Working on my Apple oral history, I learned a lot of stuff that didn’t quite fit into the story. In particular, Regis McKenna shared moving memories of his friendship with Steve Jobs. Have you ever heard anything about Jobs having his nose broken—in a case of mistaken identity—when he was a kid?

There’s a great story behind the Apple-1 in Apple’s anniversary video: Its owner bought it for $40, made a case for it, and then traded it back to Steve Jobs in 1981 for an Apple II. Maybe Apple still has it? Note that its case seems to owe a debt to the Sol-1. www.apple1registry.com/en/50.html

This story is mostly about NeXT, but also seems worth re-sharing today. www.fastcompany.com/90541084/thi...

I don‘t quite go back to 1976 as an Apple-watcher, but here’s a piece I wrote about having m socks blasted right off by a Lisa demo at the Boston Computer Society in 1983. www.fastcompany.com/40514962/thi...

Arrrgh: TIME seems to have blown away my 2014 article on Steve Jobs demoing the original Mac for the Boston Computer Society. It was pretty good! time.com/1847/steve-j...

Apple’s homepage has a fun 50th anniversary product video, but I’m still mystified by the company’s failure to celebrate these two guys named Steve.

When I talked to Woz last week for this oral history, he told me that he considers *tomorrow* to be Apple’s 50th anniversary. His reasoning is above my pay grade (“Our human calendar is very weak”). But it delights me, because it’s also my birthday. www.fastcompany.com/91514404/app...

I still haven’t seen anyone explain why they knocked down the east wing before they were ready to build the ballroom.

Is this the most loathsome ad campaign of all time? Other nominees welcome.

Quiet. Part. Loud.

“The overarching goal for the X platform is to be the best source of truth in the world.”—Elon Musk

Do they have vans full of electronics driving around the city waiting for someone to click Amazon Now?

Clippy has had the last laugh on all of us.

Apple is nothing if not a company that sends messages with its product decisions. tedium.co/2026/03/27/a...

I wrote about Sora’s demise—I, for one, will miss it—and what it augers for OpenAI and maybe other AI companies as well. www.fastcompany.com/91516193/ope...

Paging Mr. False Equivalency…

Two reasons why I’m not interested in letting AI ghostwrite for me: 1) Writing is how I think things through and come to conclusions. 2) Above all, I am motivated by the possibility that I have not yet written the best thing I’ll ever write.

Give him three more years, and he’ll convert the entire White House into a hotel.

I’ve never once wanted to use Siri in order to use ChatGPT. The whole idea of one AI being a gateway to another seems like an unhealthy stopgap. www.bloomberg.com/ne...

I don’t envy the parents of dead servicemen listening to this.

Interesting stuff I didn’t know about Apple until I talked to a whole bunch of people who were part of its origin story (a thread). www.fastcompany.com/91514404/app...

Why don’t we complain more about Bluesky not having editing?

The memories in this story are so precious, and I’m very grateful to the 23 people who shared them. Some were teenagers when Apple was born, but most were in their 20s, 30s, or even 40s back then. www.fastcompany.com/91514404/app...

The memories in this story are so precious, and I’m very grateful to the 23 people who shared them. Some were teenagers when Apple was born, but most were in there 20s, 30s, or even 40s back them.

Among the things that surprised me as I interviewed people for our oral history of Apple’s origin story is that several people referred to the very young Steve Jobs doing things that are more technical than I associate with him. www.fastcompany.com/...

I can’t begin to tell you how much fun I had talking to people who were present at Apple’s creation—Woz, of course, but so many more. I learned so much, and really did feel like I was there. So will you, I think. Here’s a gift link which you’re welcome to share: www.fastcompany.com/91514404/app...

That’s it, I’m convinced.

I’m getting way more spam calls lately. At least they are in English and seem to be from actual humans. Anyone else notice an uptick?

When you’ve lost Neal Stephenson…

I’ll never understand how someone grows up in Santa Monica and becomes this angry at the world.

Surely an executive order can stop this

Presumably it wouldn’t be too hard for Google to quickly stand up a Sora clone. A Nora Banana, or Nano Bannora.

Oh, sure, Sora, RUB IT IN.

Today’s Daily Cartoon, by Ivan Ehlers.

Well holy shit. The Onion was just named one of the 50 most innovative companies in the world by FastCompany. We're coming for you AI perverts!!!

If you were ever thinking "What were the movies like in the 1970s and '80s?," you might well land on "They were like Valerie Perrine." Farewell to her. ❤️

Rest easy, Valerie Perrine.

in this and only this way, we are all kash patel

New Fast Company cover story: I talked to Sundar Pichai and other Googlers about what it felt like to see ChatGPT take off—and how the company reorganized itself to ensure its scale was not an impediment to seizing the AI opportunity but an accelerant. Gift link: www.fastcompany.com/91502632/goo...

A little personal news: I finally bought my first Mac desktop ever, a refurbished Mac Mini. Set it up as a headless machine on my network and am using it via my iPad. So far, seems pretty sweet.

Attention not-very-good high school BASIC programmers: Your day has come.

I must have listened to thousands of hours of CBS News Radio as a kid, including Lowell Thomas, who’d been broadcasting since 1930. RIP.

From our new Fast Company print issue, here’s my look at Reddit’s strategy for ensuring that AI is a boon to its business rather than a threat. So far, it seems to be working. (Gift link.) www.fastcompany.com/91502976/red...

This is your criminal government, Americans. A rogue bandit state stealing Venezuela's oil, massacring Iranian schoolgirls and now planning to "take" Cuba because Trump says "I can do anything I want with it." Patriotic Americans must end this madness.

Some of you will instantly know what used to be in the Peninsula Ballet Theatre’s building.

One of television’s most important business models—syndicating first-run content to TV stations looking to fill airtime—might be losing strea … er, steam. https://feed.tedium.co/link/15204/17299183/television-first-run-syndication-decline

New Plugged In newsletter: The odds of Bluesky’s AT Protocol changing everything are probably relatively low, but I’m still rooting for it. Or for any other open social protocol that can gain traction. www.fastcompany.com/91508206/blu...

@craigmod.com’s experience Claude Coding an accounting package just for himself is remarkably similar to mine with my word processor, most of which I had done in two evenings. I plan to use it for almost everything I write henceforth. craigmod.com/essays/softw...

I can’t believe they ever launched it in the first place.

Here’s my review of Apple’s MacBook Neo, which throws out a ton of MacBook Air features to hit its price point, yet smartly maintains the Mac’s essence. www.fastcompany.com/91505188/mac...