Geoffrey Cain

We might all be using Next Step, the operating system today.

I mean, literally, Steve would not have returned to Apple.

Apple would have probably gone out of business or maybe been acquired.

Apple would not be a player anymore.

And there would be all these computers and it might be like, you choose a Windows computer or you choose a Next Step computer.

That's not an exaggeration.

I spoke to a lot of people who were involved in these talks, and they said, yeah, that was where it was headed.

It was such a frustration to them because they saw Steve destroy it.

Steve, who is Mr. Rebellious, self-identifies as a hippie and doesn't like big corporations, he decided that, oh, by the way, I don't like IBM.

after they had like lined up this deal.

And so he just ditched a major meeting.

He was at the airport.

He went home.

He, you know, went into the office and like, he didn't show up to this major meeting and the IBM people said, okay, so what the heck is this?

We've signed a, you know,

tens of millions of dollars a deal to make Nextstep the operating system for so many IBM machines, and Steve just doesn't show up because he doesn't like it.

So it imploded, it never went through, and that was one of the major missed opportunities that Steve learned from, and Steve reflected on this later.

He said that he was overplaying his hand

he learned that you can't overplay your hand like that.

When you go up against a big corporation, you have to be ready to negotiate.