Geoffrey Cain — Steve Jobs in Exile: NeXT, Failure, Revenge and the Remaking of a Visionary
About this episode
Geoffrey Cain discusses the untold story of Steve Jobs during his time with NeXT, revealing the challenges and failures that shaped his return to Apple.
Steve Jobs was nearly bankrupt — down to his last $150 million, burning $50 million a year, with every product failing and every investor gone. Award-winning journalist Geoffrey Cain, author of Steve Jobs in Exile: The Untold Story of NeXT and the Remaking of a Technology Visionary, joins Aidan McCullen to tell the story the official Jobs narrative leaves out: the dozen years between his firing from Apple in 1985 and his triumphant return. Drawing on unbroadcast NeXT footage, new interviews and internal documents, Cain reveals the failures, the revenge and the near-misses that forged the leader who saved Apple. In this conversation, Geoffrey reveals: Why Steve Jobs was three years from bankruptcy in the early 1990s The "low-level employees" lie that made Apple sue its own co-founder Why the lawsuit backfired and handed Jobs exactly what he wanted How a Bill Gates talk about CD-ROMs accidentally named NeXT Why revenge on John Sculley — not changing the world — drove the founding of NeXT The "hero–shithead rollercoaster" every NeXT executive insisted Cain had to understand The "deep shit list" Jobs ran the company on — and the mindset shift that replaced it How George Lucas's…
People in this episode
Host: Aidan McCullen
Guest: Geoffrey Cain
Topics covered
- Steve Jobs
- NeXT
- technology history
- business failures
- entrepreneurship
- journalism
Keywords
- Steve Jobs
- NeXT
- Geoffrey Cain
- Apple
- business failures
- entrepreneurship
- technology visionary
- journalism
- Bill Gates
- Ross Perot
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Apple, NeXT, Pixar
Books & works: Steve Jobs in Exile: The Untold Story of NeXT and the Remaking of a Technology Visionary
More episodes of The Innovation Show
- AI Is Rewiring Organizations — McGrath, Osterwalder, Amla & Sheikh
- Eric Ries — How to Build an Incorruptible Organisation
- Bruce Vojak — Identifying, Developing and Managing Serial Innovators (Part 3 of 3)
- Bruce Vojak — Navigating the Politics of Breakthrough Innovation (Part 2 of 3)
- Bruce Vojak — The Hourglass Model of Breakthrough Innovation
- Bruce Vojak — Serial Innovators: The Hidden Power Inside Mature Firms (Part 1)
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Innovation Show podcast page.