VOL 40: Apple Inc. History, Logo, Mike Markkula; Apple’s Original Angel Investor-3

Reason behind Apple's Logo

Hey Friends 🤓,

Trust you all had a great week 🤗?

This is the 3rd post in a blog series on Apple Inc. History.

Today at a Glance:

• Quote of the Week

• The Byte Shop; Apple’s First Retailer

• Mike Markkula; Apple’s Original Angel Investor

• The Logo

• Apple-II

• Past Greats 👴

• Business & Startups

• Random Facts

• Tweet of the Week

Quote of The Week

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

— — —

Steve Jobs

---

Don’t miss out on the first two series, they are here and here.

The Byte Shop; Apple’s First Retailer

Jobs and Wozniak went back to Homebrew Computer Club shortly after they signed Apple into existence, they took the stage together for a presentation of their new product, and the audience was not very impressed.

But one important person stayed behind to hear more, his name was Paul Terrell, and in 1975 he had opened a computer store, which he dubbed the Byte Shop, in Menlo Park. Jobs was thrilled to give him a private demo. Terrell was impressed enough to hand Jobs and Woz his card. “Keep in touch,” he said.

“I’m keeping in touch,” Jobs announced the next day when he walked barefoot into the Byte Shop. He made the sale. Terrell agreed to order 50 Apple-I computers for $500 each (equivalent to $2,400 in 2021), although cash would only be paid on delivery. But there was a condition: Terrell insisted on selling the Apple-I fully assembled, this request of his shaped the direction of Apple and the PC industry as a whole.

Apple-I computer

However, the Apple-I was was merely a name for an assembled computer. It needed a power supply, keyboard, and monitor to function, so it wasn't immediately usable right out of the box. However, Terrell's advice clearly influenced the development of the Apple II. That resulted in the world’s first all-in-one personal computer targeting general consumers as well as techies.

The two Steves and their dedicated team worked day and night to build and test the computers, which they delivered on time to Terrell. Wozniak referred to Terrell as the "fourth Apple founder," after himself, Jobs, and early investor Ronald Wayne, because of his significance in Apple history. The Apple II launched the personal computer revolution in the 1970s.

In 2010, one of the original Apple-1 computers was sold at auction for $213, 000.

The Apple-I was released in July 1976 as an assembled circuit board for $666.66. Wozniak later admitted that he had no idea what the number had to do with the mark of the beast, and that he came up with the price because he liked "repeating digits." The Apple I eventually sold around 200 units.

Here’s an advertisement for their first product;

Mike Markkula; Apple’s Original Angel Investor

Jobs began looking for funding to expand the business after the success of the Apple-I, but banks were reluctant to lend him money because the idea of a computer for regular people appeared ridiculous at the time. Jobs approached Nolan Bushnell, his old boss at Atari, in August 1976, who recommended that he meet with Don Valentine, the founder of Sequoia Capital.

Valentine was not interested in funding Apple when he discovered Jobs knew nothing about marketing, he told Jobs;

“If you want me to finance you, you need to have one person as a partner who understands marketing and distribution and can write a business plan.”

He then introduced Jobs to Mike Markkula, a millionaire who had worked under him at Fairchild Semiconductor. Markkula would end up playing a critical role at Apple for the next two decades.

Unlike Valentine, Markkula saw immense potential in the two Steves and decided to participate in their company as an angel investor. He put $92,000 into Apple with his own money while also securing a $250,000 line of credit from Bank of America (equivalent to $1,190,000 in 2021).

Markkula received a 26% stake in Apple in exchange for his investment, equal to each of cofounders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak's shares, with the rest set aside to attract future investors. Apple Computer, Inc. was incorporated on January 3, 1977, with the support of Markkula. The new corporation bought out the old partnership the two Steves formed nine months earlier.

In February 1977, Markkula recruited Michael Scott from National Semiconductor to serve as the first president and CEO of Apple Computer, as Jobs and Wozniak were both insufficiently experienced and he was not interested in taking that position himself.

Jobs said of Mike;

“I thought it was unlikely that Mike would ever see that $250, 000 again, and I was impressed that he was willing to risk it.”

