The people behind the products
Founders & CEOs
The people who ran Apple: the two Steves who started it in a garage, the executives in between, and the operations expert who eventually built it into a three-trillion-dollar company.
Steve Jobs
The co-founder known for taste, theatrics and a “reality distortion field.” Pushed out in 1985, he returned in 1997 when Apple bought his company NeXT, then steered the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. Apple went from near-bankrupt to one of the most valuable companies on Earth under him.
Steve Wozniak
The engineer who designed the Apple I and Apple II almost entirely on his own, with clever circuitry that cut parts and cost until a personal computer became something a household could afford. He was the quiet counterweight to Jobs’ showmanship. After a 1981 plane crash he drifted away from the day-to-day and left in 1985.
Ronald Wayne
The forgotten third co-founder. He drew Apple’s first logo (Newton under a tree) and wrote the partnership agreement, then, nervous about the financial risk, sold his 10% stake back for $800 just twelve days in. That share would later be worth hundreds of billions.
Michael “Scotty” Scott
Apple’s very first CEO, brought in to give the young company adult supervision. Eccentric and blunt, he steadied early operations but is best remembered for “Black Wednesday” in 1981, a sudden round of firings that unsettled the staff and soon cost him the job.
Mike Markkula
Employee number three and the early investor who made Apple real, putting in $250,000 and writing “The Apple Marketing Philosophy” that still echoes today (empathy, focus, impute). He served as the second CEO (1981–83) and as chairman across two decades.
John Sculley
Recruited from Pepsi with Jobs’ famous line, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or come change the world?” He oversaw huge growth and the desktop-publishing boom, then forced Jobs out in 1985 and bet big on the doomed Newton. Ousted as the company stalled.
Michael Spindler
Nicknamed “The Diesel,” the German engineer inherited a company sliding toward crisis. He licensed Mac clones, slashed costs, and quietly shopped Apple to IBM, Sun and Philips. None of it worked; mounting losses ended his tenure after barely three years.
Gil Amelio
In office only about 500 days, yet he made one of the most consequential decisions in Apple’s history: buying NeXT for $429 million, which brought Steve Jobs back. Jobs then maneuvered him out within months.
Tim Cook
The operations expert who took over from Jobs when plenty of people expected Apple to stall without him. Under Cook it shipped the Watch, AirPods and Vision Pro, grew a huge Services business, made privacy a selling point, and became the first company worth one, then two, then three trillion dollars.
Last updated: 2026-08-13