Don't worry Oleg. Jobs got ousted from Apple at one point too...
NeXT was a commercial failure.
> They took on massive investment from a company most considered their largest enemy.
$150mm wasn't a very big investment for Microsoft. Just compare their market caps at the time for a sense of the different in scale between the companies: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apple%2C+microsoft+mark...
It also wasn't that much for Apple. Just five months earlier, they reported a $740mm quarterly loss, or 5x what Microsoft invested in them. The purpose of the investment was primarily to help bolster credibility in Apple as an ongoing concern. Microsoft's reason for doing this was to try and keep the DoJ at bay.
Pixar, however, was not.
I'm going to dissect what I was replying to:
Everyone loves the Steve Jobs example,
but remember that Apple was a few quarters
away from implosion, and he founded a second
company that was highly successful. They
took on massive investment from a company
most considered their largest enemy.
Apple was a few quarters away from implosion
Furthermore, NeXT was founded in 1985. Pixar was founded in 1986. So, even if you set aside what I wrote above, and just take an entirely literal view of the following:
he founded a second company that was highly successful
Here's mine. NeXT and its technology were acquired by Apple for $429m and 1.5 million Apple shares. This technology was was used in the creation of OSX. The acquisition brought Job's back to Apple and into the CEO chair where he lead the company on the path to becoming the most cash rich in the world.
#winning
Even without NeXT, Apple could well have brought back Jobs as CEO. I'd say that everything subsequent to Jobs returning to Apple was Jobs's success, not NeXT's.