I’ve pretty much written what I’ve wanted to regarding this milestone (and my own experiences there are sprinkled throughout this site). I’ll just be adding links and videos to this post as the more interesting ones are released throughout today.
A look inside Apple’s internal archive vault (which houses a lot of material that even Cook didn’t know existed until the company began preparing for this anniversary).
Cook also sent an e-mail to all employees today:
Team,
Today officially marks Apple’s 50th anniversary. And as we’ve celebrated that milestone this month, I’ve been reflecting on some powerful words from Steve.
“When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is,” he said. “But life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. You can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
This is the ethos that brought Apple into the world in 1976 – and for fifty years, it’s what has drawn the smartest, most passionate, most creative and most committed people to this company.
We come here to do the best work of our lives, and to reach beyond what any of us could do alone. To be part of a culture that asks us to stay curious, to collaborate deeply, to demand excellence of ourselves and the people around us, and to believe — genuinely believe — that we can do the impossible.
Across our teams and across generations, we’ve been united by a simple belief: the future isn’t something you wait for. It’s something you build. And it is staggering to think of everything we’ve built together.
Fifty years ago, there was a single computer prototype in a garage. Today, there are 2.5 billion active Apple devices in the hands of people in every corner of the earth – helping them create, communicate, learn and connect in ways that would have seemed unimaginable then.
It’s impossible to fully quantify the profound impact this company and its people have had on the world. And it’s a truly special thing to do what we do every day, knowing that our work is squarely focused on empowering people and enriching their lives.
Whether you joined this year or have been here for dozens of years, I hope you take a minute to reflect on how much your work means. Thank you.
Thank you for pushing yourselves further than you thought you could go. Thank you for believing in our mission and holding fast to our values. Thank you for dedicating yourself to something so much bigger than any one of us.
As extraordinary as it is to reflect on the past fifty years, what excites me most is what comes next. The opportunities ahead of us are among the greatest we have ever seen – and there’s no team in the world better positioned to meet them.
Thank you for everything and here’s to the next fifty years.
Tim
This part of the ethos is one of the things I took away from the mentors that I learned from at the company and have been practicing it ever since: “When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is,” he said. “But life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. You can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
That goes along with one portion of his (Jobs) speech at Stanford in 2005 during a commencement ceremony: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
Ditching platforms and doing things myself (like these sites) have just been a continuation of what I ended a decade ago (maybe I shouldn’t have, but that’s the past). Even investing the way I did (counter to the usual advice) and exiting the corporate workforce as soon as I could, are all rooted in those past life experiences (especially beginning in college through my time that I spent in Cupertino where some of that ethos became even more ingrained).
Not everything was/has been positive, but the positives did far outweigh the negatives (and ended up serving me well over the years). Happy 50th Apple!
