What Did Steve Jobs Learn During His 12 Years Away From Apple?
In 1976, Steve Jobs founded Apple in a garage. Nine years later, he was ousted from the company he had founded. In the following 12 years, he almost disappeared from the public eye.
Most people thought it was just a short transition period. The new book "Steve Jobs in Exile", published in May 2026, tells us that the truth is far more cruel than the legend.
During those 12 years, Jobs founded NeXT Computer Inc. However, due to his insistence on perfectionism, anti - establishment stance, and pursuit of independence, he squandered the development opportunities and brought NeXT to the brink of bankruptcy.
But those 12 years were not in vain. The technological foundation of NeXT Computer Inc. later became the basis for macOS (Apple's computer operating system) and iOS (Apple's operating system for mobile phones and tablets).
Almost simultaneously, he acquired Pixar. There, he learned to "let go" and proved his unique vision over the course of nine years.
In September 2026, Notesman's PPE US site will visit Jobs' former residence again - the garage where Apple was born.
Almost everyone who comes here wants to see "where Apple started". But in this article, I'd like to talk about another thing: What exactly happened during the 12 years from Jobs' departure from Apple to his return? What inspiration does this hold for Chinese entrepreneurs?
I hope today's sharing will be helpful to you.
I. Three Tax Bills
I've named the tuition fees Jobs paid at NeXT Computer Inc. the "Values Tax".
What does it mean? Every founder with principles will face a moment: There is a sum of money, a cooperation opportunity, or a chance in front of you, but it goes against your beliefs. Do you take it or not?
If you don't take it, you're paying the tax, using business opportunities to pay for your values.
During his 12 - year tenure at NeXT Computer Inc., Jobs paid three large - scale tax bills.
The First: The Perfectionism Tax
NeXT's initial goal was clear: to build a high - performance computer priced at $3000 and sell it to universities and research institutions. In that era, there was a real demand for high - end workstations in the university market, so the direction was right.
Then Jobs started doing what he was best at: pursuing perfection.
He spent $100,000 to hire graphic design master Paul Rand to design a logo;
He bought office chairs worth $10,000 each; he hired architectural master I.M. Pei to design a floating staircase (which was the prototype of the glass staircase in Apple Stores later);
He even had the robot arms in the factory painted in the same gray color.
What was the result? The first NeXT Cube was several years late, with a starting price of $6500, and with additional configurations, it cost over $10,000.
The target customers were universities. Could universities afford a computer that cost $10,000? No, they couldn't.
He created a beautiful, technologically advanced product that almost no one could afford.
The Second: The Anti - Establishment Tax
NeXT had a benefactor in its early days: H. Ross Perot. Yes, the Texas billionaire who later ran for President of the United States. Perot invested in NeXT in the early days, and he had deep connections with the US government.
Perot helped NeXT set up a lifeline: selling computers to US intelligence agencies for image analysis of spy satellites. This was a real, budgeted, and almost certain large - scale order.
Jobs refused, citing that he didn't want to do business with the government.
The book records a detail. After Perot managed to arrange a crucial meeting, Jobs' response was: "I'm really busy today. I won't go."
With just one sentence, he wasted all the relationships the investor had built over several months.
The Third: The Independence Tax
IBM once had talks with NeXT about a cooperation. If the deal had been made, NeXT's operating system might have occupied the ecological niche in the personal computer market before Windows became dominant.
This was a window that could have changed the entire history of the PC. But Jobs was reluctant to be tied to IBM. He thought that cooperating with a large company would make NeXT lose its independence. He missed a crucial meeting between the two sides, and the cooperation subsequently fell apart.
The deal didn't go through, and Windows later dominated the PC market for nearly two decades.
Looking at the three tax bills together: Perfectionism made the product's pricing beyond the customers' affordability; anti - establishment cost the company the biggest order; the pursuit of independence made the most crucial strategic alliance fall through.
Each refusal made sense on its own. Jobs wasn't ignorant of business logic; he made a choice.
But when these three tax bills were combined, NeXT was crushed. The annual sales were at most a few hundred units, and the investors suffered combined losses of hundreds of millions of dollars. The company even stuffed thousands of computers into the distribution channels to fake sales data and cover up the bad situation.
NeXT failed completely as a hardware company, but Jobs got back into the game when Apple acquired NeXT for its technological foundation.
The "Values Tax" isn't always fatal, but it's definitely expensive.
At this point, fellow entrepreneurs might want to stop and think for a minute: Are you paying this tax? Are the opportunities you've refused a sign of strategic determination or just self - indulgence?
II. The Wrongful Winner
NeXT's hardware didn't sell well, and eventually, the hardware line was shut down. The investments from Perot, IBM, and Canon all went down the drain. By any business standard, this was a failed company.
But history played a huge joke.
From day one, NeXT adhered to a technological path that seemed stubborn at the time: Unix - based, object - oriented programming, and advanced network technology. Jobs invested a huge amount of resources in this path and developed the NeXTSTEP operating system and the Interface Builder development tool.
These products were almost unsellable at that time.
But 12 years later, Apple acquired NeXT for one reason only: Apple's classic Mac OS had aged to the point where it couldn't be maintained, and they needed a modern operating system foundation. NeXTSTEP was that foundation.
