Start with why

PART 6
DISCOVER WHY

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13
THE ORIGINS OF A WHY
It started in Vietnam War–era Northern California, where antigovernment ideals
and distain for large centers of power ran rampant. Two young men saw the
power of government and corporations as the enemy, not because they were big,
per se, but because they squashed the spirit of the individual. They imagined a
world in which an individual had a voice. They imagined a time when an
individual could successfully stand up to incumbent power, old assumptions and
status-quo thoughts and successfully challenge them. Even redirect them. They
hung out with hippie types who shared their beliefs, but they saw a different way
to change the world that didn’t require protesting or engaging in anything illegal.
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs came of age in this time. Not only was the
revolutionary spirit running high in Northern California, but it was also the time
and place of the computer revolution. And in this technology they saw the
opportunity to start their own revolution. “The Apple gave an individual the
power to do the same things as any company,” Wozniak recounts. “For the first
time ever, one person could take on a corporation simply because they had the
ability to use the technology.” Wozniak engineered the Apple I and later the
Apple II to be simple enough for people to harness the power of the technology.
Jobs knew how to sell it. Thus was born Apple Computer. A company with a
purpose—to give the individual to power to stand up to established power. To
empower the dreamers and the idealists to challenge the status quo and succeed.
But their cause, their WHY, started long before Apple was born.
In 1971, working out of Wozniak’s dorm room at UC Berkeley, the two
Steves made something they called the Blue Box. Their little device hacked the
phone system to give people the ability to avoid paying long-distance rates on
their phone bills. Apple computers didn’t exist yet, but Jobs and Woz were
already challenging a Big Brother–type power, in this case Ma Bell, American
Telephone and Telegraph, the monopoly phone company. Technically, what the
Blue Box did was illegal, and with no desire to challenge power by breaking the
law, Jobs and Woz never actually used the device themselves. But they liked the
idea of giving other individuals the ability to avoid having to play by the rules of
monopolistic forces, a theme that would repeat many more times in Apple’s
future.

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On April 1, 1976, they repeated their pattern again. They took on the giants of
the computer industry, most notably Big Blue, IBM. Before the Apple,
computing still meant using a punch card to give instructions to a huge
mainframe squirreled away in a computer center somewhere. IBM targeted their
technology to corporations and not, as Apple intended, as a tool for individuals
to target corporations. With clarity of purpose and amazing discipline, Apple
Computer’s success seemed to follow the Law of Diffusion almost by design. In
its first year in business, the company sold $1 million worth of computers to
those who believed what they believed. By year two, they had sold $10 million
worth. By their third year in business they were a $100 million company, and
they attained billion-dollar status within only six years.
Already a household name, in 1984 Apple launched the Macintosh with their
famed “1984” commercial that aired during the Super Bowl. Directed by Ridley
Scott, famed director of cult classics like 
Blade Runner
, the commercial also
changed the course of the advertising industry. The first “Super Bowl
commercial,” it ushered in the annual tradition of big-budget, cinematic Super
Bowl advertising. With the Macintosh, Apple once again changed the tradition
of how things were done. They challenged the standard of Microsoft’s DOS, the
standard operating system used by most personal computers at the time. The
Macintosh was the first mass-market computer to use a graphical user interface
and a mouse, allowing people to simply “point and click” rather than input code.
Ironically, it was Microsoft that took Apple’s concept to the masses with
Windows, Gates’s version of the graphical user interface. Apple’s ability to
ignite revolutions and Microsoft’s ability to take ideas to the mass market
perfectly illustrate the WHY of each company and indeed their respective
founders. Jobs has always been about challenge and Gates has always been
about getting to the most people.
Apple would continue to challenge with other products that followed the same
pattern. Recent examples include the iPod and, more significantly, iTunes. With
these technologies, Apple challenged the status-quo business model of the music
industry—an industry so distracted trying to protect its intellectual property and
their outdated business model that it was busy suing thirteen-year-old music
pirates while Apple redefined the online music market. The pattern repeated
again when Apple introduced the iPhone. The status quo dictated that the
cellular providers and not the phone manufacturer decide the features and
capabilities of the actual phones. T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint, for
example, tell Motorola, LG, and Nokia what to do. Apple changed all that when
they announced that, with the iPhone, they would be telling the provider what
the phone would do. Ironically the company that Apple challenged with their

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Blue Box decades before, this time around exhibited classic early-adopter
behavior. AT&T was the only one to agree to this new model, and so another
revolution was ignited.
Apple’s keen aptitude for innovation is born out of its WHY and, save for the
years Jobs was missing, it has never changed since the company was founded.
Industries holding on to legacy business models should be forewarned; you
could be next. If Apple stays true to their WHY, the television and movie
industries will likely be next.
Apple’s ability to do what they do has nothing to do with industry expertise.
All computer and technology companies have open access to talent and
resources and are just as qualified to produce all the products Apple does. It has
to do with a purpose, cause or belief that started many years ago with a couple of
idealists in Cupertino, California. “I want to put a ding in the universe,” as Steve
Jobs put it. And that’s exactly what Apple does in the industries in which it
competes. Apple is born out of its founders’ WHY. There is no difference
between one or the other. Apple is just one of the WHATs to Jobs’s and Woz’s
WHY. The personalities of Jobs and Apple are exactly the same. In fact, the
personalities of all those who are viscerally drawn to Apple are similar. There is
no difference between an Apple customer and an Apple employee. One believes
in Apple’s WHY and chooses to work for the company, and the other believes in
Apple’s WHY and chooses to buy its products. It is just a behavioral difference.
Loyal shareholders are no different either. WHAT they buy is different, but the
reason they buy and remain loyal is the same. The products of the company
become symbols of their own identities. The die-hards outside the company are
said to be a part of the cult of Apple. The die-hards inside the company are said
to be a part of the “cult of Steve.” Their symbols are different, but their devotion
to the cause is the same. That we use the word “cult” implies that we can
recognize that there is a deep faith, something irrational, that all those who
believe share. And we’d be right. Jobs, his company, his loyal employees and his
loyal customers all exist to push the boundaries. They all fancy a good
revolution.
Just because Apple’s WHY is so clear does not mean everyone is drawn to it.
Some people like them and some don’t. Some people embrace them and some
are repelled by them. But it cannot be denied: they stand for something. The Law
of Diffusion says that only 2.5 percent of the population has an innovator
mentality—they are a group of people willing to trust their intuition and take
greater risks than others. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Microsoft Windows
sits on 96 percent of the world’s computers whereas Apple maintains about 2.5
percent. Most people don’t want to challenge the status quo.

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Though Apple employees will tell you the company’s success lies in its
products, the fact is that a lot of companies make quality products. And though
Apple’s employees may still insist that their products are better, it depends on
the standard by which you are judging them. Apple’s products are indeed best
for those who relate to Apple’s WHY. It is Apple’s belief that comes through in
all they think, say and do that makes them who they are. They are so effective at
it, they are able to clearly identify their own products simply by preceding the
product name with the letter “i.” But they don’t just own the letter, they own the
word
“I.” They are a company that champions the creative spirit of the
individual, and their products, services and marketing simply prove it.

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