Steve Jobs' Thoughts on Accepting Apple's CEO Position and More
Last week, Forbes published the full text of Steve Jobs' deposition to the Securities and Exchange Commission. While a number of stories have been circulating around the internet about Jobs' take on the stock options scandal, perhaps most interesting was Jobs' attitude and state of mind surrounding his return to Apple and the role of Apple CEO.
Back in 1996, after Apple announced that it would purchase NeXT, Steve Jobs returned to Apple as the "interim CEO" while a replacement was sought. Most casual observers felt that Jobs would certainly remain as CEO despite the interim title. Jobs finally dropped the interim title at the 2000 Macworld Expo. TechCrunch provides a good summary of quotes from the deposition about Steve Jobs' thought process during that time and that transitioning to Apple as full-time CEO was not as obvious a decision as one might have suspected:
Q: And did you take on the role then as CEO?
Jobs: Well, no, I did not. I was very concerned that Pixar was a newly public company with shareholders, employees, and I felt that - - to my knowledge there had never been a CEO of two public companies before. So I felt if I took the job, the Pixar shareholders and employees would think I was abandoning them.
Q. Mm-hmm
Jobs. And I decided I just - - that I couldn't do that. So I took the title of interim CEO and agreed to come back for 90 days to help recruit a full-time CEO.
Jobs, of course, was later unable to find a suitable candidate and eventually slid into the position himself.
Jobs also explains that the reason for the stock options was that he felt unappreciated by Apple's board despite the amount of work he put into the company during those years. Jobs, of course, was cleared of wrongdoing with respect to the stock option investigation.
Popular Stories
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X through iPhone 14 Pro have a...
Apple will finally deliver the Apple Watch Ultra 3 sometime this year, according to analyst Jeff Pu of GF Securities Hong Kong (via @jukanlosreve).
The analyst expects both the Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3 to arrive this year (likely alongside the new iPhone 17 lineup, if previous launches are anything to go by), according to his latest product roadmap shared with...
Alongside WWDC this week, Logitech announced notable new accessories for the iPad and Apple Vision Pro.
The Logitech Muse is a spatially-tracked stylus developed for use with the Apple Vision Pro. Introduced during the WWDC 2025 keynote address, Muse is intended to support the next generation of spatial computing workflows enabled by visionOS 26. The device incorporates six degrees of...
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why.
In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup.
If you skipped the iPhone...
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements.
While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way.
By the time the ...
Apple's Terminal app is getting a visual refresh in macOS Tahoe, and it's the first notable design update since the command-line tool debuted.
The updated Terminal will support 24-bit color and Powerline fonts, according to Apple's State of the Platforms presentation at WWDC25. The app will also adopt the new Liquid Glass aesthetic with redesigned themes that align with macOS 26's broader...
