COMDEX

...

this is, like, 30-something years, 30-ish years ago, I went to Comdex at the time, and it's this sea of nerd humanity.

My people.

And I had this, yeah, I had that moment where I'm looking at all these losers.

But it was a very successful show.

During those days, I was lucky to partner with Comdex.

Comdex was the largest technology show in the world for Latin America.

expocom and other tech shows and that's how i started my events journey fast forward i was able to build a pretty nice business with 45 50 trade shows and conferences on an annual basis i sold that business to read exhibitions which is one of the largest uh events player and i i was young and naive and i was thinking okay it's gonna be a three years earn out it was a 12 years joint venture uh but it was amazing um when we were able to build a very nice portfolio of events across the Americas.

And when I exit that deal, I was in my early 40s.

And that was nice.

But then I got hired away early on by a trade show company and came up with the name Comdex, the computer dealer's exposition that did better than the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas.

But now there really aren't trade shows so much,

just gatherings.

Gil Amelio looked at the Solaris thing and was like, "I ju- I think this is like the NT thing." Even though Ellen was like, "This is a better foundation," he's like, "I think these are both too much work," which is why, you know, they had been considering Be.

But we have left one contender, which is why I'm going to take you to Comdex in Las Vegas in November of 1996.

So it's November now.

A lotta time has passed, and they still haven't made a decision.

Jean-Louis Gassée must be going mental.

I mean, yeah, absolutely.

It is the final Comdex Apple would ever attend.

Ellen Hancock is there.

For commercials and such?

Yeah, a lot of corporate, but yeah, some commercials, a lot of live events, big live events, Comdex and things like that in Las Vegas.

And then I kind of ended up the career ladder at LinkedIn.

I was there for seven years as a writer-director, but I had all these different kind of parallels.

He didn't have much to say, apparently.

Did anybody ever, this is old, but there used to be a conference called Comdex.

I don't know if anybody is that old.

Comdex?

Comdex.

It was the biggest conference in the world.

200,000 people.

Kitchen remodels.

So they were going to go to this huge trade show in Las Vegas and unveil the floppy drive at the Apple booth.

I think it was probably Comdex, the predecessor of CES.

And so Woz went with one of his younger associates, and neither one of them had ever been to Las Vegas before.

And so they had a blast going around to the showcases and the casinos and the sights and the sounds.