mission

Doug Menuez was  invited by Steve Jobs and other leading innovators of the Digital Revolution to record their stories of struggle, failure, sacrifice and success. From 1985-2000 he photographed the people who created more jobs and wealth than at any time in human history. Now he’s sharing his rare photos and eyewitness stories through the FEARLESS GENIUS project.

fearless-genius-book

THE BOOK: FEARLESS GENIUS captures the human face of innovation and shows what it takes to transform powerful ideas into reality. Foreword by Elliot Erwitt, Introduction by Kurt Andersen.

“An indispensable look at how the world we know now was actually constructed … a vital piece of photographic history.” — Kirkus Reviews

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rare photographs document the Inventors of the Impossible

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The Day Ross Perot Gave Steve Jobs $20 Million
Fremont, California, 1986.

Steve was a consummate showman who understood the power of a compelling setting. This was never more apparent than at this incongruously formal lunch he hosted for Ross Perot and the NeXT board of directors in the middle of the abandoned warehouse he planned to turn into the NeXT factory. He told Perot that they were building the most advanced robotic assembly line in the world and that "no human hands" would be assembling hardware. He predicted that NeXT would be the last billion dollar a year company in Silicon Valley and that they would ship ten thousand computers a month. Perot, who was then championing a movement to reform education in the United States, was blown away by the presentation and invested $20 million, becoming a key board member and giving NeXT a crucial lifeline.

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Steve Jobs Explaining Ten-­‐Year Technology Development Cycles.
Sonoma, California, 1986.

Steve giving a history lesson about how technology evolves in ten year wave cycles to his new NeXT team at an off-site meeting. Every few months, Steve and the fledgling company’s employees would travel to a retreat in the country with their families to grapple with myriad technical issues. There he would regularly hold talks to explain his vision for the company and to encourage his brilliant cofounders and employees to participate fully in its realization. Steve planned to ride the next wave by putting the power of a refrigerator-size mainframe computer into a one foot cube at a price affordable to universities, thus “transforming education.” When I asked him what he meant by this, he said he wanted “some kid at Stanford to be able to cure cancer in his dorm room.” Because he absolutely believed this was possible, his whole team did. Behind this noble goal, Steve was also on a quest for redemption and revenge after being forced out at Apple in a humiliating boardroom coup after alienating key board members and his handpicked CEO, John Sculley. Most industry pundits believed NeXT would be a huge and rapid success, as did Steve. Instead, it was the start of a decade of difficult, often bitter struggle.

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Susan Kare Is Part of Your Daily Life.
Sonoma, California, 1987

It's not a stretch to say that Susan Kare's playful icons and user interface design have impacted the daily lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world. Susan was part of the original Mac team and designed the original Mac icons and much of the user interface. Leaving Apple with Steve after his ouster, she became a cofounder and creative director at NeXT Computer, where she oversaw the creation of its icons and logo, working with the legendary Paul Rand. Later she designed or redesigned icons for many other computer operating systems, including Windows and IBM's OS/2. Here she's listening to Steve at an off-site meeting with her colleague Kim Jenkins (right), as he discusses the unfinished tasks facing the company. Kim, a key member of the marketing team, came to NeXT from Microsoft, where the education division she started was profitable beyond anyone's expectations, giving real competition to Apple, which had previously dominated the education market.

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Steve Jobs Returning from a Visit to the New Factory.
Fremont, California, 1987.

Although Steve could be extremely rude, critical, and occasionally even vindictive, he also was incredibly joyful, with an infectious grin and energy that was irresistible. In the early days at NeXT he would often come bounding in, hungry to get to work. Still, there were not too many unrestrained moments of hilarity such as this one, when Steve was riding back from a visit to the newly chosen factory site with the company employees in an old, rented yellow school bus.

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Steve Jobs Pretending to Be Human.
Menlo Park, California, 1987.

Steve was not the kind of guy who ever seemed to relax. He was usually focused like a laser on the task at hand. So it was surprising to see Steve kicking this beach ball around at a company picnic. He seemed to be having a good time, but it felt more like a performance designed to encourage the team to relax. He knew well from previous experience that his team needed breaks in order to sustain the forced march that would culminate in shipping the product.

