John Couch is an American business executive and author who served as Apple Computer 's First Vice President of Education.
After becoming one of the first fifty computer science graduates from UC Berkeley, Couch joined Hewlett-Packard as software engineer and, in 1978, was recruited by Steve Jobs as Director of New Products for Apple Computer, Inc., making him the company's 54th employee. Soon thereafter he became Apple's first Vice President of Software and then General Manager overseeing the Apple Lisa computer division. [1]
In 1984, Couch left Apple to take over a struggling Christian school in Solana Beach, California. He also served as Executive in Residence for the Mayfield Fund and, in 1997, became CEO of biotechnology software maker DoubleTwist (then called Pangea Systems). [2] After leaving DoubleTwist, he was again recruited by Steve Jobs to return to Apple and take on the newly created role of Vice President of Education. [3]
In May 2018, Couch and his co-author, Jason Towne, published the book Rewiring Education [4] [5] [6] [7] which became the best-selling education book in China. [8] That same year, Couch founded Eden Inspirations, a ministry that works with Christian music artists and labels, such as Aaron Gillespie and Bethel Music. By 2019, the company had released three CDs: Songs of the Night, Songs of Freedom, and Songs of Wisdom. [9]
In June 2018, Couch was announced as an executive producer of the action film Sound of Freedom , starring Jim Caviezel. [10] Later that same year, Couch launched a wine tasting company called Eden Estate Wines. [11] Couch's memoir, My Life at Apple and the Steve I Knew, was published in July 2021. [12] [13] Sound of Freedom was released theatrically in 2023.
Apple Inc., is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. Devices include the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV; operating systems include iOS and macOS; and software applications and services include iTunes, iCloud, and Apple Music.
The Apple II is an early personal computer that was created by Apple Inc. It was one of the first successful mass-produced microcomputer products, and it played a significant role in the early development of the personal computer industry. It has an 8-bit microprocessor.
NeXT, Inc. was an American technology company headquartered in Redwood City, California that specialized in computer workstations for higher education and business markets, and later developed web software. It was founded in 1985 by CEO Steve Jobs, the Apple Computer co-founder who had been forcibly removed from Apple that year. NeXT debuted with the NeXT Computer in 1988, and released the NeXTcube and smaller NeXTstation in 1990. The series had relatively limited sales, with only about 50,000 total units shipped. Nevertheless, the object-oriented programming and graphical user interface were highly influential trendsetters of computer innovation.
Stephen Gary Wozniak, also known by his nickname "Woz", is an American electrical engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, and inventor. In 1976, he co-founded Apple Computer with his early business partner Steve Jobs. Through his work at Apple in the 1970s and 1980s, he is widely recognized as one of the most prominent pioneers of the personal computer revolution.
Lisa is a desktop computer developed by Apple, released on January 19, 1983. It is generally considered the first mass market personal computer operable through a graphical user interface (GUI). In 1983, a machine like the Lisa was still so expensive that it was primarily marketed to individual and small and medium-size businesses as a groundbreaking new alternative to much bigger and more expensive mainframes or minicomputers such as from IBM, that either require additional, expensive consultancy from the supplier, hiring specially trained personnel, or at least, a much steeper learning curve to maintain and operate. Earlier GUI-controlled personal computers were not mass-marketed; for example, the Xerox Alto was manufactured in several thousands only for Xerox and select partners through Xerox PARC from the early to mid 1970s.
John Sculley III is an American businessman, entrepreneur and investor in high-tech startups. Sculley was vice-president (1970–1977) and president of PepsiCo (1977–1983), until he became chief executive officer (CEO) of Apple Inc. on April 8, 1983, a position he held until leaving in 1993. In May 1987, Sculley was named Silicon Valley's top-paid executive, with an annual salary of US$10.2 million.
Avadis "Avie" Tevanian is an American-Armenian software engineer. At Carnegie Mellon University, he was a principal designer and engineer of the Mach operating system. He leveraged that work at NeXT Inc. as the foundation of the NeXTSTEP operating system. He was senior vice president of software engineering at Apple from 1997 to 2003, and then chief software technology officer from 2003 to 2006. There, he redesigned NeXTSTEP to become macOS. Apple's macOS and iOS both incorporate the Mach Kernel, and iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS are all derived from iOS. He was a longtime friend of Steve Jobs.
Pirates of Silicon Valley is a 1999 American biographical drama television film directed by Martyn Burke and starring Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates. Spanning the years 1971–1997 and based on Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine's 1984 book Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer, it explores the impact that the rivalry between Jobs and Gates (Microsoft) had on the development of the personal computer. The film premiered on TNT on June 20, 1999.
Lawrence Gordon Tesler was an American computer scientist who worked in the field of human–computer interaction. Tesler worked at Xerox PARC, Apple, Amazon, and Yahoo!.
Guy L. "Bud" Tribble was Vice President of Software Technology at Apple Inc.
Steve Capps is a pioneering American computer programmer and software engineer, who was one of the original designers of the Apple Macintosh computer and co-designers of the Finder in the 1980s. He also led development of the Apple Newton PDA and designed music software such as SoundEdit, before developing user interface (UI) designs for Microsoft's Internet Explorer and online/mobile payment systems.
Ellen Mooney Hancock was a technology manager from the United States who worked for IBM and Apple, among others.
Apple Inc., originally named Apple Computer, Inc., is a multinational corporation that creates and markets consumer electronics and attendant computer software, and is a digital distributor of media content. Apple's core product lines are the iPhone smartphone, iPad tablet computer, and the Macintosh personal computer. The company offers its products online and has a chain of retail stores known as Apple Stores. Founders Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne created Apple Computer Co. on April 1, 1976, to market Wozniak's Apple I desktop computer, and Jobs and Wozniak incorporated the company on January 3, 1977, in Cupertino, California.
Nancy Regina Heinen of Portola Valley, California, is an American corporate lawyer, business executive, and philanthropist. Heinen is known for being the General Counsel, Senior Vice President, and Secretary for Apple Computer, Inc. between September 1997 and May 2006. Heinen is currently a member of the board of VERB and the Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund. She also serves on the board of directors and advisory boards for several other companies and philanthropic organizations.
Richard Page is an alumnus of Apple Inc. He was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer in the 1980s, and later joined Steve Jobs at NeXT.
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology giant Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar. He was a pioneer of the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, along with his early business partner and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Scott James Forstall is an American software engineer, known for leading the original software development team for the iPhone and iPad. He is also a Broadway producer known for co-producing the Tony award-winning Fun Home and Eclipsed with Molly Forstall, his wife, among others. Having spent his career first at NeXT and then Apple, he was the senior vice president (SVP) of iOS Software at Apple Inc. from 2007 until October 2012.
Mark D. Papermaster is an American business executive currently serving as the chief technology officer (CTO) and executive vice president for technology and engineering at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). On January 25, 2019 he was promoted to AMD's Executive Vice President. Papermaster previously worked at IBM from 1982 to 2008, where he was closely involved in the development of PowerPC technology and served two years as vice president of IBM's blade server division. Papermaster's decision to move from IBM to Apple Inc. in 2008 became central to a court case considering the validity and scope of an employee non-compete clause in the technology industry. He became senior vice president of devices hardware engineering at Apple in 2009, with oversight for devices such as the iPhone. In 2010 he left Apple and joined Cisco Systems as a VP of the company's silicon engineering development. Papermaster joined AMD on October 24, 2011, assuming oversight for all of AMD's technology teams and the creation of all of AMD's products, and AMD's corporate technical direction.
Al Eisenstat was an American lawyer and business executive. He served as general counsel, Senior Vice President and board member at Apple Computer.