India, April 2 -- Opening thoughts. There is something almost too neat about the founding story we are all very familiar with-a garage in Los Altos, hand-lettered partnership agreement, and the date that reads like a joke. April Fools' Day, 1976. Steve Jobs, 21. Steve Wozniak, 25. And 40-year-old Ronald Wayne-the reluctant elder who drew the original logo and sold his 10% stake soon after for $800. Three protagonists set in motion a series of events that undoubtedly still define the technology we use 50 years later.

Apple's way of working has always retained shades of how things began. Not in a flash of corporate strategy decided in a boardroom, no million-dollar funding to start off with, but an irrepressible enthusiasm of people who fo...