“In late 1996, while serving as an outside adviser to Apple and their executive committee, I was called in to meet with then CEO Gil Amelio,” Tim Bajarin writes for Tech.pinions. “During this meeting, he asked me about the idea of acquiring NeXT and bringing Steve Jobs back to work with him as a consultant to this project. The idea was to use the NeXT OS core for the new Mac OS and build on this.”
“When Gil asked me this question, I was positive about the role NeXT could play since I had followed the NeXT OS developments from afar,” Bajarin writes. “I knew it was a highly sophisticated OS and was extremely scalable and told him that this made sense.”
“However, I was not sure if the idea of bringing Steve Jobs back to Apple was a good one. In fact, I told Gil that once Steve was in the door, he would strive for more influence and leadership roles and could never be just an outside consultant,” Bajarin writes. “But Amelio and their board felt the risk was worth it and, in hindsight, it goes down as one of the more brilliant moves by any board in business history.”
Tons more in the full article – with the highest recommendation – here.
MacDailyNews Take: After covering Apple professionally for 37 years, Bajarin’s perspective on how Apple achieved this trillion dollar milestone is invaluable.
