Steve Jobs, who is now resuming, took over Apple 27 times earlier.

Steve Jobs (left), and Gil Amelio, his predecessor
Last updated 2 hours agoIn 1997, Steve Jobs was appointed Apple’s interim CEO five months after Apple acquired NeXT. This marked the beginning of the most successful comeback in American business history. Steve Jobs’ departure and return from Apple are as important to Apple history as anything else. Numerous books, two feature films, several documentaries, and many articles have been written about it. His exit and his return were both messy at times, but the events that took place helped to make possible the many Apple victories that followed. Steve Jobs cofounded Apple, but he never served as the CEO during his first stint at the company. Apple was led by a succession chief executives, beginning with Michael Scott and Mike Markkula. Jobs recruited John Sculley, formerly of PepsiCo, in 1983. Jobs and Sculley clashed soon, and Apple’s fortunes began to decline. Jobs was demoted after a failed coup in 1985, which led to his departure. Steve Jobs founded NeXT Computer, in 1988. Apple’s struggles continued through the early and mid-1990s. All of the promises made by IBM and other firms to improve Mac OS X, as well as partnerships with them, fell through. This wasn’t done to bring Steve Jobs back to Apple, but it did happen. Jobs returned to Apple with the NeXT deal as an “adviser” and reported directly to Gil Amelio, then-CEO. Amelio has a Ph.D. and worked as a researcher. He was the CEO of National Semiconductor for two years and served on Apple’s board before taking over as CEO in 1996. Amelio stated that the Apple/NeXT agreement was a complementary arrangement. The pieces fit together better than other alternatives we considered, and will launch a whole new round of technology. Jobs’ perspective on the return Later, Jobs shared a story during a Q&A session about his decision to come back. “I struggled to decide whether I should come back to Apple. I talked to a lot of people and got a lot of opinions,” Jobs said in 2001, as reported by Apple intern-turned-blogger Jonathan Berger. Jobs continued, “I was struggling with it late one night and called a friend at 2am.” “I asked,’should i come back or should i not?’ The friend said, “Steve, look.” I don’t care about Apple. Just decide what you want to do and hang up.” Jobs concluded, “It was at that moment I realized how much I cared about Apple.” Years later, it was speculated who this friend had been. Jobs revealed to Walter Isaacson, Jobs’ biographer, that Andy Grove was Intel. Jobs’ return to Apple was not a miraculous turnaround of the company in an instant. Apple was then hit by a series if bad events. Macworld in San Francisco, which was held shortly after the announcement about the NeXT purchase, was a complete disaster. A malfunctioning TelePrompter was a major problem, and Amelio forgot to introduce the guest of honour Muhammad Ali. Apple announced in February that it had its worst quarter to date, which led to the termination of 3,000 employees. Their redundancies also happened at the same time that various employees loyal to Jobs or from NeXT were promoted within the company. Amelio remained in charge, but it wasn’t easy for him. He faced an hostile takeover by Oracle’s Larry Ellison. Although it failed, someone sold off 1.5 million Apple shares. Later, it was revealed that Jobs had supported Ellison’s takeover and that he was the one who sold those shares. Amelio’s Exit Throughout this, Amelio had lost the confidence of the board. Apple Chairman Ed Woolard informed Amelio over the holiday of July 4, 1997 that he would be leaving as CEO. On July 9, 1997, he officially resigned. Amelio served as Apple’s CEO for exactly 500 days. He later published a memoir called On the Firing line: My 500 Days at Apple. Amelio was not the first Apple CEO to leave involuntarily, but he certainly wasn’t the last. Jobs was not named CEO immediately after his departure. He reportedly asked not to be considered for the top position at the time, and was even given the task of finding a permanent successor for Amelio. Jobs was in fact in charge and he was named interim CEO in September 1997. He held the interim title for more than two year before he was finally introduced as the permanent CEO in 2000 at Macworld Expo. Jobs returned to the company and rose quickly. He also acted ruthlessly where necessary. He cancelled products released during his exile such as the beloved but poor-selling Newton and the less-remembered Cyberdog applications suite. In August of that year, he announced a deal with Microsoft in which Bill Gates agreed to invest $150 millions in Apple. Jony Ive, who was then promoted to Senior Vice-President of Industrial Design, helped bring about an unprecedented period of innovation and success. The iMac was launched in 1998, followed by the iPod, Apple Store and iPhone in 2001, and the App Store and iPad in 2008. Apple was 90 days away from bankruptcy when Jobs returned. In a relatively short time, Apple was back to being highly profitable. Apple has continued to grow in value ever since. It continued to rise towards that point as Jobs remained CEO. He did this until he resigned for health reasons in August 2011. Tim Cook was named as his successor. Jobs died two months later on October 5, 2011 The legacy Steve Jobs’ second Apple run was not a complete success. MobileMe was a public disaster. It was the precursor to iCloud which is now much more successful. Financial issues, such as the bonus-backdating issue, were less well known. Apple was also questioned about its environmental record during Jobs’s tenure, and there were the Antennagate scandals. Jobs used some underhanded methods to get rid Amelio, and regain control over Apple. There’s no doubt that Jobs was the best person for Apple. Tim Cook has taken Apple to astronomical profits in recent years, but Apple would have likely gone out of business by the late 1990s without Jobs. His impact on Apple and technology, but also on business, is so profound that his work continues be influential. In 2022, President Biden awarded Jobs the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously for his work.