The Apple systems you use every day are based on NeXTSTEP.
In other words, the world's most valuable operating system, the foundation that supports the entire Apple ecosystem including the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, all originated from the products of a "failed company".
Also, in 1989, a software engineer named Tim Berners - Lee wrote the first prototype of the World Wide Web on a NeXT computer. The starting point of the human Internet was born on that unsellable black box.
Why was it NeXT? Because the development environment of the NeXTSTEP system was so good that it allowed developers to drag and drop components to build application interfaces, shortening the development cycle from months to weeks. Berners - Lee's choice of NeXT wasn't accidental; there was no other platform at that time that could enable him to turn his ideas into runnable code so quickly.
NeXT's Interface Builder lowered the threshold for software development, allowing more people to participate in building applications. This toolchain later directly evolved into Apple's developer ecosystem.
Someone summarized NeXT's legacy like this: NeXT's software, tools, talents, and work habits reappeared years later in the architecture of Mac OS X, the development process of the iPhone, and the operational machinery of Apple after its revival.
Failure doesn't disappear; it changes form. Sometimes it's a pressure chamber, and sometimes it's a seed bank.
Jobs chose the wrong product (high - end workstations) but the right technological path (Unix + object - oriented programming).
This is meaningful for every entrepreneur who has experienced failure. Is there anything in your last failed project that actually survived? For example, team capabilities, technological accumulation, industry knowledge, and customer relationships.
Most people review their failures by asking "what went wrong". Few people ask "what was actually done right but just hasn't paid off yet".
III. A Lesson on Letting Go
There's a hidden thread in this book that the author doesn't explicitly state, but it can be seen through a before - and - after comparison.
NeXT Computer Inc. and Pixar (Pixar Animation Studios) were two companies under the same owner during the same period. One failed, and the other succeeded.
What was the difference? It wasn't luck, nor was it the market. It was that Jobs managed these two companies in completely different ways.
NeXT failed because Jobs controlled everything: the product, design, pricing, partners, and even the color of the robot arms in the factory.
All five co - founders left, and no one wanted to work under him anymore.
Kane wrote in the book that former employees described NeXT's meetings as "outbursts of anger, ideas being dismissed as stupid, and senior colleagues being publicly humiliated".
At Pixar (Pixar Animation Studios), he let go. He left the creative work to John Lasseter and the management to Ed Catmull. Jobs managed the money, financing, and the distribution agreement with Disney, but he didn't interfere with the animation itself.
The result was that the company he controlled most tightly failed, while the company he let go of the most succeeded.
A founder's taste is real, but a founder's control freak tendency can also be fatal.
Jobs also changed after leaving NeXT and returning to Apple.
What does "a better version" mean? It doesn't mean he became gentler or less meticulous. It means he learned one thing: Choose the right people and let them make decisions.
After returning to Apple, Jobs chose Jonathan Ive to manage design, Tim Cook to manage the supply chain, and Phil Schiller to manage marketing. He set the direction, standards, and made the final decisions, but he no longer micromanaged every detail.
Twelve years of failure redefined his understanding of "control". Kane recorded a turning point in the book: When Jobs finally decided to stop the confrontation with Microsoft and convinced Bill Gates to help Apple survive, he understood one thing: "Righteous indignation can't feed you."
Are you making the most crucial decisions in your company, or are the people you trust making them? If the answer is "I'm making all of them", it may not be because you're highly capable; it may be because you haven't paid enough tuition fees.
IV. Things That Take a Decade to See
Jobs spent 12 years at NeXT.
Spending 12 years on an unprofitable project, what does it mean in the Chinese startup circle? Labels like "burning money", "failure", and "inability to cut losses" would flood the screen like a barrage.
Investors won't wait for you for 12 years. The media won't pay attention to a company that hasn't made a profit in 12 years. Peers won't respect a founder who hasn't had a successful case in 12 years.
But in Silicon Valley, this is understood differently because Silicon Valley values "time" differently.
Jobs bet on two long - term projects simultaneously.
He founded NeXT in 1985 and acquired Pixar for a low price of $10 million in 1986. Many people in Hollywood laughed at this deal at that time, thinking that a computer - animation company wasn't worth that much.
One week after the release of "Toy Story" in 1995, Pixar went public and became the largest IPO of that year, surpassing Netscape. On the day of the IPO, the value of Jobs' 80% stake in Pixar reached $1.2 billion, five times his earnings when Apple went public in 1980.
It took Pixar nine years to truly prove itself. It took NeXT 12 years, until it was acquired by Apple in 1997, to fulfill its historical mission.
Both projects operated on a "decade" scale. One succeeded, and the other didn't (or rather, succeeded in a different way). But neither was a short - term game.
Jobs' view of time was: It wasn't about choosing a long - term project; it was about not thinking in short - term terms at all. Fruit trees have their own growth rhythms, and technological paths have their own pay - off cycles. There's no use in being impatient. All you can do is choose the right direction, manage the process, and wait.
Jobs fell at the age of 30 and waited for 12 years.
What time scale are you using to evaluate your current situation? If you extend the scale from one year to five or ten years, will your judgment of yourself be completely different?