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The Founders of Adobe Systems Preparing to Release Photoshop.
Mountain View, California, 1988.

John Warnock and Chuck Geschke (seated at left) confidently ready the launch of Photoshop, a landmark program that would utterly transform photography and the graphic arts. This followed their first breakthrough software called PostScript, completed after twenty thousand man hours of coding, which allowed personal computers to talk to printers. This seemingly small function was incredibly difficult to achieve and represented the biggest advance in printing since Gutenberg invented movable type in 1436. The duo left Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) after their brilliant ideas were ignored and founded Adobe in 1982 with $2 million. They read exactly one business book prior to starting Adobe and intended to sell a personal desktop computer with a printer. They did not initially envision revolutionizing the desktop publishing industry with fonts or design software. A few months after they opened for business, Steve Jobs showed up (1982, riding high in his first stint as CEO at Apple) and demanded to buy the company. His then in development Macintosh was going to ship with a laser printer, but his team could not write the requisite software. Steve pressed them to sell and come work for him. As Chuck told the story, they refused, and Steve responded, "You guys are idiots!" They called their investors, who urged them to work something out with Steve. They agreed to sell him shares worth 19 percent of the company, for which Steve paid a five times multiple of their company's valuation at the time, plus a five year license fee for PostScript, in advance. This made Adobe the first company in the history of Silicon Valley to become profitable in its first year.

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Russell Brown in Costume.
Mountain View, California, 1989.

In a public defense of the early Photoshop, Adobe Systems creative director Russell Brown pointedly said that software is just a simple tool, like a hammer. You can use it to build a house or tear one down. Many photographers and graphic designers resisted digital technology and heavily criticized Photoshop. Perhaps more than anyone else, Russell Brown deserves credit for the dominance of Photoshop by winning over the creative community with his Photoshop classes and lectures where influential photographers, graphic designers, and artists were invited to come learn the software.

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Geek Sex.
Mountain View, California, 1991.

Real-life boyfriend and girlfriend act out a rudimentary electrical metaphor at an Adobe Halloween party. Technology workers were notoriously socially inept and often shy, especially male engineers. Fantasy games and role playing were popular, and any opportunity to dress in costumes was welcomed. This couple repeated the ritual all over the company to the delight of fellow workers.

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The Painter David Hockney Rests during the First Photoshop Invitational.
Mountain View, California, 1990.

As digital technology grew more powerful, Silicon Valley became an unexpected crossroads of culture. Artists arrived from all over the world, eager to experiment and hang out at happenings such as the TED conference, creating a freeway and office park version of what Paris in the twenties must have felt like. Producer Quincy Jones and musicians Peter Gabriel and Herbie Hancock were early adopters. Graham Nash was so taken he started his own fine art digital printing business. Tom Wolfe had been out to write about Bob Noyce, the coinventor of the integrated circuit, and lots of writers followed, including Steve Jobs's half sister Mona Simpson. George Lucas was a pioneer in digital film, as was Francis Ford Coppola. The cultural ground was shifting, with the avant­garde gathering to push new digital ideas into the zeitgeist. Here, painter David Hockney, holding one of his beloved dachshunds, attends Russell Brown's first Adobe Photoshop Invitational, where he learned how to use the first release version of Photoshop, happily smoking in the computer room and playing with his dogs on breaks.

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John Sculley Masters His Shyness to Meet the Press.
Fremont, California, 1990.

