The End of the First Apple Era in 1985

Tuesday, Oct. 3 2006 | Author: J. Angelo Racoma

Most of us Apple enthusiasts know about Steve Jobs’ return to Apple in 1996 and the drastic turnaround the company experienced when he got back onboard with executive powers as iCEO (”interim CEO”). It went from a struggling company on a decline to a hip, innovative company on the rise by the time the iMac was first released.

However, the specifics and incidents behind his leaving Apple in September of 1985 are all but fuzzy except to those who had been closely following his career (and perhaps reading up on his biographies, both authorized and otherwise).

LowEndMac has an article on How the First Apple Era Ended in 1985, which details the events leading up to Jobs’ eventual resignation as Chairman. The narrative goes back to the troubled Macintosh Office project and co-founder Steve “Woz” Wozniak’s leaving the company. It then progresses to the infighting and power struggle between Jobs and then CEO John Sculley and the loyalty wars that went on between the two factions, involving top company executives and the corporate Board. The narrative also has the skinny on the emotional encounters that went on between Jobs and other Apple personalities.

In Jobs’ own words, in his resignation letter which he himself gave a copy to the press,

… I had decided to start a new venture, and tendered my resignation as Chairman.

The board declined to accept my resignation and asked me to defer it for a week. I agreed to do so in light of the encouragement the Board offered with regard to the proposed new venture and the indications that Apple would invest in it. On Friday, after I told John Sculley who would be joining me, he confirmed Apple’s willingness to discuss areas of possible collaboration between Apple and my new venture.

Subsequently the Company appears to be adopting a hostile posture toward me and the new venture. Accordingly, I must insist upon the immediate acceptance of resignation. I would hope that in any statement it feels it must issue, the Company will make it clear the decision to resign as Chairman was mine.

Jobs attempted, unsuccessfully, to court the Board into supporting and possibly adopting a new venture he would be working on, the startup that would become NeXT. Apple shot down Jobs’ plans. However, Apple eventually decided to acquire NeXT–11 years after Jobs left! By this time, NeXT had created the platform destined to become the foundation of Mac OS X–one of the reasons behind Apple’s resurgence as a formidable force in the computing industry.

And the rest, as they say, is history.