David Epstein

Basically the iPhone.

Yeah.

And this was in the late 80s, early 90s?

The CEO has a notebook.

His name is Mark Peratt.

In 1989, where he sketches a thin glass rectangle with no protruding buttons and a touchscreen where you can download apps and it'll be a phone and a computer.

1989, only 15% of Americans had computers and the internet didn't exist.

He saw all of this stuff.

Like he envisioned a virtual meeting space where different devices could connect.

And they called it the cloud in 1990.

Like they were ahead.

And again, they had the designers, the original Mac.

It was so, everything was so alluring, their vision, their talent, that Goldman Sachs actually took them public in the first so-called concept IPO, where they went public with an idea.

I mean, they had an idea.

They had the idea plus the talent plus a 17-member, what they called the alliance, which was...

basically other companies that had invested in them.

So this was 17 companies from around the world.

It was the largest consortium of international businesses in American business history.

Each had given millions of dollars in investment and were going to be part of the team.

Apple, Sony, Panasonic, you know, AT&T, like all the, it was actually, they covered so much of the communications technology world that their meetings had to begin with an antitrust lawyer listing all the topics they weren't allowed to discuss.