberate the technology, and IBM was making the IBM PC now. But before that, it was mainframes and punch cards and all that stuff. There wasn't a computer in people's homes. It wasn't like that. So people didn't really know what computers could do for them. They just saw what they were like on movies and TV. Krazy Ken: So that was the Orwellian future and Jobs wanted to fight against that, hence the whole 1984 idea. And he was kind of a rebel himself, even at Apple. The Macintosh team was kind of, you could call it "rebellious".