Vanity Fair is out with an excerpt from “Steve Jobs in Exile: The Untold Story of NeXT and the Remaking of an American Visionary” by Geoffrey Cain, to be published on May 19th.
Geoffrey Cain via Vanity Fair:
One by one, Apple’s six senior leaders in the room voiced their discontent with the quagmire. Four of them again sided with John [Sculley], while the other two stayed neutral. Then the board made its decision. Though directors had grievances with John’s leadership, their complaints weren’t serious enough to justify firing him at this point. And they still felt that Steve was too immature to be a viable alternative—just as many had warned Steve they would.
Steve flopped his head down on the table. Gone was his bravado. Gone were his typical color and confidence. Gone was his driving spirit. Apple’s visionary sat deflated before his board after being rejected for a second time.
“Well,” he said, voice trembling. “I guess I know where things stand.” Then he stood up and left the room. No one followed.
One week later, on May 31, 1985, Steve was formally exiled to his new role as head of a made-up unit… Steve was allowed to bring only his assistant and a security guard with him. Few coworkers called to check in. Corporate reports stopped flowing to his desk. “Steve was out in the cold everywhere at that point,” recalled Macintosh financial controller Susan Barnes who had previously reported to him. “It was amazing to see how ostracized he was in the Valley… It was really cruel.”
MacDailyNews Take: Steve Jobs had to be exiled from Apple in order to become the man who could save it.
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Steve had to meet Avie Tevanian a d discover Mach and Unix. Unix became Nextstep. Nextstep became the thing worth bringing Steve back into Apple. Nextstep’s roots live on in every Apple computer since including Macs IPhones IPads Watches and future products still to be released
Yep, the Apple SDK (Cocoa specifically) is so much like NeXTStep Developer. The “NS…” prefix still remains in the macOS APIs. I guess, why fix something that works…
It’s amazing how suffering/rejection/failure are always part of great stories of success reborn.
Job’s story is about as proverbial/archetypal as you can get.
Right now I am listening to David Pogue’s new book, “50 Years of Apple”. In the strange synchronicity of the universe, the meeting referenced in this article is exactly what I was up to and listened to yesterday.
I have been on the Apple ride since 1985 and still have my original 512K Fat Mac. (And it still works.). My MacStudio is my 82nd lifetime Mac.
Thank you Steve Jobs for all the empowerment.
To quote SJ “I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life’s gonna hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”
RIP SJ