Steve Jobs was nearly bankrupt — down to his last $150 million, burning $50 million a year, with every product failing and every investor gone.
Award-winning journalist Geoffrey Cain, author of Steve Jobs in Exile: The Untold Story of NeXT and the Remaking of a Technology Visionary, joins Aidan McCullen to tell the story the official Jobs narrative leaves out: the dozen years between his firing from Apple in 1985 and his triumphant return. Drawing on unbroadcast NeXT footage, new interviews and internal documents, Cain reveals the failures, the revenge and the near-misses that forged the leader who saved Apple.
In this conversation, Geoffrey reveals:
- Why Steve Jobs was three years from bankruptcy in the early 1990s
- The "low-level employees" lie that made Apple sue its own co-founder
- Why the lawsuit backfired and handed Jobs exactly what he wanted
- How a Bill Gates talk about CD-ROMs accidentally named NeXT
- Why revenge on John Sculley — not changing the world — drove the founding of NeXT
- The "hero–shithead rollercoaster" every NeXT executive insisted Cain had to understand
- The "deep shit list" Jobs ran the company on — and the mindset shift that replaced it
- How George Lucas's divorce handed Jobs Pixar at a fire-sale price
- Why Ross Perot bet $20 million on a company with no product
- "Steve on a Stick" — the celebrity sales act that kept NeXT alive
Chapters:
00:00 Failures Before Fame
01:03 Sponsor Message
01:36 NeXT Years Overview
02:50 Meet Geoffrey Cain
06:46 Survivorship Bias Lens
08:59 Near Bankruptcy Stakes
11:50 Fired From Apple 1985
14:37 Summer In Exile
19:11 Rival Jean-Louis Gassée
22:22 Dan'l Lewin And Education
27:32 Revenge Fuels NeXT
30:52 Apple Sues Steve Jobs
34:37 Lawsuit Backfires
36:23 Naming NeXT
39:02 Betting Careers On Steve
42:08 Pixar Fire Sale Bet
45:28 Working With Steve
46:31 Hero Shithead Rollercoaster
49:11 NeXT Talent Hierarchy
53:14 Luxury Spending Spree
58:32 Ross Perot Big Check
01:02:04 Deep Shit List Management
01:08:28 Canon Optical Disk Gamble
01:13:38 Businessland Sales Fallout
01:17:22 Wrap Up And Sponsor
Find Geoffrey Cain at https://geoffreycain.net, on X at @Geoffrey_Cain and on LinkedIn (GCain).
This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Steve Jobs in Exile, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
About The Innovation Show: The Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Aidan McCullen hosts world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation, leadership, AI and the ideas shaping tomorrow.
About the Host: Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation, and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). Learn more at https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen
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