What Happened When Steve Jobs Returned to Apple?

David Senra reads Michael Moritz, then Peter Thiel and Blake Masters, on Steve Jobs returning to Apple. Jobs founded Apple twice, and the second time he was alone. A founder had not come back after being pushed out and engineered a turnaround as complete as Apple's. Turnarounds are hard in any business, and doubly hard in a technology company.

In 1985 Apple's board effectively kicked Jobs out. The eccentricity had backfired: a college dropout who walked around barefoot, refused to shower, and could act charismatic or crazy. Hired as interim CEO in 1997, twelve years later, he arrived after credentialed executives had steered the company nearly to bankruptcy. He introduced the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, and the iPad in 2010, then resigned in 2011 because of poor health. Creating new value cannot be reduced to a formula and applied by professionals.

Jobs was an artist, preferred closed systems, and spent his time on great products. Bill Gates was a businessman, kept his products open, and wanted to run the world. Both were insiders and outsiders, and both pushed the companies they started further than anybody else would have. The return showed the irreplaceable value of a founder.