When Steve Jobs brought together the development team for the first Mac at a retreat in Carmel, California, attendees had no idea they were about to hear one of his most powerful speeches. We were in January 1983 and the project was running out of steam. Jobs therefore needed a boost to motivate the team for the final work. It was then that he told them this motto: “Better to be a pirate than to join the army”.
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In the early 1980s, Apple was growing rapidly. So much so that he began to need a professional CEO. But that won’t happen until months after that meeting, when Jobs convinces John Sculley to lead Apple. Steve wasn’t cut out for the job, and he wasn’t interested either. He preferred to develop products and this is where the Mac captures all his attention. At one point, Jobs found that some members of the team felt the project was losing its jagged spirit.
Being a pirate meant going fast, free from bureaucracy and internal politics. It meant being bold and courageous, willing to take great risks for great rewards. Steve also didn’t mind stealing good ideas from others from time to time, as in Picasso’s quote that “good artists copy, great artists steal”.
The story has become legend. And die-hard Mac fans are looking for a replica flag made by Kare and now selling for nearly $6,000.
This is how Andy Hertzfeld remembers Jobs’ speech at that retreat. The truth is that this session had a huge impact on the team, don’t take it literally
The Pirate Mac flag flies at Apple headquarters. #Apple pic.twitter.com/ojf5GI0jNV
— jontanne (@jontanner) April 1, 2016
Jobs was able to permeate the whole team first and, after his return in the 1990s as CEO, the company itself then. A ethos with a strong anti-establishment who pushes not settling for things and challenging the established order. When the original Macintosh team moved to a new building soon after, they hung a pirate flag created by graphic designer Susan Kare from a flagpole: the distinctive eye patch was the Apple logo.
More than thirty years later, the same flag flew at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino to commemorate the company’s 40th anniversary.
Time has passed and the Apple of then is no longer the Apple of today, leader in market capitalization and with financial results resistant to crises and wars. His enormous global influence would be a sign that he has become the establishment against which Jobs fought so hard, if not because this challenge is still perceived.
Challenge through its products, with the switch to Apple silicon processors from Intel. I challenge the belief that Netflix controls entertainment and there’s nothing you can do when Apple TV+ offers different things. Challenge traditional computing with the iPad itself. The two companies have little to do, separated by well over nearly fifty years. But these are just a few examples that the pirate spirit is still there.