At the factory in Fremont, Apple CEO John Sculley charms the press. He overcame severe shyness and a stutter to eventually become CEO of Pepsi and was then convinced by Steve Jobs to join Apple in 1983. After forcing Steve out, John grew Apple from $800 million to $8 billion a year in revenue. Despite this incredible achievement, he was often dismissed in the Valley as the man who fired Steve and for being a marketing guy, not an engineer. In fact, he worked hard to find and encourage the best ideas inside the company, such as the Knowledge Navigator, which in 1987 anticipated many aspects of today's internet, software agents, and the potential of tablet and voice-command technology. At the height of his power, in February 1993, he was seated next to First Lady Hillary Clinton at President Bill Clinton's first State of the Union address. John knew then that despite outward appearances, Apple was tilting toward chaos, unable to rewrite its operating system and innovate against the threat of Microsoft. Once tech companies have successful cash cows such as the Mac, it becomes inherently more difficult to innovate because it often means killing the cash cow. Apple's Macintosh was profitable, but its market share was dropping fast due to the growth of Windows. Meanwhile a small team at Apple were exploring a handheld computing device. John's solution to provide a new revenue stream alongside the Macintosh was to green-light this rebel unit to develop the world's first personal digital assistant, or PDA. The Newton, as it was called, would be a new type of product for a market that did not yet exist. It was an ambitious gamble. Although the Newton ultimately failed, it validated John's vision for leading to billions of smart devices and paved the way for Palm Pilot, then iPhone and iPad. Ironically, he was fired in 1993 for refusing to license the Mac OS but he left Apple as the most profitable computer company in the world with billions in the bank.

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The Newton War Room at Apple Computer.
Cupertino, California, 1993.

Apple programmer Sarah Clark kept her newborn baby with her at work, almost never leaving the building for two years as the team rushed to finish the software. She pulled curtains over her office so colleagues knew when it was naptime or if she was breast feeding. Her dedication was typical of Apple employees, and management was generally grateful. Flexible hours and other worker friendly modifications were adopted, and John Sculley showed leadership by appointing women to positions of power, unusual in Silicon Valley at that time. What's not often considered is that whoever writes the code determines how the machine will behave and interact with the user. The implications of this are not often discussed. What if someone other than a 20-something white male geek wrote the code? A different worldview would likely change the priorities of the code writer, and that would likely change the nature of the technology that is so profoundly shaping our behavior and culture.

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Calculated Risk.
Northern California, 1993.

Apple Newton software engineers defy orders (and gravity) to not risk their lives until the product was done. Their boss, software engineering manager Donna Auguste, was not amused, but understood their need to blow off steam after years of intense work.

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President Clinton Is Really Smart.
Mountain View, California, 1995.

During his reelection campaign, President Bill Clinton attended a fund-­‐raiser thrown by the top CEOs of Silicon Valley. L. John Doerr (center), interacting with Clinton, helped organize the visit at the home of Regis McKenna. During dinner, the CEOs peppered Clinton with questions related to complex technology, trade, and economic issues. Listening patiently, the president smoothly delivered a point-by-point response to each guest in turn, revealing a jaw-­‐dropping breadth of knowledge about all the issues, even obscure aspects of encryption technology. Everyone pulled out his checkbook and donated generously to the campaign.

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Bill Gates Says No One Should Ever Pay More Than $50 for a Photograph.
Laguna Niguel, California, 1992.

Microsoft CEO Bill Gates discusses cheap content for the masses and debates with reporters about the long-delayed vaporware upgrade to Windows at the Agenda '92 Conference, hosted by the elegantly acerbic Stuart Alsop. Alsop showed Gates no mercy during an interview onstage, grilling him on why Windows was so late. Later that year, at the third influential TED conference, Gates was onstage making a presentation about digital content and the cost of photography, saying, "No one should ever pay more than fifty bucks for a photograph." As Gates explained, he was completing construction of his high tech house in Seattle, whose interiors would feature screens with continuously changing displays of images. Licensing images on the scale he envisioned would be expensive, so he began to think about how to own or control vast archives of images. This led to the idea of forming a stock photography business originally called Continuum, tasked with developing large image libraries for online distribution. Later, not long after initial bad press from the photography trade publications the name was changed to Corbis.

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Exercise Break at Intel Fab 11X.
Rio Rancho, New Mexico, 1998.

Workers inside Intel's largest chip fabrication plant exercise and stretch as part of their break time. The plant is a giant, sterile clean room, so protective "bunny suits" must be worn through-out the facility to prevent contamination from skin and hair. These workers produce five chips a second, twenty-four hours a day. Many of them are from the nearby Pueblo tribe and maintain their traditions when not working with new technology. After work, many tend their corn and bean fields with their families before dinner.

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Bill Joy Is Worried about the Future of the Human Race.
Aspen, Colorado, 1998.

