Word: redmonds
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...summer of 1981, IBM announced the PC that would break open the computer business and eventually marginalize Apple. Jobs took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal headlined "Welcome, IBM. Seriously." Shortly afterward, he flew a small entourage to Redmond, Wash., to tell Microsoft about the Mac and persuade the programmers to write for it. Bill Gates didn't need much prodding. He agreed to produce the software--and then promptly launched a copycat project that would become Microsoft Windows...
...Jobs is running Apple again, an interim chairman who seems to be in no hurry to find a replacement. Brought back in a kind of Hail Mary play by a company running out of time, Jobs staged a remarkable turnaround. He signed a peace pact with his nemesis in Redmond, killed off the Apple clones, launched an eye-catching ad campaign ("Think Different"), streamlined his product line, slashed inventory and turned a surprisingly large profit. Suddenly, Apple is cool again, thanks to a sexy, blue, Internet-friendly machine--the iMac--that is almost as hot as the original Macintosh...
...spots in the work force of the future. I predict that some people will be born so smart that they can change the world without much effort. Motivation won't be an issue for people who are so smart that everything is easy for them. I call it the Redmond effect...
Like giant vacuum cleaners, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and companies of their kind have been sucking up the brightest people in the world and shipping them to breeding grounds in places like Redmond, Wash. For the first time in history, large numbers of fertile geniuses are living in the same places. The Redmond offspring won't all be geniuses of course; someone has to marry the beautiful people in marketing. But many of the Redmond kids will be frighteningly smart mutants. There's no telling how far this evolutionary shortcut can go. Each generation of geniuses will be smarter...
...course, there was never much in it for the states anyway, other than good press; in contrast to the tobacco suit, nobody was dangling umpteen gazillion simoleons in settlement money. Still, the defection does allow Redmond a little positive spin. Naturally, it was greeted as good news on Wall Street, where MSFT jumped more than 5 points in late-day trading...