I think the true lesson to learn from the CEOs who weren’t Steve Jobs was that o...

phonon · 2024-08-16T18:55:35 1723834535

NeXt was not doing well financially, and neither was Pixar until Toy Story came out. He also did not run Pixar in any meaningful way.

simonh · 2024-08-16T21:50:34 1723845034

He was very engaged in the business side, and kept close contact on the creative side but knew to leave well alone.

Pixar is a great example of Jobs understanding what he should NOT be doing, and not doing it. That must take incredible discipline.

philistine · 2024-08-19T10:58:29 1724065109

Clearly you're not as keen business-wise as noted terrible CEO Gil Amelio, who correctly saw that NeXt being in the dumpster was a good thing, since they needed its software, not its revenues.

phonon · 2024-08-20T08:05:40 1724141140

I'm not sure I understand your point. Yes, likely if NeXT had been doing better financially Apple couldn't have afforded it. You can check NeXT's aborted S-1 here.[1] They had an accumulated deficit of $273 million as of a few month's earlier, were almost out of cash, and were losing money.

Apple's purchase price of $400 million was not exactly a bonanza to their investors...

[1]https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20...