Apple is flying a pirate flag over its headquarters

Friday is the 40th anniversary of Apple's founding, and to celebrate, Apple flew a pirate flag over its headquarters.

Here's the reason: The privateer banner has an extraordinary spot in Apple's history. Amid a 1983 meeting, CEO Steve Jobs told the Macintosh group:

1. "Genuine craftsmen ship."

2. "It's ideal to be a privateer than join the naval force."

3. "Macintosh in a book by 1986."

Taking into account those now famous "maxims from Chairman Jobs," the Macintosh colleagues began to style themselves as privateers. Truth be told, the expression "Privateers of Silicon Valley" later turned into the title of a 1999 Anthony Michael Hall biopic about the beginning of Apple.

("Macintosh in a book" alludes to the collaborations' to make a portable PC. It dispatched the 15-pound Mac Portable in 1989.)

Things being what they are, the Macintosh group was so roused by Jobs that it asked architect Susan Kare, who made the symbols on the first Macintosh, to make an adjusted privateer banner.

As per a post on Folklore.org composed by previous Apple engineer Andy Hertzfeld, Jobs cherished the banner:

Steve Capps, the heroic programmer who had switched over from the Lisa team just in time for the January retreat, had a flash of inspiration: if the Mac team was a band of pirates, the building should fly a pirate flag.

A few days before we moved into the new building, Capps bought some black cloth and sewed it into a flag. He asked Susan Kare to paint a big skull and crossbones in white at the center. The final touch was the requisite eye-patch, rendered by a large, rainbow-colored Apple logo decal. We wanted to have the flag flying over the building early Monday morning, the first day of occupancy, so the plan was to install it late Sunday evening ...

We weren't sure how everyone would react to the flag, especially Steve Jobs, but Steve and almost everyone else loved it, so it became a permanent fixture of the building. It usually made me smile when I caught a glimpse of it as I came to work in the morning.