Oral History of Mike Markkula
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- Interviewed by John C. Hollar on 2012-05-01 in Mountain View, CA X6501.2012 ©Computer History Museum
Apple Computer would likely not exist today were it not for Mike Markkula. His impact on Silicon Valley and the world far exceeds his visibility and fame. This oral history is a major step in filling that gap.
Mike was born in Los Angeles in 1942 and grew up in the LA suburb of Burbank. He gravitated towards an engineering career starting in high school. He worked his way through college at USC, doing a wide variety of jobs, including building stereos, working in a gas station and auto body shop, a supermarket and several others.
He began work at Hughes Aircraft while still in college. He did so well, they paid for him to continue on and get his master’s degree as well. He loved the work at Hughes, where he got to design advanced avionics for leading-edge aircraft.
After spending 4 years at Hughes, he decided to look around at other positions. At the last minute, after accepting a job at Space Technology Labs, he changed his mind and moved to Mt. View to work for Fairchild Semiconductor as a marketing engineer. He spent 4 years at Fairchild, experiencing great success, but when he got a call from Intel in 1970 to join Noyce, Moore and others he had known, he was eager to make the change.
By 1974, he had met a personal goal to become financially independent and had developed a list of 52 things he wanted to do, so he resigned from Intel. One of the things he decided to do was spend one day a week (Monday) advising entrepreneurs who were launching their own ventures.
A couple of those entrepreneurs in 1976 were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Mike was blown away by the cleverness of the design of the Apple II and the opportunity which it represented. He offered to help the two Steves write a business plan and raise money. When they showed no inclination to do that, he wrote the plan himself….and then used his network and reputation to raise the necessary funds. Founding stock was split equally among the three founders.
Mike was so excited by the opportunity in front of them, he decided to abandon retirement, recruited a CEO for the new company and took the dual role of Chairman of the Board and VP of Marketing. He remained on the Board for 20 years and made monumental contributions to the growth and success of Apple.
Markkula always considered ethics in business to be of paramount performance. He brought those ideas to Apple and in 1986, he helped fund the establishment of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. Today it is the largest ethics center in the world and something in which Mike takes huge pride.
* Note: Transcripts represent what was said in the interview. However, to enhance meaning or add clarification, interviewees have the opportunity to modify this text afterward. This may result in discrepancies between the transcript and the video. Please refer to the transcript for further information - www.computerhis...
Visit computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories/ for more information about the Computer History Museum's Oral History Collection.
Catalog Number: 102746383
Lot Number: X6501.2012
An exceptional interview. Mike is a humble genius who knows more about Apple and silicon valley than most other long timers.
I came to visit because of Apple but found the whole interview fascinating. I would encourage any young person especially to listen to this man who embodies for me the qualities of hard work and moral integrity. Many thanks for the upload.
Yes, values set aside by modern-day Apple.
Fantastic interview. Really impressed by Mark. He is the congenial 3rd man and listening to all the seemingly small details he mentions, I get the impression, that he is another Steve.
What a winner and gentleman! I would love to talk to him for hours about all the details that shape and oil a machine, so that it gets momentum and keeps it.
Hint: Don’t skip to the Apple part. Only by understanding his previous work one can understand how instrumental he really was. It weren’t the 200k.
What an inspirational mix of talent and personality. Thanks to both Mike and the museum for sharing with the rest of us.
He is so transparent, love him❤ not so many people have those qualities in the bussiness enviroment
I read about Markkula here and there many times.
A couple of times I've gone through the Silicon Valley History chain that links ..mililtary microwave technology-Fairchild-Intel-Apple-Atari-many others and the people who made things happening. Reading books, searching the web for infos and docs (now extensively available on the web)...and I've loved doing it for curiosity and because it teaches lessons for work and for life.
AND....things aren't the way they are reported in the mainstream story telling. Things are always more COMPLEX and more interesting.
And the job made by Mike Markkula not only in Apple, is a great example.
He was a very good engineer. And now I hear from his voice that he read management books, attended marketing courses. He got prepared for the task.
So....the story of getting successful complanies up and running is not a kid's game.
You got to know what you are doing and getting education besides OJT has important value.
And that has come out of the interview. Thank you.
Excellent synopsis, and I couldn't agree more.
What a humble gentleman. Wish well to him.
Mike, I am so impressed with you. Thanks for this interview. BTW, thanks for mentioning my Regnart school from 1963. I grew up off Terrace off Bubb and worked with some of your colleagues during my semi career and MBA at Santa Clara in 1978.
The calm actittude in both of you is fascinating. Deep interwiew, this is how i like ❤
What a great interview!
Thanks so much for this! I never knew much about Mike, but he is an amazing and really cool guy. I could listen to him for another 2 1/2 hours and still want more! It would be an honor to know him personally, and I would expect a lot of fun too.
im an artist..an artsty fartsy...
i know nearly nothing about techno-science stuff...
yet i have polymathic interests...
i am here to say that i LOVE this fella...
i understand a LOT of what he is saying
yet im an innocent...
a know nothing...
but what fun it is!
MM said: "i ended up running all the integrated circuit marketing at fairchild"...
even me, an ignorant, knows the significance of THAT...and im only 30 mins in!
Very important interview thanks for making this happen
I too was born on 11 February like him but 44 years later I definitely look up to him as my role model. It is very important to know that there wouldn't have been Apple company with him
Mike is the real Batman! This is so unbelievably cool, total respect.
I find it amazing only 7.9 ppl watched this.... Aldous Huxley's, Brave New World, comes to mind.
1:26:08 while reading more in depth about convertible bonds, and getting an Dun&Bradstreet number, one of the things that’s crucial at this point, is the business’s credit rating, this was one of the crucial to help apple go public in 1976. A business from day 1, a big company from day 0
Great one, congrats. This guy is unique
A legend from the PC Revolution
Amazing man!!!
legend
Armas Clifford "Mike" Markkula Jr, clifford the big red dog and Marmaduke the big red dog, made me think MArduk, and MarkKula made me think Drak-Kula,
1:12:13
Have to wait til hour 1 to get to apple
The stuff on Fairchils Semiconductor was just as intresting, without Bob Noyce and friends, there would be no Apple
who is Bob?
Disappointing to hear Mike claiming something Apple copied from Xero PARC, which Microsoft ... errr ... also 'adapted' was the reason Apple nearly went bankrupt and Microsoft zoomed ahead. Such a simplistic re-writing of history.
Almost everything in computing is built on the work of others. One party claiming (in the courts) prior art is a complete disaster. Microsoft executed with customers far better, chipping away at improving things until we reached Windows NT, while Jobs was out there claiming everyone should live-with 'co-operative' multi-crashing.
Fan boy much