It’s interesting to see the irony in life. You win, you lose. It’s like rain on your wedding day….

Steve Jobs was seeing a bit of resistance from Apple in 1985. By May, Steve was in an internal struggle for CEO against John Sculley. Ultimately, Apple agreed and Steve stepped down as CEO of the Apple Mac division. 4 months later, Steve decided to leave Apple to start NeXt – a new computer company.

The NeXt OS was released in 1989 and the NeXtstation and NeXtCube in 1990. Jobs built it into a decent powerhouse while Apple continued to struggle. Ultimately in 1997, NeXt was purchased by Apple for $429 million. They got not only the NeXtSTEP Operating System, but they also got Steve Jobs as a consultant.

However, this came to Steve Job’s advantage as in July 1997. CEO Gil Amelio was ousted and Steve Jobs took an interim CEO role. Then, on Sept 16th 1997, Steve Jobs took back his CEO position to which he still resides.

This really shows people not to burn a bridge. If it wasn’t for Jobs’ return, Apple might have taken a downward spiral. We might have even seen a “Microsoft Apple” system. iPod and iPhone would have been a NeXt product – Maybe.