• Steve Jobs Legacy Will Live On In The Apple University

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, News, Steve Jobs No Responses

    While the Apple camp in Cupertino is now without its most famous founder, Steve Jobs has ensured that the company will do just fine while he’s not around. For years, Steve himself had been planning one of Apple’s most secretive projects. But it wasn’t a new iPhone or a new iPad, it was Apple University — an executive training program that teaches Apple bosses to be more like Steve.

    Steve considered Apple University to be vital to the company’s future, according to the LA Times, and so he brought together a team of experts that will train Apple executives to keep things ticking over smoothly. One of those experts is said to be the dean of Yale’s Business School, Joel Podolny, who Steve personally recruited to run the program back in 2008.

    A former Apple executive told the LA Times:

    “Steve was looking to his legacy. The idea was to take what is unique about Apple and create a forum that can impart that DNA to future generations of Apple employees. No other company has a university charged with probing so deeply into the roots of what makes the company so successful.”

    Steve reportedly began work on the university by putting together a group of academics around 5 years ago, but in 2008, the project took on a greater urgency when Steve took his second leave of medical absence.

    It’s fascinating the think that in the years preceding Steve’s resignation from the role of CEO, he was putting together a school that would teach Apple’s executives to think more like him when he’s not around.

    The Apple chairman and co-founder, Steve Jobs, passed away Wednesday October, 5th, at the age of 56, the company and his family said in short statements. Neither specified the cause of death, although Jobs had been battling pancreatic cancer and had received a liver transplant several years ago.

    • Apple’s Steve Jobs Narrates the First “Think Different” Commercial “Here’s to the Crazy Ones” in 1997. It never aired.

    “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

    via: CultofMac

  • Cupertino Reveals Details of Apple’s Futuristic Spaceship Campus

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Design, Featured, News, Rants & Raves, Tech. No Responses

    Cupertino city has released full details and plans fro Apple’s 20,000 plus person Spaceship that was announced by Steve Jobs on June 7th, days after WWDC.

    Jobs called the new building “a spaceship” and said Apple will use its experience in building retail store masterpieces to construct this “architectural landmark”.  Parking underneath, the building would perhaps be used for events like the WWDC – Jobs mentioned that it would have a large auditorium and a single cafeteria [below] that could seat 3,000 at a time.


    The plan was greenlit in a statement by Cupertino Mayor Gilbert Wong that states “there is no chance we are saying no” to the new Apple campus

    You can check the whole plans here:

  • Apple Planning For Massive ‘Spaceship’ Campus in Cupertino Has Been Greenlit

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Featured, News, Rants & Raves, Steve Jobs, Tech. No Responses

    The 98-acre campus bought last year from Hewlett Packard, in Cupertino revealed to be a future campus for Apple as CEO Steve Jobs explained Apple’s plans for the space to the Cupertino City Council. Here’s what the new 4-story building holding 12,000 employees will look like when it’s completed in 2015 as described by Steve:

    It’s a pretty amazing building. It’s a little like a spaceship landed. It’s got this gorgeous courtyard in the middle… It’s a circle. It’s curved all the way around. If you build things, this is not the cheapest way to build something. There is not a straight piece of glass in this building. It’s all curved. We’ve used our experience making retail buildings all over the world now, and we know how to make the biggest pieces of glass in the world for architectural use. And, we want to make the glass specifically for this building here. We can make it curve all the way around the building… It’s pretty cool.

    The facility will be 80% landscaping, with most of the parking underground, compared to 20% landscaping with all above ground parking currently. The current campus has 3,700 trees and Apple plans to increase that to more than 6,000 trees, including “some apricot orchards.”

    Apple also plans to build its own energy generation facility using natural gas, with the electricity grid as a backup.

    One of the city councilors asked what the citizens of Cupertino would get from the new campus, and in particular brought up a free Wi-Fi network, like Google offers in Mountain View. Steve responded that Apple was the largest taxpayer in Cupertino and he felt that the tax benefits to having a company like Apple in Cupertino was benefit enough and the city should be providing a service like that.

    “If we can get out of paying taxes, we would be glad to provide free Wi-Fi.”

    Cupertino’s Mayor has responded to Steve’s proposal:

    The City of Cupertino has responded to Apple’s stunning new campus proposal. In the statement, Cupertino Mayor Gilbert Wong states “there is no chance we are saying no” to the new Apple campus. Apple proposal will still have to go through an environmental and a public hearing, but Wong says they are willing to bring on more staff to accommodate the process.

    Progress of the project can be followed at Cupertino.org/apple where they’ve also posted a PDF of Jobs’ presentation slides.

    [Thanks macrumors]