Apple: The Rise & Fall... And Rise Again

as of july 31st 2020 apple surpassed the oil company saudi aramco to become the most valuable company in the world with a market cap of 2 trillion dollars and that may not be hard to imagine since apple sells so many wildly successful products but things haven't always been this way in the 90s apple was about to go bankrupt and the story of their initial success fall from grace and subsequent recovery is one of the most exciting stories in the corporate world this is greg with apple explained and i want to thank skillshare for sponsoring this video if you want to help decide which topics i cover make sure you're subscribed and voting polls like this one will show up in your mobile activity feed so apple was founded in 1976 by steve jobs steve wozniak and ronald wayne although wayne left the company 12 days later and apple actually achieved success fairly quickly thanks to the high demand of their apple one computer although steve wozniak initially built the machines by hand they were able to optimize production thanks to a 250 000 investment from mike marcola one year later in 1997 wozniak created the apple ii and it exploded in popularity mainly because of a spreadsheet application called visicalc which was widely used in the business world from then on apple's revenue doubled every four months growing from 775 000 in 1997 to 118 million in 1980 this was the first rise in popularity apple experienced but it wouldn't last long the apple ii served as a company's primary source of revenue for over a decade as apple struggled to create a popular successor their first attempt was in 1980 with the apple iii it was a business oriented computer that delivered on key features many business users were asking for like a typewriter style upper and lower case keyboard the apple ii only supported uppercase and an 80 column display but the machine suffered from serious stability issues when it was released and forced apple to issue a recall of the first 14 000 units sold to make matters worse apple was quickly losing ground to competitors like ibm who initially didn't think personal computers would sell very well but aggressively entered the pc market following the apple ii success the leadership at apple knew they were in a downward spiral that needed to be stopped by releasing a successful new product since their revenue from the apple 2 was beginning to dry up and steve jobs thought apple's next computer needed to feature a graphical user interface with a mouse after seeing a demo of the technology by xerox so we spent the next two years leading a team of engineers to create the apple lisa the company's first machine with a mouse cursor and an interface that would define an entirely new era of computing and while the lisa was recognized as an incredible technical achievement it carried an incredibly high price tag at ten thousand dollars in 1983 or almost 26 000 today that prohibitive price tag along with a lackluster software library and unreliable floppy disks made the apple lisa a commercial failure selling only 10 000 units in its two-year lifespan at this point apple had only created one hit product the apple ii followed by a failed apple iii and a failed apple lisa things were turning sour very quickly for the company and jobs had one more chance to turn things around this time he put his support behind a project called macintosh it combined the low product cost of the apple ii with the power and friendly user interface of apple lisa rumors of the macintosh project circulated for three years before its release with some reports claiming it would be a portable computer and possibly battery powered although that didn't turn out to be the case but the introduction of macintosh in 1984 was the most anticipated product release in the company's history at that point steve jobs stood in front of an eager audience unzipped a bag and pulled out the macintosh it received an applause break that lasted over a minute and things really appeared to be going in apple's favor they prepared an aggressive advertising campaign including their iconic 1984 ad that appeared during the super bowl with the macintosh going on sale two days later now initially sales were meeting apple's expectations but that changed after the first three months although the macintosh was much more affordable than the leesa its 2 500 price tag was still about 25 percent more expensive than the average personal computer also because of its new graphical user interface existing text based and command driven applications had to be completely redesigned and rewritten something most software developers decided wasn't worth the trouble this made it very difficult for customers to justify buying a macintosh since it was not only more expensive than the competition but also not as capable sales quickly tapered off and sparked an internal conflict between steve jobs and ceo john scully who'd actually been hired two years earlier by jobs now if you're enjoying this video and you're wondering how to create similar youtube content yourself i recommend checking out the classes on skillshare you can watch video workshops on storytelling color grading and youtube fundamentals i actually use the logo type masterclass workshop with jessica heesch to help develop and refine the apple explained logo i use for this channel and receiving feedback from other skillshare members was extremely helpful so if you want to take advantage of these classes be one of the first 1000 people to click the link in the description and you'll receive a two-month free trial of skillshare's premium membership so you can explore your creativity all right now john scully with the support of apple's board of directors felt that jobs expensive bets on untested products had to be reined in considering he'd failed to create a reliably profitable product with the lisa and again with the macintosh but of course jobs disagreed and felt scully had been smothering his efforts at creating a successful product so jobs began organizing a coup to take over the company from scully but was found out before implementing his plan there is an emergency meeting called with all apple's executives where they voted on who should be the company's decisive leader scully or jobs the board of directors sided with scully and jobs was stripped of all operational duties he resigned from apple soon after and took some employees with him to start another computer company called next over the next decade apple would struggle with its biggest identity crisis ever scully wanted apple to be a premium computer company that sold cutting edge products so he led development of the newton pda which didn't perform as advertised and he raised prices of the macintosh at a time when competing pcs were becoming cheaper than ever before the company's stock price and market share continued to decline then came michael spindler who replaced scully as ceo in 1993 he completely restructured apple laying off 15 percent of their workforce and splitting up the product development team into separate groups based on market this weakened their political stance in the company and allowed apple's leadership to simply implement their own product strategy of building as many cheap computers as possible complicating their product lineup so much that even apple's own sales associates didn't understand which models were best for which customer again the company's stock price and market share continued to decline spindler was replaced by gil emilio in 1996 who had the shortest tenure at apple lasting just one year during this period the company's stock hit a 12-year low as emilio implemented even more layoffs and even more cost-cutting measures apple went from being one of the biggest computer companies in the world in the early 80s to teetering on the brink of bankruptcy in the late 90s and virtually every major news outlet tech journalist and business expert were anticipating apple's imminent shutdown but what really happened would turn out to be one of the biggest corporate turnarounds the country has ever seen gill emilio decided to purchase next in 1997 for their advanced operating system that apple desperately needed for the mac but that wasn't all he also wanted steve jobs back at apple to aid in rebuilding the company and that's exactly what he did jobs initially served as the company's interim ceo and started transforming apple's product line by that point there were about 20 different models of macintosh with different product development teams managing each model jobs identified apple's most talented designers and engineers and integrated them into what he referred to as the a-team with jonathan ive leading the effort they decided apple should create just four computers starting with the imac released in 1998. it was a huge success with 800 000 units sold in its first five months and helping apple to achieve their first profitable quarter in over two years but they didn't slow down the company also released the power mac power book and ibook over the next three years followed by the wildly successful ipod in 2001 apple's new product line provided the company with a consistent stream of revenue into the 2000s and resulted in apple becoming debt free in 2004. a shocking turn of events considering they were about to go bankrupt just five years earlier but that was only the beginning steve jobs wasn't satisfied with apple turning some profits every quarter he wanted it to become the biggest most profitable company on earth and in 2007 he'd be on his way to achieving exactly that with the iphone it became apple's most profitable product ever and was crucial in securing apple's place as the most valuable company in the world just four years later in 2011. as of today apple still holds that title although it changes hands frequently and they've also recently become the first u.s company to hit a market cap of 2 trillion dollars something i'm not sure anyone could have even imagined back in the 90s alright guys thanks for watching don't forget to subscribe and i'll see you in the next video you

Channel: Apple Explained

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Keywords: apple history, who is ceo of apple, how did apple become popular, how did apple become so rich, how did apple get rich, how did apple become successful, why is the iPhone to popular, did apple go out of business, did apple go bankrupt, did apple almost fail, when was apple created, who created apple, apple documentary, when did apple get popular, video essay

Id: 5bRtIWVMjJA

Length: 10min 47sec (647 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 05 2020