Here's why Apple is flying a pirate flag to celebrate its 40th anniversary
A pirate flag flying above Apple's campus in Cupertino California
It's no joke — today, April 1, is Apple's 40th anniversary. Founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne on April 1, 1976, Apple has transformed from scrappy upstart to one of the most powerful — and valuable — companies in the world.
To commemorate the 40th anniversary, Apple is flying a special pirate flag outside of its campus in Cupertino.
To understand the significance of the flag, you need to know a little bit of Apple history.
Way back in January 1983, the members of the Mac team (led by Jobs) went on a retreat.
According to original Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld, Jobs opened the retreat with three sayings:
Real artists ship
It's better to be a pirate than join the navy
Mac in a book by 1986
That second quote, "it's better to be a pirate than join the navy" was meant to help the team keep its sense of rebellion and independence, even as the project became larger and more bureaucratic. As Hertzfeld writes, "Steve wanted us to preserve our original spirit even as we were growing more like the Navy every day."
But the team was growing and expanding. As the Mac team moved to larger, more corporate digs in August 1983, the team members decided to take the "pirates" lesson to heart. Apple engineer Steve Capps decided the best way for the Mac team to mark its territory would be to fly its own pirate flag above the building.
Capps took some black cloth and sewed it into a flag. He then enlisted graphics designer and Mac team member Susan Kare (who was responsible for many of the user-interface elements and icons of the original MacOS) to paint a skull and crossbones in the center. Kare chose the rainbow Apple logo as the eyepatch on the flag.
As Hertzfeld tells it, Capps then climbed on the roof of the Mac team's new building, hoisting the flag up on a makeshift flagpole.
Kare re-created the flag in 2014 at an Apple employee's request.
The flag Apple is flying above its campus Friday is most certainly not the original pirate flag (that disappeared sometime in 1984 or 1985), but it carries the same imagery of the original.
Wonder what this is all about.
Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, tweeted an image of Steve Jobs on Friday, commemorating 40 years of Apple.
Last week, at Apple's iPhone SE event, Apple unveiled a new video showing off 40 years of Apple in 40 seconds.
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