While working on another project, I came across this video of Steve Jobs speaking at Macworld Expo in the fall of 1997. It’s a stunning video for a few reasons.
In it, he announces no products. Instead, he shared some thoughts on how he viewed the mess that Apple had found itself in before it purchased NeXT. In the span of about half an hour, he announced a new Board of Directors and a wide-ranging partnership with Microsoft, complete with Bill Gates making his now infamous appearance via satellite.
The closing of Jobs’ remarks really grabbed me. He insisted that the broader Apple community needed to change how it thought about the company and its relationship with Microsoft and other companies. At the very end, he spoke about how Apple’s brand meant thinking a little differently from the other players in the field. About six weeks later, Apple would launch its Think Different campaign.
What blew my mind — other than how fast the 38 minutes flew by — is that just ten years later, Jobs would be introducing the iPhone.