Amelio

"But Amelio deserves credit for three major actions—in hardware, finances, and software. The sale of the Fountain factory was the first. It gave Apple critically needed cash and would later spur a whole new strategy in how to build computers. Then Amelio and finance chief Fred Anderson orchestrated two deals to stave off bankruptcy: a week before Apple owed Japanese lenders $150 million, in April 1996, they got a six-month extension. Then in June, they raised $661 million in an oversubscribed bond sale. But Amelio will always be remembered for the third action. He realized that a multiyear effort to improve the Mac’s operating system was hopeless, and that Apple needed to acquire a new OS altogether. That insight set into motion the action that would get him sacked, even as it saved the company. He brought back Steve Jobs."

"Amelio declared that he needed a hundred days of reflection before he’d lay out his plan. That left an already-distressed company, which had recently cut 1,200 jobs, rudderless for fourteen weeks. The hundred days came and went without any brilliant ideas emerging from the CEO’s office. Amelio cut Apple’s dividend and took other actions to improve finances, but he failed to steer the company in a clear direction. Desperate for a plan, Amelio hosted what he called “coffee klatch” meetings on Fridays, to which he’d invite employees at random in the hopes that someone, somewhere, had an idea."

"When Apple came calling, Jobs entranced Amelio and Apple’s board in a private presentation. “It was just mind-blowing to watch,” recalls a participant. “The heads started to nod affirmatively. They were very much taken with what he had to say, and taken with him—as people were—with his persona. It was obvious the board was going to approve it.”"

"As the details were being worked out, a group of NeXT employees sat in a room together, chatting. They’d all worked with Steve, and they just didn’t understand what Amelio was thinking. None believed Jobs would ever be a number two. Not anywhere, probably, but certainly not at the company he cofounded as a twenty-one-year-old."