A new book named Insanely Simple: The Obsessions that Drives Apple’s Success by Ken Segall is making the rounds currently, and within its pages is a revelation that makes me admire Apple’s former CEO even more than I did. According to the writer, Jobs had an incredible idea on how he and the company would celebrate selling the one millionth iMac.

To celebrate the success of the Mac lineup that virtually saved Apple from going under, Steve Jobs wanted to host a Willy Wonka style tour for one lucky customer who happened to by an iMac with a golden ticket inside the box.

“Steve’s idea was to do a Willy Wonka with it. Just as Wonka did in the movie, Steve wanted to put a golden certificate representing the millionth iMac inside the box of one iMac, and publicize that fact. Whoever opened the lucky iMac box would be refunded the purchase price and be flown to Cupertino, where he or she (and, presumably, the accompanying family) would be taken on a tour of the Apple campus.

Steve had already instructed his internal creative group to design a prototype golden certificate, which he shared with us. But the killer was that Steve wanted to go all out on this. He wanted to meet the lucky winner in full Willy Wonka garb. Yes, complete with top hat and tails.”

I don’t know about you, but, Roald Dahl is one of my all-time favorite authors, for both children’s and adult’s stories. The greatest character for me was always Willy Wonka. In some ways, Jobs always reminded me of him. His aim to create a product that was innovative and the best in the world is a passion that combines the fictional Wonka with Apple’s co-founder.

The only problem with this competition was that the Californian law system states that in order to have this competition, Apple had to give away the iMacs, and not ask people to pay for them. Needless to say, it didn’t go ahead. But, if it had, I can’t imagine how high Apple stocks would have jumped.

Via: MacRumors