Tim Cook shares what Steve Jobs told him in memo to employees on Apple's 50th anniversary
Apple CEO Tim Cook sent a company-wide memo on April 1 marking Apple 's 50th anniversary—and he opened it with a quote from Steve Jobs that still shapes how the company thinks about itself. "When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is," Jobs once said. "But life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you."
Cook called this the ethos that brought Apple into the world in 1976, and the same force that has attracted people to the company ever since. The memo was first shared publicly by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Cook leaned into scale to make his point. Fifty years ago, he wrote, there was a single computer prototype in a garage. Today, 2.5 billion active Apple devices are in use across every corner of the world.
He kept the tone personal—thanking employees for pushing past their own limits, believing in Apple's mission, and committing to something "bigger than any one of us." Whether someone joined Apple this year or decades ago, Cook said, the work carries the same weight.
He closed on a forward-looking note. "What excites me most is what comes next," Cook wrote, adding that the opportunities ahead are "among the greatest we have ever seen."
Apple turns 50 at a complicated moment. The company is under pressure to prove its AI ambitions match its hardware legacy—and Cook's memo, while celebratory, doubles as a quiet rallying cry for what lies ahead.
Read CEO Tim Cook’s memo to employees on Apple’s 50th anniversary
Cook called this the ethos that brought Apple into the world in 1976, and the same force that has attracted people to the company ever since. The memo was first shared publicly by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Cook leaned into scale to make his point. Fifty years ago, he wrote, there was a single computer prototype in a garage. Today, 2.5 billion active Apple devices are in use across every corner of the world.
He kept the tone personal—thanking employees for pushing past their own limits, believing in Apple's mission, and committing to something "bigger than any one of us." Whether someone joined Apple this year or decades ago, Cook said, the work carries the same weight.
He closed on a forward-looking note. "What excites me most is what comes next," Cook wrote, adding that the opportunities ahead are "among the greatest we have ever seen."
Apple turns 50 at a complicated moment. The company is under pressure to prove its AI ambitions match its hardware legacy—and Cook's memo, while celebratory, doubles as a quiet rallying cry for what lies ahead.
Read CEO Tim Cook’s memo to employees on Apple’s 50th anniversary
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