From YouTube:
“Demo of the first Apple Macintosh by Steve Jobs, January 1984, in front of 3000 people. Andy Hertzfeld captured the moment quite well in his retelling: ‘Pandemonium reigns as the demo completes. Steve has the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on his face, obviously holding back tears as he is overwhelmed by the moment. The ovation continues for at least five minutes before he quiets the crowd down.'”
A few months later, in 1984, Mother Jones published a short piece about Jobs’ upstart company and its now famous “1984” ad. It contains this quote, from an employee at Apple’s advertising agency at the time: “There’s a residual feeling on the part of corporate computer buyers that Apple builds computers for people, not for companies.” Sounds about right. Read the full piece here: Apple’s Free Spirits Vs. Big Blue’s Meanies.
And we’d be remiss if we didn’t link to this classic from the Steve Jobs personality cult cannon, in which the world’s most famous businessman responds to customer service queries. RIP Steve.
Update: This video of Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford commencement address is making the rounds on Facebook. From the speech, delivered about 10 months after he’d undergone successful surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his pancreas:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
