Jony Ive helped popularize Apple with iconic product form factors

Steve Jobs changed the world with Apple and Pixar

The devices Jobs introduced during his time at Apple, including the iPad and iPhone, were imitated by competitors, ultimately helping to create the numerous options consumers have today. In addition to leading Apple, Jobs also helped turn Pixar and the software startup NeXT into success stories.

In 2018, Apple became the world's first publicly traded trillion-dollar company

The valuation was made possible by Steve Jobs' return to the company in 1997, who implemented a simplification strategy by cutting the majority of Apple's existing product line. His promotion of Jony Ive to SVP of industrial design would help popularize Apple through colorful products and marketing.

Steve Jobs introduced Apple’s 'Think Different' marketing campaign

Jobs introduced the now-iconic “Think Different” marketing campaign. It won numerous awards, symbolized Apple’s new era under Jobs, and showed off his understanding of branding.

Completed in 2017, Apple's headquarters cost $5 billion dollars

Apple Park features a ring-shaped main building that accommodates over 12,000 employees, situated above a two-story underground parking garage equipped with its own traffic light system. Inspired by Stanford University's foliage, Steve Jobs hired one of their arborists to oversee the planting of over 9,000 indigenous trees.

Apple's board fired Steve Jobs in 1985

Apple's board fired cofounder Steve Jobs after he clashed with then-CEO John Sculley about Apple's goals and vision, as well as how to run the company. Apple later rehired Steve Jobs as interim CEO, a role he held until he died in 2011.

Watch Steve Jobs unveil the first iPhone in 2007

During his Macworld San Francisco 2007 keynote address, Jobs claimed Apple had reinvented the phone by integrating phone capabilities with internet access and music playback from its iPod product line. The multitouch display eliminated the need for a stylus or keyboard hardware typically found on other smartphones.

Steve Jobs designed the original Mac calculator in 10 minutes

Unsatisfied with the designs provided by Chris Espinosa—Apple's youngest employee when he was hired at 14 in 1976—the engineer designed a program that gave Jobs access to every visual parameter, which he used to build the calculator's user interface.

Mac settings have evolved from minimalism to chaotic clutter

The 1984 Mac control panel featured wordless icons, sliders, and desktop pattern editors, highlighting early experimentation in graphical user interface design. This software charm and personality gradually disappeared as Apple enforced visual and functional consistency over time.

Bob Noyce coinvented the integrated circuit, cofounded Intel and Fairchild Semiconductor, and is considered one of the founders of Silicon Valley

Some even called Noyce the “Mayor of Silicon Valley.” According to Steve Jobs, he was the “ultimate inventor, rebel, and entrepreneur.” This Founders episode dissects an article from 1983 that explains Noyce’s lasting impact.

Apple's future will likely continue to incorporate mixed reality hardware and AI

Although the majority of Apple's profits come from iPhone, iPad, and Mac sales, CEO Tim Cook has overseen a diversification of products since the acquisition of the Beats headphone brand in 2014, including the launch of the Apple Card, Apple TV, and the Vision Pro headset.

Explore an illustrated history of the iPod

The Apple music player entered listeners' pockets in 2001 and underwent several hardware redesigns alongside the release of sister products, including the iPod Mini, Shuffle, Photo, and Nano. In 2022, Apple discontinued all iPod iterations in favor of the iPhone.

Apple's first logo was a portrait of Isaac Newton sitting under a tree

Before the minimalist image of an apple with a bite taken out of it, Apple's logo depicted the fruit dangling above the physicist, likely a nod to the anecdote about his epiphany regarding gravity.

Apple CEO Tim Cook on what it takes to run the world's largest company

Apple CEO Tim Cook is a tough interview subject. He doesn't give many of them, and when he does it's often difficult to move him off of his talking points. In this interview for Dua Lipa's podcast, however, he opens up for a wide-ranging discussion about everything from artificial intelligence to the impact of technology on climate change—in addition to his own personal journey and his philanthropic endeavors.

See Don Valentine's original 1977 memo for Sequoia's investment into Apple Computer

In honor of Apple's 50-year anniversary, Sequoia Capital recently posted a tweet on X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) with a photo of the original 1977 memo for Sequoia's investment in Apple.

Why Steve Jobs always wore the same outfit

Steve Jobs is well-known for his signature outfit: a black mock turtleneck and denim jeans. The outfit originated in Japan, where Jobs observed Sony employees all wearing matching uniforms. He proposed Apple employees do the same, but that idea was rejected. However, he still decided to create his own uniform.

The iPad drawings of a Pop Art legend

David Hockney gained popularity in the 1960s as a major figure in British Pop Art, but since then he's continued innovating, particularly through his use of an unlikely medium: the Apple iPad. This video essay explains why Hockney began drawing on the iPad in the late 2000s and analyzes his major iPad works, including the Yosemite Suite.

The ways Bauhaus still shapes modern life

The German art school was around for less than 15 years, but its aesthetic and philosophy can still be seen today in sleek, minimalist design, bold typefaces, and even the corporate aesthetics of IKEA, Apple, and other brands. This DW feature visits the schools that have taken up the Bauhaus legacy, using its ideas to tackle contemporary problems.

Slick interfaces and bundling helped solidify Excel as the corporate planning tool

First initiated in the 1980s, the Excel spreadsheet built off predecessors like Lotus and VisiCalc, leveraging a novel graphic interface to entice new customers and packaging the program with other Microsoft Office products. Forty years later, the tool faces challenges from Google and AI, but retains devoted users.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

'Johnny Appleseed' was the itinerant horticulturalist John Chapman

Born in 1774 in Massachusetts, Chapman planted apple orchards for pioneers across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, to be sold to locals to produce hard cider. He became famous through a 'Harper's Weekly' profile in the late 1800s, cultivating the modern legend.

An integrated circuit combines major circuit components onto a single device

Before 1958, these components were fabricated separately before manual assembly, introducing human error, delays, and higher costs. The invention of the IC laid the foundation for automated manufacturing, miniaturization, and improvements to speed and energy efficiency.

The Coca-Cola bottle was designed to be recognizable even when shattered

The contour bottle, which was designed and patented to prevent copycats in its distributed bottling system in 1915, would soon become one of the most identifiable shapes in commercial culture. The designers also made sure it could be easily identified even in the dark.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

How Charles Blair Macdonald changed the design behind golf

Macdonald's contributions to golf course design, including 21 principles still used today, are just as legendary as the game's players. This deep dive into the mostly forgotten figure explores his legacy, including why he never charged for his services.

'Ogilvy on Advertising' is David Ogilvy's career memoir full of his favorite copywriting advice

Ogilvy is one of the most famous and influential advertising executives in history, known for his focus on research-driven advertising. But he also wrote multiple books, including "Ogilvy on Advertising," which the Founders podcast dives into in this episode.

Walt Disney's visit to a Ford factory helped inspire the layout for Disneyland

Walt Disney visited Henry Ford's Greenfield Village and the Ford Motor Company's River Rouge manufacturing plant on a trip to the 1948 Chicago Railroad Fair. The layout of Greenfield Village inspired the different, distinctly themed sections of Disneyland in Anaheim, CA.

Charles and Ray Eames designed military leg splints in WWII

The married couple is most famous for their sleek, modern office furniture, but they also designed leg splints for injured soldiers in World War II.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Poison ivy is in the same family as mangoes, cashews, and pistachios—and they all produce oily urushiol in their raw, unprocessed state—but they are typically prepared in ways to avoid causing human discomfort.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year