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In The Reputation You Keep, we explored how reputation begins with internal congruence and saw how Steve Ballmer’s reputation became an obstacle to transforming Microsoft’s. While Ballmer struggled to convince even his own employees of his cloud vision, another tech leader faced an even more alarming situation—and demonstrates what reputation done right can accomplish.
In September 1997, Steve Jobs returned to Apple as interim CEO. The situation was dire—just 90 days from bankruptcy. They’d lost over $1 billion the previous year and were losing market share to Windows PCs.
Jobs saw how the company had atrophied in his absence. Too many products. No priorities. People were confused. He began the march back to relevance with a launch meeting to discuss their new campaign: “Think Different.” Jobs understood that before Apple could sell computers, it needed to sell values—both externally and internally. Like Ballmer’s UW speech, “Think Different” was as much about rallying employees as it was about reaching customers.
“We’re trying to get back to the basics of great products, marketing, and distribution.” Speaking to his team, Jobs made clear this wasn’t just advertising—it was identity. They trimmed 70% of the product roadmap to focus on the best products. Unlike Ballmer’s message, which met resistance, Jobs found that people who had projects canceled were “three feet off the ground with excitement because they finally understood where we were going.”
To express that vision, Jobs borrowed a page from Nike’s playbook.
“One of the greatest marketing jobs the universe has ever seen is Nike,” Jobs told employees. “They sell shoes. Yet when you think of Nike, you feel something different. Their ads don’t talk about the product. What does Nike do? They honor great athletes and athletics. That’s who they are.”
Apple would take the same path. No “speeds and feeds.” No side-by-side comparisons to Windows. Instead, they’d honor the people who “think different.”
“Apple’s core value is that we believe people with passion can change the world for the better,” Jobs said. “That people crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that actually do.”
Jobs also made a subtle and important shift in their aspirations as a company. When Apple originally defined the PC industry, Jobs used the analogy of “a bicycle of the mind.” A tool that amplified human intelligence, making thinking faster and more efficient. That perspective helped make computers ubiquitous, but this new Apple was working to elevate their position within the PC market they’d created.
Lee Clow, Jobs’ longtime advertising partner at Chiat/Day, articulated this shift: Windows machines were glorified typewriters and calculators, while Apple was making tools for creative minds.
Who doesn’t aspire to be a creative thinker instead of just a worker? Apple’s new market became everyone who wanted to create something meaningful, including their own employees.
To establish that reputation, they leaned on prominent figures: Muhammad Ali, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi. Of course, Gandhi never touched a computer. The campaign said, if these icons had used computers, they would have picked a Mac. If you aspire to be like them, you’ll pick a Mac as well.
The strategy created a clear divide: creative people have a Macintosh on their desk, while regular workers use a Compaq or IBM with Windows. Apple wasn’t just building their own story—they were defining their competition as tools for ordinary tasks and ordinary people.
Apple’s internal message matched their external one: We make tools for creative people because we are creative people—those who think differently and are changing the world.
Both CEOs recognized the same truth: authentic reputation requires congruence between internal culture and external messaging. You can’t build trust with customers if your own employees don’t believe the story. The difference was that Jobs had the credibility to make that alignment stick, while Ballmer had to fight for it every step of the way.
But there’s a deeper psychological principle at work here—one that explains why some leaders can transform their company’s reputation while others remain trapped by it. Next week, we’ll explore the psychology of self-perception and why the reputation you keep with yourself determines the reputation others keep of you.
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