Careers · Founder path1985
After Apple
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You have been pushed out of the company you helped start. Your reputation has taken a public hit, but you still have experience, relationships, and a strong view of what computers should become.
- Starting again means risking another visible failure.
- Joining an established company offers resources but less control.
- Leaving the industry would protect what remains of your identity and capital.
What happened next
The detour became the return route.
Steve Jobs founded NeXT and developed Pixar. Apple later acquired NeXT, bringing Jobs back; NeXT’s software became foundational to Apple’s next operating-system era.
1985Departure from Apple
NeXTThe new company
1997Return to Apple
Jobs’s commencement address is a retrospective personal account. This case does not imply that being fired reliably produces a better career or that the path was inevitable.
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