Today in History: Steve Jobs returns to Apple
Jobs left the company much earlier to found a number of start-ups including Pixar and NeXT but his employees found that his heart wasn’t in either venture. After producing excellent products – the NeXTSTEP operating system was absolutely amazing for the time – Jobs felt restless.
Amelio purchased NeXT and NeXTSTEP in December 1996, essentially bringing Steve Jobs back into the company. The goal was to fold NeXTSTEP into the new Mac operating system. Apple’s board ousted Amelio on July 9 and on September 16, 1997, Steve Jobs took the post of interim CEO (iCEO) and took an axe to most of the Apple product line. A year later Apple launched the iMac, a computer that heralded Apple’s triumphant return to the industry and a million fanbois bloomed.
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that there are no second acts in American lives. Steve Jobs, it seems, proved that axiom to be patently false.
Image from Apple History.