Geoffrey Cain

You know, Andy was one of the greats of Silicon Valley, and one of the reasons Steve failed at Next is just because he wouldn't do what Andy told him to do.

And so...

So there was finally a moment where Steve was sure that he didn't want to return to Apple because he did not want to be the person overseeing somebody else's disaster.

You got to remember that Apple was about a quarter, maybe two away from bankruptcy.

And here's Steve Jobs coming back and people wanted him to become CEO, but he did not want the job.

And it was Andy who was on a phone call with him.

And Andy said something funny.

He said, Steve, I don't give a shit about Apple.

And that caused a little light bulb to go off in Steve's head.

He recounted it and he said, wait a second.

So I just realized I do give a shit about Apple.

You know, that's my baby.

And so he decided that he was going to become the interim CEO.

So this is the first, you know, we have the iPhone, the iPod.

He was the I CEO.

And this is the first time that he used that I prefix on something.

It was about him.

He didn't want to become the full CEO yet because he wanted to have this test option on the job, see what he could do.

But once Steve was back in, his pull was magnetic and it was clear, you know, a mixture of his vision that he always had, but also the lessons he had learned during this period, this wilderness where he was really suffering.

He had learned to temper his instincts and to redirect them in the right direction.