jOBS movie

[themsaman]

Hello,

Did you watch jOBS film?
Well, there's something I didn't really understand: how could the Apple's management team stop Lisa project and force Steve out of the company while he's the founder, or co-founder but it wasn't the co-founder who did that, and so the owner? I mean how could such a thing happen to someone who is the leader and the owner?

I tried to figure this out. Maybe he wasn't the owner but he only had his deal of shares in the company just like other investors, and it was these investors who "fired" him! Still yet, I can't get it. He was a co-founder, so how was it possible?! To "fire" him, they first need to buy the copyright or something like that?

Weird question?

[Yarin]

Hello,

Did you watch jOBS film?
Well, there's something I didn't really understand: how could the Apple's management team stop Lisa project and force Steve out of the company while he's the founder, or co-founder but it wasn't the co-founder who did that, and so the owner? I mean how could such a thing happen to someone who is the leader and the owner?

I tried to figure this out. Maybe he wasn't the owner but he only had his deal of shares in the company just like other investors, and it was these investors who "fired" him! Still yet, I can't get it. He was a co-founder, so how was it possible?! To "fire" him, they first need to buy the copyright or something like that?

Weird question?

This may not answer your question, but you shouldn't put too much stock in the movie.

[Mario F.]

They didn't fire him. You are right in that they couldn't fire him. They relieved him of his duties after learning he was planning a 'coup'. He later resigned. Steve Jobs was never fired.

He was a tough person to be around at the time and his still insipid managerial skills (which kept being revealed at NeXT Inc. and at Pixar) would often compromise the company financial objectives. It is only much later that Steve Jobs surfaces as a well formed business person. Personally I think he was always a man of vision, but rarely a man of good vision. The iPhone and IPad were the exceptions that lend him his present status, but they exist only at the end of his career. Almost like "boy! I finally got it".

Wozniack is understandably annoyed, because Jobs role at Apple was not that determining as the movie plays it out to be. The early successes of the company cannot be attributed to him, in almost any way. The company was young living during a technological boom. The business side would only take the lead of the tech divisions on almost any tech company in the world at the time. Apple was no exception. Jobs only became influential and decisive figure at Apple, after his return and only with the introduction of the iPhone product. Incidentally he could never avoid being a polarizing figure.