Legendary programmer and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Bill Joy, wrote Berkeley Unix while a student at UC Berkeley and helped the US Defense Department with the TCP/IP stack code that allowed email to travel along the path of least resistance in case of nuclear attack. He then cofounded Sun Microsystems, became a billionaire, husband, and father, and patron of the arts. He also championed and helped finish the code for Java, perhaps Sun Microsystems' most important legacy. Bill now believes unfettered innovation for its own sake endangers the very existence of the human race. In 2000, Bill published a manifesto in Wired magazine that stunned the technology world by challenging the accepted wisdom of unrestrained development. Triggered in part by meeting noted scientist Ray Kurzweil and hearing his ideas about the Singularity, when computers gain consciousness and we will upload our brains into a hive mind, Bill began forming his thesis. He warned that without thoughtful controls the convergence of our most powerful twenty-first-century technologies—robotics, supercomputers, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering—might destroy the human race. For the last decade, Bill has been on a global hunt for scalable green technology solutions to climate change.

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The Mission.
Redwood City, California, 1998.

NetObjects CEO and cofounder Samir Arora, who today heads mega-successful Mode Media, delivers a personal and moving talk to motivate his employees prior to a crucial board meeting with his investors. An inspirational leader, Arora was himself inspired by Steve Jobs and came from India to work at Apple as an engineer in 1986. He wrote a white paper with profound insights into the future of computing and rose quickly to work directly for Apple CEO John Sculley, where he helped develop Knowledge Navigator. He left Apple and with influential graphic designer Clement Mok (seated, top left), David Kleinberg (seated, lower left, profile to camera), and Arora's brother Sal Arora (not pictured), he cofounded NetObjects, which became the first company to create software that allowed anyone to make his or her own web pages. In short order they were a hot startup with a mission to make the internet widely accessible, a smart product idea, decent funding, relatively cheap offices complete with foosball and Ping-Pong tables, and a brilliant, deeply dedicated group working long hours for low pay, with the hope of a big payoff someday for their shares in the company. They also believed in their product completely, unlike the employees of a lot of dot-coms of the era. But the pressure from competition such as Microsoft's FrontPage, and from their investors to do an IPO, was increasing. Arora's message to his employees that day: they just had to work even harder than they already were.

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Remains of an All-­‐Night Programming Session.
Redwood City, California, 1997.

At the headquarters of NetObjects, morning finds empty Chinese food cartons left by engineers working all night to finish an important updated version of the company's software. Other source material for programmers can include pizza, soda, and Ho Hos.

fearless-genius-productions

"Fearless Genius is being produced as a cross-media platform with a range of integrated elements"

DOCUMENTARY

A feature-length documentary for theatrical release that celebrates the creative power of ideas, the passion and sacrifice required to change the world. Inspirational stories of past and present innovators and a look at the future.

TV + WEB SERIES

A groundbreaking documentary series that builds on the past while looking to the future. Features the next fearless geniuses hard at work building our future. Coming 2017-2019.

TRAVELING EXHIBITIONS

A stunning audio-visual exhibition that provides an immersive visual journey and detailed insider’s view of the Digital Revolution.

EDUCATION PROGRAM

Serving a range of diverse learners and developed in partnership with leading institutions to utilize the archive’s powerful stories, along with new content being produced about today’s fearless innovators.

DIGITAL PLATFORM

Interactive web platform combining multimedia content linked to apps, social media, news and events to support and grow the Fearless Genius community.

LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE/AWARDS

Annual summit will bring together industry icons and thought leaders to share insights on the future of technology and society. A Fearless Genius award each year celebrates inspirational figures whose work has transformed our world.

rbrown

press

SELECTED PRESS

• ART SCENE, ERIKA FUNKE, WVIA RADIO View
• MASHABLE One photographer’s unprecedented access to the Dot-Com Boom
• LA REPUBLICA View
• DAILY MAIL View
• MY MODERN MET View
• RETRONAUT View

• BUSINESS LIFE
• THOUGHT ECONOMICS View
• ASMP An Interview with Doug Menuez at Strictly Business
• APA Doug Menuez on Photographing a Fearless Genius – American Photographic Artists
• DIGITAL PHOTO PRO Doug Menuez: The Fearless Genius Project

