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He was fired because he gave up control of his company and for no other reason. Founders don't get fired because employees find them unbearable or sabotaging. T

He was fired because he gave up control of his company and for no other reason. Founders don't get fired because employees find them unbearable or sabotaging. Those employees get fired or quit...unless the founder gives up control and then loses an internal political fight. The sentiment among most early employees was that Steve Jobs was like a good coach: you hated him at the time but look back proudly at what he pushed you to accomplish. There was no Apple Computers at all without Steve Jobs, and definitely no commercial product like the Apple II. Wozniak had no independent ambition to create a company whatsoever. Wozniak played a vital role but primarily as a perfect catalyst for Jobs. The Macintosh saved Apple and the foolish "young Steve Jobs" is the only reason it was a great enough product to do that. Jobs did not even have control over pricing or sales of the Macintosh, and so blaming his flawed "business strategy" makes no sense. The people that fired him lived off his work for a decade, and did none of their own work at all. Yes, Jobs had some growing up to do, and firing him probably did help him do that, but the idea that he was a fool that became great is a total myth. He was always great, as can be seen from the work he did.

ghostcluster 9y ago
> He was fired because he gave up control of his company and for no other reason. That's not true. The Macintosh in its early years was severely underpowered and expensive, and the Apple II hardware was driving the revenue of the company. Jobs wanted to shift all the marketing spend onto the Macintosh as well as drop the price to below cost, and caused a crisis with the board of diretors who ended up firing him. Jobs had the same problem with overambitious hardware at NeXT. They couldn't even sell enough NexT machines to universities and the enterprise because they were still expensive to produce and underpowered, and had to stop making hardware and lay people off. Moore's Law didn't catch up with the vision until the mid 90s, and luckily he and NexT's operating system were brought back into the fold at Apple then.
- drieddust 9y ago
  > Moore's Law didn't catch up with the vision until the mid 90s, and luckily he and NexT's operating system were brought back into the fold at Apple then. This is exactly what people don't understand. Jobs had a dream computer and he was adamant on making it. First time he got fired because of it. Second time he became immensely successful because of the same dream. This is case of perfect hindsight. It's easy to think he was great because second time around he became crazy successful. Nobody is willing to admit that he was repeating the same strategy and failing at it until luck worked in his favour. His rehiring at Apple when NextStep was failing. And then at Apple he got John Ive and team. And finally evolution of technologies like powerful and efficient processors, touch screens, high density storage etc allowed that dream to be realized finally.
  - srtjstjsj 9y ago
    He and his company was the first one to bring many great things to the mass market, because he was constantly pushing ahead of his time. NextStep was most of the core of Mac OS X. without NextStep, Mac OS X and the hardware that ran it would have flopped
    - ghostcluster 9y ago
      Apple could have bought BeOS, or used their Linux distribution as a base for the next Mac OS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MkLinux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MkLinux
alexbeloi 9y ago
>He was fired because he gave up control of his company and for no other reason. Gave up control or lost control? >Founders don't get fired because employees find them unbearable or sabotaging. Those employees get fired or quit...unless the founder gives up control and then loses an internal political fight. see Kalanick, founders don't get fired because of employees, they get fired because of they can't keep their board loyal to them. This was the case with Steve Jobs as well. Jobs' return to Apple in 1997, he made sure that 4 new board members were appointed[0], which you can be sure were loyal to him first and foremost. He lost control of his company the first time around, learned from his mistakes and corrected. There is no need to glorify his early mistakes, they don't diminish his accomplishments. [0] http://money.cnn.com/1997/08/06/technology/apple/ http://money.cnn.com/1997/08/06/technology/apple/
serge2k 9y ago
> Founders don't get fired because employees find them unbearable or sabotaging yeah, but he also fucked up the business. He was a terrible person and a lousy leader. A "good coach" gets the most out of the team and leads them. Steve was coach who yelled and screamed and browbeat them to a losing season. It's worth noting that he wasn't fired. He was moved into positions with less and less power until he finally quit.

ghostcluster 9y ago

> He was fired because he gave up control of his company and for no other reason. That's not true. The Macintosh in its early years was severely underpowered and expensive, and the Apple II hardware was driving the revenue of the company. Jobs wanted to shift all the marketing spend onto the Macintosh as well as drop the price to below cost, and caused a crisis with the board of diretors who ended up firing him. Jobs had the same problem with overambitious hardware at NeXT. They couldn't even sell enough NexT machines to universities and the enterprise because they were still expensive to produce and underpowered, and had to stop making hardware and lay people off. Moore's Law didn't catch up with the vision until the mid 90s, and luckily he and NexT's operating system were brought back into the fold at Apple then.

drieddust 9y ago
> Moore's Law didn't catch up with the vision until the mid 90s, and luckily he and NexT's operating system were brought back into the fold at Apple then. This is exactly what people don't understand. Jobs had a dream computer and he was adamant on making it. First time he got fired because of it. Second time he became immensely successful because of the same dream. This is case of perfect hindsight. It's easy to think he was great because second time around he became crazy successful. Nobody is willing to admit that he was repeating the same strategy and failing at it until luck worked in his favour. His rehiring at Apple when NextStep was failing. And then at Apple he got John Ive and team. And finally evolution of technologies like powerful and efficient processors, touch screens, high density storage etc allowed that dream to be realized finally.
- srtjstjsj 9y ago
  He and his company was the first one to bring many great things to the mass market, because he was constantly pushing ahead of his time. NextStep was most of the core of Mac OS X. without NextStep, Mac OS X and the hardware that ran it would have flopped
  - ghostcluster 9y ago
    Apple could have bought BeOS, or used their Linux distribution as a base for the next Mac OS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MkLinux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MkLinux

alexbeloi 9y ago

>He was fired because he gave up control of his company and for no other reason. Gave up control or lost control? >Founders don't get fired because employees find them unbearable or sabotaging. Those employees get fired or quit...unless the founder gives up control and then loses an internal political fight. see Kalanick, founders don't get fired because of employees, they get fired because of they can't keep their board loyal to them. This was the case with Steve Jobs as well. Jobs' return to Apple in 1997, he made sure that 4 new board members were appointed[0], which you can be sure were loyal to him first and foremost. He lost control of his company the first time around, learned from his mistakes and corrected. There is no need to glorify his early mistakes, they don't diminish his accomplishments. [0] http://money.cnn.com/1997/08/06/technology/apple/ http://money.cnn.com/1997/08/06/technology/apple/

serge2k 9y ago

> Founders don't get fired because employees find them unbearable or sabotaging yeah, but he also fucked up the business. He was a terrible person and a lousy leader. A "good coach" gets the most out of the team and leads them. Steve was coach who yelled and screamed and browbeat them to a losing season. It's worth noting that he wasn't fired. He was moved into positions with less and less power until he finally quit.