75

SSSSCENE 7CCCEEENNNEEE 777

Reveal the

Conquering Hero

The only problem with Microsoft is they

just have no taste. And I don’t mean that in

a small way. I mean that in a big way.

STEVE JOBS

S

teve Jobs is a master at creating villains—the more

treacherous, the better. Once Jobs introduces the antago-

nist of the moment (the limitation to current products),

he introduces the hero, revealing the solution that will

make your life easier and more enjoyable. In other words, an

Apple product arrives in time to save the day. IBM played the

antagonist in the 1984 television ad, as discussed in Scene 6.

Jobs revealed the ad for the first time to a group of internal sales-

people at an event in the fall of 1983.

Before showing the ad, Jobs spent several minutes painting

“Big Blue” into a character bent on world domination. (It helped

that IBM was known as Big Blue at the time. The similar ring to

Big Brother was not lost on Jobs.) Jobs made Big Blue look more

menacing than Hannibal Lecter:

It is 1958. IBM passes up the chance to a buy a new, fledgling

company that has invented a new technology called xerogra-

phy. Two years later, Xerox is born, and IBM has been kicking

itself ever since. It is ten years later. The late sixties. Digital

Equipment, DEC, and others invent the minicomputer. IBM