Comparing Jensen to Steve Jobs Is Stupid

The comparison between Nvidia removing Jensen Huang and Apple’s 1985 ouster of Steve Jobs is misleading, the writer argues. Jobs’s departure was not simply an injustice that delayed Apple’s success; it began a difficult period that changed him. Treating his return to Apple as proof that the company should never have let him go overlooks what happened in between - and assumes Apple would have prospered sooner if he had stayed.

At NeXT, Jobs carried over his pride and poor management, alienating co-founders, spending heavily on stubborn choices, and building an elegant workstation that attracted few buyers. The company nearly collapsed and laid off much of its staff, leaving Jobs publicly accountable for a venture organized around his leadership. The writer sees NeXT’s shift toward software as the turning point: Jobs became more collaborative, and the team kept the business alive long enough for Apple to acquire it. He returned to Apple as a changed leader, not the same person who had left. The argument is that this painful detour was essential to Jobs’s development and may have helped make Apple’s later success possible. The writer recommends Geoffrey Cain’s Steve Jobs in Exile for its account of this less-remembered chapter.