Inside 50 years of Apple with the only original employee still there

Syndication April 2, 2026

Inside 50 years of Apple with the only original employee still there

Apple has only had one person remain with the firm for its entire history. Still employee number 8, Chris Espinosa talks about staying there for half a century, and counting.

Smiling middleaged man with glasses and tousled hair outdoors, surrounded by trees with bright red and green autumn leaves in the background.

Chris Espinosa, Apple Employee #8 — image credit: Chris Espinosa

Chris Espinosa has had very many roles at Apple, ranging from System 7 marketing manager to his position today on the tvOS team. But he was hired by Steve Jobs to write programs for the Apple II computer in 1976 — when he was just 14.

“It was really, really fun, because that was the time when people were starting the entire industry from scratch,” Espinosa has now told The New York Times. “Whether computer stores or commercial software, he added, “all of these things had to be invented.”

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