Plan a mysterious meeting of the "Top 100" at Apple. Jobs letter

In October 2010, Steve Jobs sent an email to Phil Schiller (Apple's senior vice president of marketing) with the topic Top 100 - A. The letter contained a plan for a top-secret meeting called “Top 100,” which was to be held in early 2011.

Meetings of the "Top 100" are important events at Apple. In 2011, CNN was told what this meeting is, and how it all happens there ... Now we are sharing this information with Habr.
There is a small group of employees at Apple who met with Steve. It's called the Top 100, and every year or so Jobs gathered these favorites for three days intensively regarding the company's strategy in a safe, unknown place. Everything connected with the Top 100 meeting, as well as its existence, is shrouded in mystery. Those who participated were strongly advised not to add this event to their calendar. The participant must completely deny his connection with such an event, even when discussing within the company. Those invited were forbidden to come to the meeting place on their own car, instead they had to catch buses that run from Cupertino (Apple headquarters) to places like the luxurious Chaminade Resort & Spa in Santa Cruz, which met two main requirements Jobs: good food and no golf. Apple carefully chose the site, checking conference rooms for bugs or other listening equipment.

The Top 100 meeting was an important management tool for Jobs. He and his chief assistants used the meeting to inform the tops about where the company is strategically moving. This event also gave Jobs the opportunity to share his global plan with the new generation of Apple leaders. Jobs focused on personalities. Each session was created according to the same rules as the world-famous presentations of Apple products, which were held by Steve. For the speakers, the career rates were extremely high, as was the pressure on the nerves. “The Top 100 meeting was the most terrible event in life for about 10 speakers. For the remaining 90, this is the best few days of their life, ”recalls one of the former vice-presidents, who also spoke on the stage a few years ago. Jobs sometimes used meetings to present the company's most important initiatives to the hundreds of favorites. “I was on Top 100 when Steve showed us the iPod. Except for us, absolutely no one knew about the iPod, ”says Mike Janes, who worked at Apple from 1998 to 2003 and remains close to the leadership of Apple.

To be among those invited to the "Top 100", the participant had to be approved personally by Steve Jobs, and the position of the invited person did not have much importance. “My job is to cooperate with the top 100 best employees of the company, and not just with the vice-presidents. Some of them are simply key figures in the company that generate certain ideas that I can spread to the whole hundred, ”Jobs told Fortune in 2008 in an interview . In private conversations, Jobs gave the top 100 even more importance. If Steve had to create some new company, he would bring these 100 people with him.
')
And yet, contrary to the existence of one hundred favorites, Apple did not have a caste system. A one-time invitation to the "Top 100" did not mean that you were there forever. By decision of Jobs, the list of participants changed from year to year, and it is quite humiliating to be expelled from this elite club. For those who stayed in Cupertino, chatter and gossip began exactly at the very moment when the elect left. Employees who prepared the top hundred arranged such a “lunch of the worst hundred” to discuss the news.

Below is Jobs 'new letter, which became publicly available in a lawsuit between Apple and Samsung, although it appears as the defendant’s application marked “ Highly Confidential - Attorneys' Eyes Only ” (strictly confidential, only for lawyers). Given the level of secrecy of these meetings, "Top 100" and the fact that 2011 was the last for Jobs at Apple, this letter deserves special attention.

From: Steve Jobs
Date: October 24, 2010 6:12:41 PM
To: ET
Topic: Top 100 - A

Here is my current plan. Steve

1. Strategy for 2011 - SJ
- Who are we?
- number, average age, ...
- The number of vice-presidents, the promotion of senior staff over the past year
- The percentage of newcomers to this meeting
- What are we doing?
- Pie chart from the product line and the revenue they generate
- The same graphics with combined tablets and phones
- Era after PC
- Apple is the first company to reach it.
- Post-PC era products generate 66% of company revenue
- iPad surpassed Mac sales for 6 months
- Post-PC era = more mobile (smaller, thinner, lighter) + communications + applications + cloud services
- 2011: Holy War with Google
- We will compete with them in all directions
- The main reason for the meeting of the Top 100 - you will hear about what we do in each presentation
- 2011: Year of the Cloud
- We invented the concept of Digital Hub
- PC as the center for all your digital assets - contacts, calendars, bookmarks, photos, music, videos - Digital Hub (the center of our universe) moves from computer to cloud
- The PC is now just another device along with the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, ...
- Apple is in danger, tied to the old paradigm for too long (innovator dilemma)
- Google and Microsoft are at the forefront of technology, but they still don’t fully understand it - linking all our products together to lock users in our ecosystem
- 2015: new campus

