From the history of Apple: Steve Jobs in Apple or the journey there and back again

September 1985 and September 1997. Two significant milestones both in the life of Steve Jobs and in the history of Apple. While in 1985 Steve Jobs was forced to leave Apple under rather wild circumstances, 1997 was the year of his triumphant return. It is hard to imagine more different events.

The story of Jobs' departure in 1985 is now well known. After a losing battle on the board with John Sculley—the CEO at the time, whom Jobs had brought into the company from Pepsi a few years earlier—Jobs decided to leave Apple, or rather was forced to do so. The final and official departure took place exactly on September 16, 1985, and in addition to Jobs, a few other employees also left the company. Jobs subsequently founded his own company NeXT.

Unfortunately, NeXT never became as successful as Jobs had hoped, despite the undeniably high-quality products that came out of its workshop. However, it became a hugely important period in Jobs' life, allowing him to perfect his role as a CEO. During this period, Jobs also became a billionaire thanks to a shrewd investment in Pixar Animation Studios, originally a small and not very successful startup that was then part of the George Lucas empire.

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This is what NeXT Computer looked like in 1988. Back then it cost $6, nowadays it would cost $500 (about 14 thousand crowns).

Steve Jobs NeXT

Jobs NeXT Computer BI

Steve-Jobs-NEXT

Pixar Image Computer Cult of Mac

Apple's $400 million buyout of NeXT in December 1996 brought Jobs back to Cupertino. At the time, Apple was led by Gil Amelio, the CEO who oversaw Apple's worst financial quarter in history. When Amelio left, Jobs offered to help Apple find new leadership. He has taken on the role of CEO until someone suitable is found. Meanwhile, the operating system Jobs developed at NeXT laid the foundation for OS X, which Apple continues to build upon in the latest versions of macOS.

On September 16, 1997, Apple officially announced that Jobs had become its interim CEO. This was quickly shortened to iCEO, making Jobs' role the first "i" version, predating even the iMac G3. The future of Apple once again began to take shape in bright colors - and the rest is history.