"Stevenote" is a colloquial term for the keynote speeches given by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs at events such as the Worldwide Developers Conference and previously the Macworld and Apple Expos. Jobs' vibrant speaking style and manner of exciting the crowd was legendary. Because most Apple product releases were first revealed to the public in these keynotes, 'Stevenotes' often caused substantial swings in Apple's stock price.

Jobs' final Stevenote was delivered on June 6, 2011 in which he announced iOS 5 and iCloud, as well as that Mac OS X Lion would be released in July on the Mac App Store for $29.99. He resigned as CEO of Apple on August 24, 2011 and died on October 5, 2011.

In late 1996, Apple purchased NeXT, and Steve Jobs returned to Apple after a 12-year hiatus following his forced resignation from the company in 1985. In mid-1997, he gave a keynote address in which he presented a detailed report on the company's status. The keynote featured an appearance by Microsoft CEO Bill Gates by satellite. Jobs announced a partnership with Microsoft comprising several key agreements that, according to Jobs, would benefit Apple and allow it to recover from its prolonged decline during the early and mid 1990s. Two major announcements were made during the keynote: first, that the next major release of Microsoft Office, Office 98, would be developed for the Macintosh, and second, that Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser would be the default browser on all Macintosh computers. Despite heckling from the audience, Jobs explained why the partnership was favourable to Apple:

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (/ˈdʒɒbz/; February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, designer and inventor. He is best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Through Apple, he was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields. Jobs also co-founded and served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, when Disney acquired Pixar.

In the late 1970s, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak engineered one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and, one year later, the Macintosh. During this period he also led efforts that would begin the desktop publishing revolution, notably through the introduction of the LaserWriter and the associated PageMaker software.

William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Washington) is an American business magnate, computer programmer and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive officer (CEO) and current chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third; in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the second wealthiest person. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder, with 6.4 percent of the common stock. He has also authored or co-authored several books.

Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts. In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.

Randall Stuart "Randy" Newman (born November 28, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter,arranger, composer, and pianist who is known for his mordant (and often satirical) pop songs and for film scores.

Newman often writes lyrics from the perspective of a character far removed from his own experiences, sometimes using the point of view of an unreliable narrator. For example, the 1972 song "Sail Away" is written as a slave trader's sales pitch to attract slaves, while the narrator of "Political Science" is a U.S. nationalist who complains of worldwide ingratitude toward America and proposes a brutally ironic final solution. One of his biggest hits, "Short People" was written from the perspective of "a lunatic" who hates short people. Since the 1980s, Newman has worked mostly as a film composer. His film scores include Ragtime, Awakenings, The Natural, Leatherheads, James and the Giant Peach, Meet the Parents, Cold Turkey, Seabiscuit and The Princess and the Frog. He has scored six Disney-Pixar films: Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Cars and most recently Toy Story 3.