Forwards or Backwards

Topics › Computers and the Internet

Adobe A Timeline

Published · 24 min

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If you have opened a PDF, edited a photo or cut a video, you have probably used something Adobe made. But Adobe began with none of that. It began in December 1982, when two Xerox PARC researchers, John Warnock and Chuck Geschke, left to sell a way of describing a printed page. This video follows Adobe from that day to September 2026.

PostScript and the Apple LaserWriter (announced 23 January 1985) started desktop publishing. Then came the 1986 share listing, Illustrator (1987), the font war with Apple and Microsoft over TrueType (1989), and Photoshop, which began as Thomas Knoll's program Display and went on sale on 19 February 1990. Warnock's 1990 Camelot memo became Acrobat and the PDF (15 June 1993), which became an open ISO standard on 1 July 2008.

The Aldus merger (1994) brought PageMaker and After Effects. InDesign (1999) took on QuarkXPress after Quark tried to buy Adobe. Macromedia (about $3.4 billion, 2005) brought Flash, until Steve Jobs's 'Thoughts on Flash' (29 April 2010) and Flash's end on 31 December 2020.

Under Shantanu Narayen, CEO from 1 December 2007, Adobe stopped selling boxes: from May 2013, new features went only to Creative Cloud subscribers, despite a petition with 49,841 supporters. Revenue dipped, then climbed to $23.77 billion in fiscal 2025. Omniture, Magento and Marketo built a second business; the roughly $20 billion Figma deal was abandoned on 18 December 2023, with a $1 billion fee.

Then Firefly (March 2023), a US government lawsuit over cancellation fees (settled for $150 million in March 2026), and pressure from AI. On 3 September 2026 Adobe named Anil Chakravarthy to succeed Narayen on 1 December 2026. Its Q3 fiscal 2026 revenue was a record $6.76 billion, but its forecast fell short of analysts' estimates.

Forwards or backwards? The video sets out the case for each.

No figure appears without its date and source. There are no photographs in this video; illustrations show unnamed people, objects and places.

Educational documentary. Not financial or investment advice.

In these topics

Tags

  • adobe history
  • adobe timeline
  • history of adobe
  • john warnock
  • chuck geschke
  • postscript
  • laserwriter
  • desktop publishing
  • photoshop history
  • pdf history
  • acrobat
  • indesign vs quarkxpress
  • macromedia flash
  • thoughts on flash
  • creative cloud

Chapters

  1. The software everyone uses
  2. Two engineers leave Xerox, 1982
  3. PostScript and the LaserWriter, 1985
  4. Fonts, Illustrator and the flotation
  5. Photoshop, 1990
  6. Acrobat and the PDF, 1993
  7. Buying Aldus and beating Quark
  8. Macromedia and Flash, 2005
  9. From boxes to Creative Cloud
  10. Marketing clouds and the Figma failure
  11. Firefly and the AI threat
  12. A new CEO, 2026

More from Forwards or Backwards on YouTube

Sources and credits

Original narration, artwork, score and editing assembled locally for Forwards or Backwards. No third-party footage, music or imagery.

  • Narration: Kokoro-82M bf_emma, British English.
  • Imagery: generated locally, 12 environments, 12 matched states.
  • Score: original procedural pad, ducked under the narration.

