Former Apple Ad Guru Becomes ‘Storyteller’ for Tech Founders

James Vincent helped Steve Jobs come up with some of Apple’s most memorable advertisements, from its Mac versus PC commercials to an iPod campaign featuring dancing silhouettes. 

More recently, Vincent has turned himself into a brand whisperer to some of the most prominent companies in tech and media, including Snap, Vice Media and Airbnb. His consulting firm, FNDR (pronounced “founder”), doesn’t do the nitty-gritty work of crafting ad campaigns, but instead provides high-level advice to companies that need help telling their stories both to employees and to the public. And even though many of his clients hail from the Bay Area, he has become a pointed critic of the industry, blasting it for groupthink and privacy violations.