As 2025 draws to a close, the Apple community mourns the loss of four remarkable individuals whose contributions shaped the company’s history and the broader technology landscape.
From revolutionary software engineering to visionary leadership and marketing genius, these pioneers left indelible marks that continue to influence how millions interact with technology today.
Remembering pioneers: Apple in memoriam 2025
Together, these four individuals embodied different facets of Apple’s identity: technical brilliance, organizational leadership, creative storytelling and purposeful innovation.
Legendary software engineer Bill Atkinson gave us the tools to create visually. Apple’s first CEO, Michael Scott, built the business foundation that sustained growth. Advertising maven Steve Hayden taught the world to see technology as liberating. And famed primatologist Jane Goodall reminded us that our technological power carries responsibility toward the natural world.
Their contributions will continue shaping Apple — and the millions who use its products — for generations to come.
Bill Atkinson: Architect of a graphical revolution
Photo: Cult of Mac
On June 5, 2025, the technology world lost one of its most brilliant minds. Bill Atkinson passed away at age 74 from pancreatic cancer at his home in Portola Valley, California. As Apple employee No. 51, recruited by Steve Jobs in 1978, Atkinson became the principal architect behind the graphical user interface that would revolutionize personal computing.
Atkinson’s technical innovations were nothing short of extraordinary. He created QuickDraw (with Andy Hertzfeld), the fundamental graphics system that powered both the Lisa and Macintosh computers, making their revolutionary interfaces possible.
Atkinson’s invention of MacPaint introduced tools that remain standard in image editing software today. They include the selection lasso, the paint bucket fill tool, and FatBits for pixel-level editing. He independently discovered the midpoint circle algorithm and developed the “marching ants” animation that designers worldwide still recognize when selecting an object.
Perhaps his most prescient creation was HyperCard, released in 1987, which he described as a “software erector set.” This hypermedia system predated the World Wide Web and put programming power into non-coders’ hands, influencing the development of the internet itself.
After leaving Apple in 1990 to co-found software and electronics company General Magic, Atkinson later pursued a second career as an acclaimed nature photographer. However, his legacy in computing remained profound. As colleague Greg Stikeleather reflected, Atkinson’s “ripple of creative contributions likely have impacted billions of people.”
Michael ‘Scotty’ Scott: Apple’s first CEO
Michael “Scotty” Scott died on April 12, 2025, at age 80. Persuaded by investor Mike Markkula to take the helm in February 1977, Scott provided the operational discipline necessary to transform Apple from a garage startup into a legitimate business. (Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were considered too inexperienced for executive leadership at the time.)
Scott’s tenure from 1977 to 1981 coincided with the Apple II’s rise to dominance in the personal computer market. He instituted proper accounting procedures, established manufacturing processes, and created the organizational infrastructure that allowed Apple to scale rapidly. His declaration in 1979 that there would be no typewriters at Apple symbolized his commitment to the company living its own technological vision.
However, Scott’s management style was notably authoritarian. That culminated in the infamous “Black Wednesday” of February 25, 1981, when he personally fired 40 employees — including half the Apple II team — believing them redundant. Later that day, he assembled the remaining employees with a keg of beer and stated he would “fire people until it’s fun again.”
This event led to his transition to vice chairman shortly thereafter. He officially left Apple in July 1981. After Apple, Scott became an expert on colored gemstones, even having a mineral — scottyite — named in his honor.
Steve Hayden: The voice behind Apple’s most iconic moments
Advertising legend Steve Hayden died on August 27, 2025, at age 78 in Patchogue, New York. As the creative force behind two of Apple’s most celebrated marketing campaigns, Hayden helped define not just how Apple communicated with the world, but how technology companies could tell emotionally resonant stories.
Hayden’s masterwork was the legendary “1984” commercial that introduced the Macintosh. Working with director Ridley Scott and art director Lee Clow at Chiat/Day, Hayden crafted the script that depicted a female runner smashing the onscreen image of Big Brother. (He used quotations from Mussolini, Mao, Hitler and Goebbels for the dictator’s rant.)
Aired only once, during Super Bowl XVIII, the ad became a cultural phenomenon. It won a Clio Award and the Grand Prix at Cannes. And Advertising Age named it the greatest television commercial of all time in 1995.
Later, Hayden contributed to Apple’s “Think Different” campaign, helping cement the company’s identity as a champion of creative rebels and innovators.
His collaborator Lee Clow remembered Hayden as having “a very cerebral imagination.”
“The words he wrote for ‘1984’ sound like they came out of the [George Orwell] novel,” Clow said.
In his final years, Hayden reflected thoughtfully on the ad’s premise that access to information would prevent people from becoming drones. He expressed concern that the opposite had occurred during the internet age.
Jane Goodall: Bridging Apple’s vision with environmental action
Image: Apple TV
The world lost Jane Goodall on October 1, 2025, at age 91, when she died of natural causes while on a speaking tour in California. Though primarily renowned as a primatologist and conservationist, Goodall’s relationship with Apple represented the company’s commitment to environmental stewardship and education.
Goodall appeared in Apple’s iconic 1998 “Think Different” campaign alongside other visionaries that Steve Jobs admired. (Apple donated computers to her designated charities rather than offering cash compensation.)
Her connection to Apple deepened through the Emmy Award-winning Apple TV series Jane, which ran for three seasons through April 2025. The educational children’s series, inspired by her conservation work, featured Goodall making a special appearance in its final season. She encouraged young people to embrace “their curiosity, compassion and determination to make a difference for our planet.”
In a poignant final collaboration announced just weeks after her death, Goodall’s voice narrates Apple’s “Great Ideas Start on Mac” campaign. The minute-long advertisement celebrates creativity beginning “from nothing.” Goodall notes that every story, invention and idea “all began as nothing. Just a flicker on a screen.”
Goodall’s narration provided one last gift to a company that shared her belief in human potential to create positive change.
David Snow, an expert on Apple hardware and software, writes on a variety of technological and cultural topics for Cult of Mac. They include Apple news, technology buying guides, and features about computer setups and Apple TV shows and movies.
With 30 years of experience covering technology and other subjects, he has written and edited for numerous print and online publications, including CMP Media, TechTV.com, CNET, Wired News, Red Herring magazine, Law.com, The National Law Journal and Law Technology News magazine. Among other roles, he served as executive editor of the Law.com network of websites and editorial director, technology, for ALM Media.
Snow graduated with a B.A. from Syracuse University with majors in magazine journalism and psychology. While there, he worked as a reporter for The Daily Orange newspaper and associate editor of Equal Time magazine.
Founder of the blog At the Waterline, he can be reached on X (formerly Twitter) via @atthewaterline and on Mastodon via @dsnow.