2. The state of the company - Peter and Tim
- Results of the 2010th fiscal year
- Plan for 2011 fiscal year
- Where is our business - geo analysis (other, Europe, Japan, Asia, perhaps, to break into China) (presentation on the map)
- The main stages, trends and future goals
- Comparison with Google, Samsung, HTC, Motorola and RIM

3. iPhone - Jos and Bob
- Strategy for 2011:
- iPhone 4 Plus with the best antenna, processor, camera and software to stay ahead of the competition until mid-2012
- Create LTE version in the middle of 2012
- Create a budget iPhone model based on the iPod Touch to replace the 3GS
- Business and competitive update
- Display Droid and RIM ads
- Verizon iPhone
- Schedule, marketing, ...
- iPhone 5 hardware
- Performance H4
- New antenna design, etc.
- New camera
- Plan
- CONFIDENTIAL
- Target cost
- show model (and / or visualization) - johnie

4. iPad - Bob, Joni, Dan Riccio, Michael Tchao, Randy Ubillos, Xander Soren, Roger Rosner - 2011 Strategy: ship an iPad 2 with incredible hardware and software before competitors catch up with our current model
- Business and competitive update - Michael
- Applications, adaptation for the corporate sector, ...
- Display ads Samsung, HP (?) And iPad
- 2011 Product Card - Bob, Dan & Joni
- iPad 2
- New ID, H4, UMTS + Verizon in one model, camera, ... - EVT
- HDMI connector (use for demo projection below?)
- iPad 3
- Display, H4T
- DEMO:
- Photobooth (Michael?)
- iMovie (randy)
- GarageBand (Xander)
- The system of creation of copyright text books (Roger)
- A working display for iPad 3 (during a break)

5. iOS - Scott, Jos
- Strategy: catch up with Android in those areas where we are lagging behind (notifications, tethering, speech, ...) and surpass them (Siri, ...)
- Chronology of iOS releases from the first to Telluride, including Verizon
- Jasper basics
- Durango Basics (without MobileMe)
- Basics of Telluride (taking into account the principle of "catch up and overtake")
- DEMO:
- Jasper: AirPlay for AppleTV - video from iPad, photo from iPhone, ...?
- Durango:? (without MobileMe)
- Telluride: Siri ,?

6. MobileMe - Kew, SJ, Roger Rosner
- Strategy: catch up with Google's cloud services and get around them (Photo Stream, data storage in the cloud) - Android
- Deep integration into Google cloud services
- Far ahead of Apple in cloud services for contacts, calendar, mail
- 2011
- Apple Cloud Year
- tie all our products together
- Make the Apple ecosystem even more tethering
- Free MobileMe for iPhone 4, iPad and the new iPod Touch
- jasper
- Register with Apple ID, Find My iPhone
- Durango
- Find My Friends, calendar, contacts, bookmarks, Photo Stream
- April
- iWork Cloud Storage
- Telluride
- Cloud for third party applications
- iOS Backup
- New iDisk for Mac
- Growth
- Projected growth, cost / user
- Plan scalable up to 100 million users
- Plan to switch to a paid subscription
- How about email?
- DEMO:
- Find My Friends
- The calendar
- Photo Stream
- iWork Cloud Storage (Roger Rosner)

7. Mac - David Moody, Bob, Craig Fedridge, Randy Ubilos and? - Hardware layout
- Plan Lion
- Mac App Store
- Final Cut Pro DEMO (Randy &?)

8. Apple TV 2 - David Moody, Jeff Robbin
- Strategy: stay in the living room of the game team and make a must-have accessory for iOS devices
- Sales, forecasts for this holiday season
- Add content:
- NBC, CBS, Viacom, HBO, ...
- Subscribe to TV?
- Where are we going from here?
- Applications, browser, magic wand?

9. Update stores - Eddie, Patrice
- Music
- Strategy: go further ahead from Google in music
- Beatles
- iTunes in the cloud
- App Store
- Strategy: go further ahead from Google in the development of new applications for iOS

10. iAds Update - Andy Miller

11. Retail Update - Ron Johnson

One day, Steve Jobs used a quote from the famous hockey player Wayne Gretzky, which fully reflects his approach to managing Apple: " I slide to where the puck will be, not to where it was ." Steve Jobs book written by Walter Isaacson.

Original unveiled letter.