Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson 399
would painfully discover, it was merely one facet of an extremely complex personality.”
After informing Gassée that Apple was buying NeXT, Amelio had what turned out to be an even more uncomfortable task: telling Bill Gates. “He went into orbit,” Amelio recalled. Gates found it ridiculous, but perhaps not surprising, that Jobs had pulled off this coup. “Do you really think Steve Jobs has anything there?” Gates asked Amelio. “I know his technology, it’s nothing but a warmed-over UNIX, and you’ll never be able to make it work on your machines.” Gates, like Jobs, had a way of working himself up, and he did so now: “Don’t you understand that Steve doesn’t know anything about technology? He’s just a super salesman. I can’t believe you’re making such a stupid decision. . . . He doesn’t know anything about engineering, and 99% of what he says and thinks is wrong. What the hell are you buying that garbage for?”
Years later, when I raised it with him, Gates did not recall being that upset. The purchase of NeXT, he argued, did not really give Apple a new operating system. “Amelio paid a lot for NeXT, and let’s be frank, the NeXT OS was never really used.” Instead the purchase ended up bringing in Avie Tevanian, who could help the existing Apple operating system evolve so that it eventually incorporated the kernel of the NeXT
technology. Gates knew that the deal was destined to bring Jobs back to power. “But that was a twist of fate,”
he said. “What they ended up buying was a guy who most people would not have predicted would be a great CEO, because he didn’t have much experience at it, but he was a brilliant guy with great design taste and great engineering taste. He suppressed his craziness enough to get himself appointed interim CEO.”
Despite what both Ellison and Gates believed, Jobs had deeply conflicted feelings about whether he
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson 400
wanted to return to an active role at Apple, at least while Amelio was there. A few days before the NeXT
purchase was due to be announced, Amelio asked Jobs to rejoin Apple full-time and take charge of operating system development. Jobs, however, kept deflecting Amelio’s request.
Finally, on the day that he was scheduled to make the big announcement, Amelio called Jobs in. He needed an answer. “Steve, do you just want to take your money and leave?” Amelio asked. “It’s okay if that’s what you want.” Jobs did not answer; he just stared. “Do you want to be on the payroll? An advisor?”
Again Jobs stayed silent. Amelio went out and grabbed Jobs’s lawyer, Larry Sonsini, and asked what he thought Jobs wanted. “Beats me,” Sonsini said. So Amelio went back behind closed doors with Jobs and gave it one more try. “Steve, what’s on your mind? What are you feeling? Please, I need a decision now.”
“I didn’t get any sleep last night,” Jobs replied.
“Why? What’s the problem?”
“I was thinking about all the things that need to be done and about the deal we’re making, and it’s all running together for me. I’m really tired now and not thinking clearly. I just don’t want to be asked any more questions.”
Amelio said that wasn’t possible. He needed to say something.
Finally Jobs answered, “Look, if you have to tell them something, just say advisor to the chairman.” And that is what Amelio did.
The announcement was made that evening—
December 20, 1996—in front of 250 cheering employees at Apple headquarters. Amelio did as Jobs had requested and described his new role as merely that of a part-time advisor. Instead of appearing from the wings of the stage, Jobs walked in from the rear of the
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson 401
auditorium and ambled down the aisle. Amelio had told the gathering that Jobs would be too tired to say anything, but by then he had been energized by the applause. “I’m very excited,” Jobs said. “I’m looking forward to get to reknow some old colleagues.” Louise Kehoe of the Financial Times came up to the stage afterward and asked Jobs, sounding almost accusatory, whether he was going to end up taking over Apple. “Oh no, Louise,” he said. “There are a lot of other things going on in my life now. I have a family. I am involved at Pixar. My time is limited, but I hope I can share some ideas.”
The next day Jobs drove to Pixar. He had fallen increasingly in love with the place, and he wanted to let the crew there know he was still going to be president and deeply involved. But the Pixar people were happy to see him go back to Apple part-time; a little less of Jobs’s focus would be a good thing. He was useful when there were big negotiations, but he could be dangerous when he had too much time on his hands.
When he arrived at Pixar that day, he went to Lasseter’s office and explained that even just being an advisor at Apple would take up a lot of his time. He said he wanted Lasseter’s blessing. “I keep thinking about all the time away from my family this will cause, and the time away from the other family at Pixar,” Jobs said. “But the only reason I want to do it is that the world will be a better place with Apple in it.”
Lasseter smiled gently. “You have my blessing,”
he said.
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson 402
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson 403
THE RESTORATION
The Loser Now Will Be Later to Win Amelio calling up Wozniak as Jobs hangs back, 1997
Hovering Backstage
“It’s rare that you see an artist in his thirties or forties able to really contribute something amazing,”
Jobs declared as he was about to turn thirty.
That held true for Jobs in his thirties, during the decade that began with his ouster from Apple in 1985.
But after turning forty in 1995, he flourished. Toy Story was released that year, and the following year Apple’s purchase of NeXT offered him reentry into the company he had founded. In returning to Apple, Jobs would show that even people over forty could be great innovators.
Having transformed personal computers in his twenties, he would now help to do the same for music players, the recording industry’s business model, mobile phones, apps, tablet computers, books, and journalism.
He had told Larry Ellison that his return strategy was to sell NeXT to Apple, get appointed to the board, and be there ready when CEO Gil Amelio stumbled.
Ellison may have been baffled when Jobs insisted that he was not motivated by money, but it was partly true.
He had neither Ellison’s conspicuous consumption needs nor Gates’s philanthropic impulses nor the competitive urge to see how high on the Forbes list he could get. Instead his ego needs and personal drives led him to seek fulfillment by creating a legacy that would awe people. A dual legacy, actually: building
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson 404