• INC. MAGAZINE :
  • A Lesson From Steve Jobs on Commanding Respect View
  • Steve Jobs’ Photographer: ‘He Knew He Was Burning Everybody Out’ View
  • How Apple’s John Sculley Championed Diversity and Got a Better Product View
  • Entrepreneurs Have to Pay a Price for World-Changing Innovation View

• MY MODERN MET View
• BBC – WORLD NEWS View
• BBC – TECHNOLOGY View
• ARISE TV – ARISE AND SHINE MORNING SHOW View
• SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS View
• HUFFINGTON POST UK View
• WIRED View

• THE LEICA CAMERA BLOG View
• TECHCRUNCH View
• VENTUREBEAT View
• CNN View
• BUSINESS INSIDER View
• FINANCIAL TIMES View
• MARKET WATCH View

• MEDIUM
  • Pictures from a Revolution View
  • Photographing Genius View
• FLIPBOARD View
• POPULAR MECHANICS View
• KIRKUS REVIEWS View
• SF GATE View

• THE TIMES LEADER View
• FORTUNE MAGAZINE View
• TED IDEAS View
• CULT OF MAC View
• NZZ SWITZERLAND View
• COMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM View

• DART View
• WIRED View
• FINANCIAL TIMES View
• CNET View
• EL MUNDO View
• NY TIMES View

events

KEYNOTES & EXHIBITIONS

Doug Menuez is available to bring his Fearless Genius keynote presentation to your organization or community: learn more

FRANKLIN TEMPLETON ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Fearless Genius Keynote
November 1, 2018
San Francisco, CA

HG CONTEMPORARY GALLERY

Fearless Genius Exhibition
527 West 23rd Street NY, NY 10011
March 8, 2018 – April 3, 2018

ARKANSAS RESEARCH ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Fearless Genius Keynote
March 6, 2018
Little Rock, Arkansas

B&H PHOTO NY

Fearless Genius Talk
May 16, 2018
420 9th Ave, New York, NY 10001

STANFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Douglas Menuez Photography Collection Online Exhibit
July 25, 2018

THE LENSIC PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

An Evening With Doug Menuez & Fearless Genius
Host Ivy Ross
July 19, 2017
211 W San Francisco St, Santa Fe, NM 87501

PATINA GALLERY

Fearless Genius Exhibition
July 21 – September 8, 2017
131 W Palace Ave, Santa Fe, NM 87501

LEICA GALLERY LOS ANGELES

Fearless Genius: Next Generation Exhibition
September 6 – October 4, 2017
8783 Beverly Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90048

PRODUCT HUNT

Community Q&A Live Chat: Fearless Genius
Doug Menuez LIVE Chat on Product Hunt
December 8, 2015

WYOMING SEMINARY KIRBY CENTER

Fearless Genius Lecture
Wyoming, PA
December 1, 2015

SVA: THE BIG TALK

Panel on Photo Advocacy/Fearless Genius
SVA Theater
New York, NY
November 4, 2015

Storehouse

Talk and Book Signing
San Francisco, CA
June 10, 2015

Hexagon Conference

Keynote and Book Signing
Las Vegas, NV
June 1, 2015

Talk and Book Signing

McGarry Bowen Advertising
New York, NY
May 30, 2015

EG 9 Conference

Talk and Book Signing
Adobe Lightroom Mobile Presentation
Monterey, CA
May 10, 2015

ASMP

Talk and Book Signing
Business as Unusual
April 22, 2015

HTC

Talk and Book Signing
Seattle, WA
December 19, 2014

PDN PhotoPlus

Talk and Book Signing
Jacob Javits Center
655 W 34th St,
New York, NY 10001
October 30, 2014

American Society of Media Photographers

Talk and Book Signing
Jacob Javits Center
655 W 34th St,
New York, NY 10001
October 29, 2014

Mobile Photo Connect Conference

Talk and Book Signing
Fort Mason Center
2 Marina Blvd.
San Francisco, CA 94123
October 15 2014

