Why Did Jony Ive Almost Quit Apple Before Steve Jobs Returned?

David Senra, reading Leander Kahney, says Jony Ive almost quit Apple before Steve Jobs returned. Only a few months after Ive was put in charge of the design group, he was thinking of leaving. Apple was not innovating. It had lost its identity and looked to the competition for leadership.

Before Ive could quit, John Rubenstein talked him out of it. Rubenstein was his new boss, just recruited as head of hardware, the same job he had held with Steve Jobs at NeXT. He gave Ive a raise and told him they would struggle through where the company was, then make history, and that design would be valued at Apple.

Ive was still ready to leave. He sat toward the back of the room, thinking about returning to England, while Jobs told the staff the products had no sex in them anymore. Jobs said the goal was not just to make money, but to make great products, and that decisions made from that philosophy were fundamentally different from the ones Apple had been making.