Primary sources

  • John Warnock and Charles Geschke, 'Founding and Growing Adobe Systems, Inc.', IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 18 June 2019 - founding 2 Dec 1982, Adobe Creek, Interpress, Hambrecht & Quist $2.5M, Jobs's $5M offer, Apple $1.5M advance and $1M for 20%, Camelot memo August 1990, Marva Warnock.
  • Computer History Museum: 'Adobe Systems - The Founders Perspective' panel, 12 Nov 2002; 'Oral History of John Warnock', 26 Apr 2018; 'In Memoriam: John Warnock', David C. Brock, 22 Aug 2023; 'Adobe Photoshop Source Code', Len Shustek, 13 Feb 2013; 'PostScript: A Digital Printing Press', 1 Dec 2022; CHM Adobe corporate timeline.
  • Adobe Investor Relations FAQ (IPO 20 Aug 1986); Adobe history timeline PDF, July 2002 (revenue 1986-89, Premiere 1991).
  • Macworld, 'Four reasons the LaserWriter mattered', 27 Apr 2010 ($6,995); GeekWire, Paul Brainerd obituary, 19 Feb 2026 (PageMaker July 1985, 'desktop publishing').
  • Greg Hitchcock, 'Thirty Years of TrueType Fonts', LinkedIn, 19 Sep 2019 - Seybold, 19 Sep 1989, Warnock's reaction.
  • Adobe Blog: 'Dreams from the Digital Darkroom', 18 Feb 2015 (Photoshop 19 Feb 1990); 'Evolution of the Digital Document', 14 Jun 2018 (Acrobat 15 Jun 1993, New York); 'Flash & the Future of Interactive Content', 25 Jul 2017; 'Remembering Chuck Geschke', 19 Apr 2021.
  • John Warnock, 'The Camelot Project' (memo, 1990), PDF Association copy via the Internet Archive.
  • Knowledge at Wharton, 'Adobe Acrobat at 20', 5 Jun 2013 (Reader $35-50 a seat, free from Acrobat 2.0, autumn 1994).
  • ISO 32000-1:2008 (first edition 2008-07-01); ISO 32000-2:2017.
  • Seattle Times, 'A Friendly Merger -- Aldus And Adobe', 18 Apr 1994; Adobe Form 10-K fiscal 1994 (completed 31 Aug 1994); Adobe 10-Ks fiscal 1995 and 1996 (Mountain View to San Jose).
  • The Register, 'Adobe spurns Quark love-tryst', 26 Aug 1998; Tech Monitor, 'Adobe Ships InDesign', 1 Sep 1999; Printing Impressions, Mark Michelson, 12 Jul 2017; Adobe 10-K fiscal 2003 (Creative Suite).
  • Adobe press release, 18 Apr 2005 (Macromedia, ~$3.4bn, 1.38 shares); Adobe 10-K fiscal 2005 (completed 3 Dec 2005).
  • Steve Jobs, 'Thoughts on Flash', apple.com, 29 Apr 2010 (Wayback Machine, 1 May 2010; MacRumors and ABC News, 29 Apr 2010); VentureBeat, 9 Nov 2011; Adobe Flash Player end-of-life page.
  • Adobe Form 8-K, 9 Nov 2007 (Narayen CEO from 1 Dec 2007; joined Jan 1998).
  • Adobe 10-K fiscal 2013 (Creative Cloud May 2012; May 2013 announcement); Engadget, May 2012 ($49.99); DPReview, 6 May 2013; Change.org petition (49,841, closed); Computerworld, 10 May 2013.
  • Adobe Form 10-Ks, fiscal 1995-2025 (revenue series); FY2025 10-K (31,360 employees; Digital Experience $5.864bn, 25%).
  • Omniture 8-K exhibit, 15 Sep 2009; Adobe 10-K fiscal 2018 (Magento $1.64bn, Marketo $4.74bn); Adobe 8-K, 20 Sep 2018; Adobe Q3 FY2026 10-Q (Semrush $1.87bn, completed 28 Apr 2026).
  • Adobe and Figma joint press release (8-K exhibit), 18 Dec 2023; Adobe 10-K fiscal 2023 ($1bn termination fee paid 20 Dec 2023).
  • Adobe newsroom: Warnock obituary, 20 Aug 2023; Firefly, 21 Mar 2023, 13 Sep 2023, 24 Apr 2025.
  • US Department of Justice, complaint, 17 Jun 2024; settlement release, 13 Mar 2026 ($150M; U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian).
  • Adobe newsroom, 12 Mar 2026 (Narayen to step down); SiliconANGLE, 12 Mar 2026 (shares -7% late trading); Adobe newsroom and 8-K, 3 Sep 2026 (Chakravarthy); 24/7 Wall St, 4 Sep 2026 (shares -7%).
  • Adobe Q3 FY2026 results (8-K exhibit 99.1), 10 Sep 2026; Motley Fool earnings-call transcript and report, 11 Sep 2026; Yahoo Finance, 4 and 11 Sep 2026.
  • NOT USED: share-price levels (secondary sources disagree), Firefly ARR in dollars (not disclosed), InDesign market-share percentages, the Merriam-Webster date of entry.

Figures were not re-pulled within 48 hours of export; re-verify before publication if the film is held.

Not regulated financial advice.