Google Glass Team

Talk and Book Signing
1300 Charleston Rd
Mountain View CA 94043
October 14 2014

1AN Symposium at Art Silicon Valley

Talk and Book Signing
1346 Saratoga Dr,
San Mateo, CA 94403
October 11, 2014

Balderton Capital

Talk and Book Signing
20 Balderton St
London W1K 6TL
United Kingdom
September 22, 2014

Photoville NY

Talk and Book Signing
Brooklyn Bridge Park
333 Furman St,
Brooklyn, NY 11201
September 20, 2014

20×20 Live NYC

School of Visual Arts
333 West 23rd St
New York, NY 10011
September 17, 2014

MICRON TECHNOLOGY

Keynote & Book Signing
Computer History Museum
Mountain View, CA
August 19, 2014

Peter Fetterman Gallery

Lecture/Book signing/pop up
2525 Michigan Ave.,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
July 10, 2014

Computer History Museum
Exhibition opens w/Lecture & Book signing

1401 N Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA 94043
July 9, 2014

Balluun

Talk and Book Signing
950 Tower Lane, Suite 1788
Foster City, CA 94404
July 8, 2014

Harvard Business School Club NY

Lecture/Book signing
Former Apple CEO John Sculley joins Doug Menuez
Herrick, Feinstein LLP
2 Park Avenue, NY NY
June 5, 2014

EG 8 CONFERENCE

Doug Menuez, Photographer (EG8) on Vimeo
Speaker, Fearless Genius
Monterey, CA
May 3, 2014

TEDX BEACON STREET

Speaker, Fearless Genius
Fearless Genius–The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985-2000: Doug Menuez at TEDxBeaconStreet – YouTube
The Lincoln School
Brookline, MA
March 28, 2014

APPLE UNIVERSITY

Fearless Genius Lecture
Apple, Inc.
Cuptertino, CA
November 12, 2012

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FEARLESS GENIUS EXHIBITION

A traveling exhibition of Fearless Genius fine art prints has been traveling the world since 2012 to rave reviews and breaking attendance records:
Exhibitions — www.menuez.com

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PRAISE

“FEARLESS GENIUS is the most unique insight on Steve Jobs never previously revealed. Absolutely fascinating photos and narrative as Steve gave Doug permission to follow him around for 3 years at NeXT. The legend comes alive in this book!”

John Sculley, former CEO, Apple Computer

“A new collection by Doug Menuez (‘Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985-2000’) includes several images of Jobs at his best, when trying to rebuild his reputation with NeXT following his mid-eighties departure from Apple.”

Huffington Post

“Mr. Menuez approached his subject as a visual anthropologist, studying a tribe that was developing a new culture and language. It was a culture that worked nonstop.”

James Estrin, New York Times Lens Blog

“Doug Menuez has once again proven that his camera is in the hands of a grand master and one who witnesses brilliant light where others might only see the gloom of desperation.”

David Hume Kennerly, Presidential Photographer & Pulitzer Prize winner

“Doug’s images are extraordinary, deeply evocative of an unpicturesque virtual circus, as he has an artist’s ability to suggest the drama and passion beneath the office-park banality.”

Kurt Andersen, author & host Studio 360

“Doug Menuez spent 15 years in the middle of what many call the golden era of Silicon Valley. Between 1985 and 2000, he had unparalleled access to Steve Jobs, Steve Capps, and 70 other people and companies, including Adobe and NeXT. His amazing archive of images comprise one of the richest records of this seminal moment in American and technological history.”

Jakob Schiller, WIRED Magazine

“With subtlety and power, the pictures by Doug Menuez prove that a gifted eye can expose the drama that lies beneath the PR-smoothed surface of business.”

Owen Edwards, former editor Forbes ASAP, contributing editor, American Photographer

“These rare pictures reveal an insight into the daily lives of Steve Jobs and other leading innovators during the digital revolution in Silicon Valley in the 1980s that changed the world.”

The Daily Mail

“In image after image, (‘Fearless Genius’) captures the youthful enthusiasm and drive – and exhaustion – of a generation that would carry out this revolution.”

SF Gate

contact

 

CONTACT

JAMES HORNSTEIN

Law Office of James Hornstein

jimh@jimhlaw.com

310.322.7487‬