4 ms·
Apple was beleaguered before Steve came back. That's why he came back! They very nearly went out of business, you can't get much more beleaguered than that.
by jonknee 8y ago
Apple was beleaguered before Steve came back. That's why he came back! They very nearly went out of business, you can't get much more beleaguered than that.
- perl4ever 8y agoApple wasn't levered though. To this day, many people will tell you they were on the brink of bankruptcy. The "beleaguered" stuff was self-reinforcing judgement of their product line and its prospects. It is possible to be extremely biased against an entity that has real issues, just like a paranoid can have real enemies.
- rwc 8y agoYes, many people will tell you that, including Jobs: https://thenextweb.com/apple/2010/06/02/steve-jobs-90-days/ https://thenextweb.com/apple/2010/06/02/steve-jobs-90-days/
- perl4ever 8y agoI'm coming from the perspective of having read Apple's annual SEC filings back in the day and noted what a huge amount of cash they had stockpiled even in their doldrums. Apple would never have survived if they had not been run so conservatively, which speaks to the efforts of people other than Jobs and Gates. At the end of 1997 their 10-K says they had around $1.4B dollars in cash, and around $900M in long term debt. The 2000 10-K shows they had $4 billion in cash and short term investments compared to $300 million in long term debt.