Let's not be overly dramatic about that period. Apple was not days away from going bust. They were months away from filing bankruptcy. They were still a multi-billion dollar company even then. They just had very bad supply chain management. A bunch of old Macs sitting in warehouses not selling and too many people on payroll without any clear objectives. As Steve put it, "the ship was sinking and Gil (D'Amelio) was worried about which direction we were pointing."

The Apple board had hired a series of presidents who, in the short term, were good for the stock, but bad for the company strategically. The one good thing they did was hire a guy who didn't give a shit about any of that, tore up the old products and wanted a clean start. Thus, the iMac and iBook was born.

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stevefan1999 11 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

So that's Intel few years later too. Looks good on the book, looks bad on the bone

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pjmlp 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I bet if they had went the BeOS route instead, wouldn't be talking about Apple today.

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WillAdams 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah, I was just about bodily ejected from a BeOS demonstration when I asked how the slides were printed (at that time, BeOS did not have print drivers).

	▲	20 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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jazz9k 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's funny how many people Jobs had to fire during this period, but is still seen as a good guy to many in the tech community.

Not that different from when Musk took over Twitter.

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rbanffy 9 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Keep in mind Apple was dispersed across a multitude of confusing and overlapping products, from computers, to PDAs, cameras, scanners, printers, application software, servers, and so on.

Jobs simplified the lineup - two sets of laptops, two sets of desktops, one professional, one personal.

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blipvert an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I must have missed the bit where Steve Jobs was trying to create “legion” of his offspring, supported far-right parties in Europe and tried to foment civil war in the UK.

Guess I’ll have to buy the book

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helloplanets an hour ago | parent [-]

He isn't comparing Jobs to Musk in a general sense, but specifically the way Musk took over Twitter.

Not that I agree with the point. But I wouldn't assume the poster thinks Jobs and Musk are similar in a broad sense.

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rbanffy 15 minutes ago | parent [-]

They are from the same species.

	▲	helloplanets 5 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Essentially 99.9% similar.

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ipython 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It’s not the same at all. The only equivalence is firing people.

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PaulDavisThe1st 25 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I am no fan of Jobs, but ... his goal when he returned was to "right the ship" which is his mind translated into "create cool products". You might think that he & Apple succeeded at that, or you might not, but I don't think that you can dispute that this was the goal.

Musk had no similar goal for Twitter other than to turn it into a platform for his techno-fascist creed. The only complaints about Twitter that he wanted to act on were that too many people were mean to techno-fascists.

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an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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Foobar8568 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Another difference worth pointing, Jobs wasn't seen as a pedo or nazi. And we haven't seen him begging already convicted Epstein to go to his island to enjoy the wildest parties. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/02/28/elon-mu...

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elzbardico 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If Apple went bankrupt, Everyone would be without a job.

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Projectiboga 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Not it they simply went Chapter 11 and reorganized.

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shnock 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Is that how filing for bankruptcy works?

	▲	gangstead 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That's how chapter 11 type bankruptcy works. The business continues to run but the debtors are now the owners. There's also chapter 7 where the business shuts down and stripped for parts to pay the debts.
	▲	stevefan1999 9 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yeah, Trump went bankrupt 3 times, and he's still here