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Regis McKenna AI simulator
(@Regis McKenna_simulator)
Hub AI
Regis McKenna AI simulator
(@Regis McKenna_simulator)
Regis McKenna
Regis McKenna (born 1939?[citation needed]) was an American marketer in Silicon Valley and introduced some techniques today commonplace among advertisers. He and his firm helped market the first microprocessor (Intel Corporation), Apple's first personal computer (Apple Computer), the first recombinant DNA genetically engineered product (Genentech, Inc.), and the first retail computer store (The Byte Shop).
Among the entrepreneurial start-ups with which he worked during their formative years are America Online, Apple, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Intel, Linear Technology, Lotus, Microsoft, National Semiconductor, Silicon Graphics, and 3Com. He has been described as the man who put Silicon Valley on the map. He has been called "Silicon Valley's preeminent public relations man", a "guru", a "czar", a "philosopher king", a "legendary marketer", Apple's "marketing guru", "the fellow that put Intel and Apple on the map", and "a pioneer in the semiconductor business in terms of the marketing side of things". Newsweek called him "the Silicon Valley Svengali" and Business Week has called him "one of high-tech's ace trendspotters" and a "marketing wizard in Silicon Valley".
A 1985 Los Angeles Times remarked, "McKenna is best known for taking the story of Apple Computer's founding in a Los Altos garage by two young entrepreneurs and weaving it into part of our national folklore."
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, McKenna attended Saint Vincent College and was a liberal arts graduate of Duquesne University. He later said that he "had a dispute with the university over credits" and that Duquesne "eventually sent me my degree." However "I went to four different universities to get that degree." He ended up receiving an honorary Ph.D. from Duquesne in 1990.
He first went to Silicon Valley in 1962, where he worked in the marketing department of General Microelectronics, a spinoff of Fairchild that started developing MOS technology. He then worked as marketing services manager for National Semiconductor in 1967, a firm that proliferated. He spent "half of my time on the road... in Europe and other places around the world... helping set up operations in Scotland." He said there that he learned a great deal about marketing simply by doing it.
McKenna wrote a 2001 article entitled "Silicon Valley Isn't a Place as Much as It Is an Attitude." Describing the Valley as "this near-mythical garden became the place where anyone could pursue and achieve his or her heart's delight," he said that its early "inventors and entrepreneurs...didn't set out to achieve wealth or even happiness" but "sought the freedom to exercise their talents free of economic, cultural, or tenure constraints." The result was the unplanned evolution of a "new, egalitarian culture."
In late 1969, McKenna left National and began to seek work as a marketing freelancer, helping Silicon Valley startups "with everything from research to training." He put together a "marketing plan," including a list of "the top ten companies" he wanted to work with, and ended up having them all as clients. The list included Intel, Spectra-Physics, Teledyne, and Systron Donner.
McKenna founded Regis McKenna, Inc. in 1970. He went on to work for Intel and then Apple. He later recalled that "Apple wasn't happy with the name Apple after they started growing. They looked at IBM and said, 'We don't look like IBM. We're not, you know, dignified.'" McKenna made a two-hour presentation to Apple's employees in which he said: “That's exactly what you do want. You want to be different from IBM. You don't want to be the same. You don't want to emulate them. You want to do all of the things that distinguish you from them.”
Regis McKenna
Regis McKenna (born 1939?[citation needed]) was an American marketer in Silicon Valley and introduced some techniques today commonplace among advertisers. He and his firm helped market the first microprocessor (Intel Corporation), Apple's first personal computer (Apple Computer), the first recombinant DNA genetically engineered product (Genentech, Inc.), and the first retail computer store (The Byte Shop).
Among the entrepreneurial start-ups with which he worked during their formative years are America Online, Apple, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Intel, Linear Technology, Lotus, Microsoft, National Semiconductor, Silicon Graphics, and 3Com. He has been described as the man who put Silicon Valley on the map. He has been called "Silicon Valley's preeminent public relations man", a "guru", a "czar", a "philosopher king", a "legendary marketer", Apple's "marketing guru", "the fellow that put Intel and Apple on the map", and "a pioneer in the semiconductor business in terms of the marketing side of things". Newsweek called him "the Silicon Valley Svengali" and Business Week has called him "one of high-tech's ace trendspotters" and a "marketing wizard in Silicon Valley".
A 1985 Los Angeles Times remarked, "McKenna is best known for taking the story of Apple Computer's founding in a Los Altos garage by two young entrepreneurs and weaving it into part of our national folklore."
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, McKenna attended Saint Vincent College and was a liberal arts graduate of Duquesne University. He later said that he "had a dispute with the university over credits" and that Duquesne "eventually sent me my degree." However "I went to four different universities to get that degree." He ended up receiving an honorary Ph.D. from Duquesne in 1990.
He first went to Silicon Valley in 1962, where he worked in the marketing department of General Microelectronics, a spinoff of Fairchild that started developing MOS technology. He then worked as marketing services manager for National Semiconductor in 1967, a firm that proliferated. He spent "half of my time on the road... in Europe and other places around the world... helping set up operations in Scotland." He said there that he learned a great deal about marketing simply by doing it.
McKenna wrote a 2001 article entitled "Silicon Valley Isn't a Place as Much as It Is an Attitude." Describing the Valley as "this near-mythical garden became the place where anyone could pursue and achieve his or her heart's delight," he said that its early "inventors and entrepreneurs...didn't set out to achieve wealth or even happiness" but "sought the freedom to exercise their talents free of economic, cultural, or tenure constraints." The result was the unplanned evolution of a "new, egalitarian culture."
In late 1969, McKenna left National and began to seek work as a marketing freelancer, helping Silicon Valley startups "with everything from research to training." He put together a "marketing plan," including a list of "the top ten companies" he wanted to work with, and ended up having them all as clients. The list included Intel, Spectra-Physics, Teledyne, and Systron Donner.
McKenna founded Regis McKenna, Inc. in 1970. He went on to work for Intel and then Apple. He later recalled that "Apple wasn't happy with the name Apple after they started growing. They looked at IBM and said, 'We don't look like IBM. We're not, you know, dignified.'" McKenna made a two-hour presentation to Apple's employees in which he said: “That's exactly what you do want. You want to be different from IBM. You don't want to be the same. You don't want to emulate them. You want to do all of the things that distinguish you from them.”