The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 25 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Apple's core design team had 16 people compared to Samsung's 1,000
“There's 16 odd designers focusing on refining and improving Apple's products and manufacturing processes. By comparison, Samsung has a thousand designers working in 34 research centers around the world. Apple had 16 in one spot.”
BeOS Founder Brought No Laptop or Presentation to Crucial Apple Pitch
“The founder of B walks in and he pursued a different approach. He hadn't brought anyone else from his team. He wasn't carrying a laptop. In fact, he had prepared no presentation whatsoever because the two teams had been kept separate.”
Steve Jobs considered a free, ad-supported version of Mac OS
“And he's like, Hey, what if we gave it away for free? And we just did an ad supported version of Mac OS. And instead of buying them, you can get it for free, but you have to watch an ad every time before you use your computer.”
Henry Singleton was an early investor in Apple Computer
“Not the one Henry helped to finance. He invested in Apple.”
Apple reduced hardware development cycles from three years to nine months
“We reduced product development from three years to nine months. We made Apple one of the fastest companies in tech”
Atari founder Nolan Bushnell declined 30% of Apple for $50k
“Nolan Bushnow, the founder of Atari, recounts in his book and a bunch of other interviews I've seen with him. Biggest regret in his life, he was offered 30% of Apple, I think for like 50,000 or a 100,000, it was something like that. And he said, no”
Steve Jobs originally wanted to name the iMac the 'MacMan'
“Ken Sego, the author. He's the one that came up with the name iMac. And thank God he did, because you know what Steve wanted to call the iMac before it was called iMac? He wanted to call the iMac Mac Man.”
Steve Jobs Stayed Out of Story Decisions at Pixar
“At Apple, he had the reputation of being deeply involved in the most minute details of every product, but at Pixar, he didn't believe that his instincts were better than the people here, so he stayed out.”
Senra: Steve Jobs became a billionaire from Pixar, not Apple
“Steve Jobs was, this actually is the first thing that makes Steve Jobs a billionaire. He was a billionaire off of Pixar stock, not Apple stock.”
Steve Jobs Opened Apple Acquisition Negotiation at $500 Million
“Steve opened, offering the company at 12 dollars a share, which would have made the total acquisition price five hundred million dollars.”
Steve Jobs adopted Edwin Land's arts and technology philosophy
“The idea is that you should build a company at the intersection of arts and technology. That is Edwin Land's idea. That is an idea that Steve Jobs learned from Edwin Land that Steve used when he was in his twenties, his thirties, his forties, until he died.”
Jobs raised Apple's market cap from $1.8B to $4B in one year
“And so in about a year, he raised Apple's market cap to four billion from 1.8 billion.”
Ortega Holds a $20B Real Estate Portfolio Leased to Tech Giants
“He's actually one of the largest tech company landlords in the world. Tech companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, Spotify, Amazon, All lease property from Ortega. In fact, his commercial real estate portfolio alone is worth around twenty billion dollars.”
Steve Jobs considered Apple keynote presentations to be a competitive weapon
“In fact, in this book, he said that he considered his keynote presentations competitive weapon and he considered a competitive weapon for Apple.”
Steve Jobs capped the original Macintosh team at exactly 100 people
“So when he was building the first Macintosh, he's in his twenties, he limited the team to a hundred people. If you wanted to add a person, if you say, Hey, we need, you know, this person's help. You act, you first have to find the person that was unnecessary a…”
Jobs attempted to get Apple to acquire Lucasfilm's computer division in 1985
“And so he actually tries to get Apple before he gets kicked out to buy these guys.”
Senra: Atari founder Nolan Bushnell rejected 30% of Apple for $50,000
“Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, recounts in his book and a bunch of other interviews I've seen with him biggest regret in his life, he was offered 30% of Apple, I think for like 50,000 or a 100,000, it was something like that, and he said no.”
Senra: Jobs had $70M upon leaving Apple, equal to $200M today
“He had about seventy million dollars at that time. Ok, so, if you adjust for inflation in our present day, that's like being 30 years old and having two hundred million dollars today.”
Steve Jobs made raw speed the sole success metric for Apple's Safari
“Steve Jobs himself had decided how he would judge our browser as a product. The focus would be on one thing, speed. Steve wanted our browser to be fast, to be really fast, much faster than Microsoft Internet Explorer, which is the product that we aim to replac…”
Steve Jobs rehearsed keynote presentations for weeks until he knew them cold
“Three, three weeks or a month before the keynote itself, Steve would start rehearsing with portions of his slide deck. Slowly, day by day, he would build the show by stepping through it As he wanted to present it at the keynote. This was one of Steve's great s…”
Steve Jobs modeled Apple's tech-and-liberal-arts ethos directly after Polaroid's Edwin Land
“Building a company at the intersection of technology and liberal arts is literally something Edwin Land talked about and did, something Steve Jobs learned from Edwin Land, and then Steve Jobs used it at Apple.”
Steve Jobs disbanded Apple's Advanced Technology Group upon his return in 1997
“Steve Jobs famously disbanded such an organization at Apple, which was called the Advanced Technology Group, shortly after he reasserted control over the company in 1997.”
Michael Dell famously advised shutting Apple down in 1997
“That year, Michael Dell famously said of Apple, what would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to shareholders.”