Wozniak did not want to join Apple full-time because he already had a job at Hewlett-Packard and saw Apple as a side hustle. After much pleading from Jobs, Wozniak's parents, and friends, he resigned from Hewlett-Packard to work full-time for Apple.

Homebrew Computer Club, which Jobs and Wozniak were part of, surveyed its members and found that, of the 181 who owned personal computers, only six owned an Apple. Jobs was convinced, however, that the Apple-II would change that.

The Logo

It appears that Steve Jobs did not like Ronald Wayne's first Apple logo. It depicted Isaac Newton sitting beneath a tree, a glowing apple on top of his head. So, after a year, Steve hired another graphic designer, Rob Janoff, to create a new logo. He designed the "bite" in the Apple logo, which Steve coloured in rainbow colours.

Janoff had later explained two reasons why he used a bitten apple for the logo :

1. He didn’t want people to confuse it with a tomato.

2. He tried punning on words ‘bite’ and ‘byte’ (to lend a geeky flavour to the fruit)

The first Apple logo, drawn by Ronald Wayne, depicts Isaac Newton under an apple tree.

Apple-II

Wozniak moved on from the Apple-I and began designing a greatly improved computer: the Apple II. Wozniak completed a working prototype of the new machine by August 1976.

It was a truly groundbreaking machine, just like the Apple computer before it.

We’ll continue from here next week.

N.B: Some of these texts and quotes are from Steve Jobs's biography by Walter Isaacson.

---

PAST GREATS

POPE GREGORY XIII (1502–1585)

From 13 May 1572 to his death in 1585, he was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States or States of the Church. He is best known for commissioning and naming the Gregorian calendar, which is still the internationally accepted civil calendar today.

The Julian calendar was the primary calendar of the European world during Gregory XIII's papacy. However, the Julian calendar miscalculated the measurement of the solar year, which was actually longer than the Julian calendar, resulting in a day per century loss for the Julian calendar. The calendar was ten days behind the actual solar year by the time Gregory XIII held power.

To correct the calendar, the Pope enlisted the help of Neapolitan astronomer Luigi Lilio Ghiraldi and German Jesuit Christopher Clavius. Gregory XIII issued a bull, or papal decree, announcing the new Gregorian calendar on February 24, 1582.

The date would be pushed up ten days under this new calendar, so October 4th, 1582 would be immediately followed by the 15th. The method for calculating leap years was also revised. The calendar was initially binding on the papal states, but it was quickly adopted by Catholic-ruled countries and was welcomed by astronomers Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe.

In September of 1752, Benjamin Franklin wrote;

'It is pleasant for an old man to be able to go to bed on September 2, and not have to get up until September 14.'

Did Franklin mean he slept for twelve days? Or did he travel ahead to the future? No. Actually, England and her colonies were adopting the Gregorian calendar, which had to jump 11 days ahead to correct for problems in the old calendar. Franklin and the British had one man to thank for the new calendar, Pope Gregory XIII.

Business & Startups

MFS Africa

MFS Africa is a Pan-African digital payments network, they are the leading digital payments gateway supported by a multi-talented and agile team from over 30 different nations.

MFS Africa is on a mission of making payments as simple as making a phone call. They believe that this access can open up markets and connect people to a world of opportunities.

They recently acquire U.S.-based Global Technology Partners (GTP) in a cash-and-shares deal worth $34 million. The Africa-focused and London-based company connects over 320 million mobile money wallets across 35+ African countries.

This week, it was announced they raised $100 million in equity and debt funding to shore up their earlier received Series C fund, rounding up the total funding for the series to $200 million.

Random Facts

Did you know that Email was already around before the world wide web?

Email was used in the 70s while the world wide web was invented in 1989.

Tweet of The Week

urvah saikhani @_urvah

The world is moving too fast. We want everything done in the blink of an eye. We can't wait, we can't stay still. It's always a race between us and the time, and time usually wins which frustrates us. But what, if for a moment we stop, we grasp out breath and just live.

Enjoyed this piece? Please let me know by hitting the ❤ button. It brightens my day to see if my readers enjoy the content (it really does!). Thank you so much!

Enjoy your weekend.