Founder connections
- Ed CatmullAfterword authorCatmull is credited with the afterword in the US Portfolio 2026 edition. Cain wrote the main book. The catalog uses a UK edition whose contents were not inspected, so this link does not assert that the UK edition includes that afterword or that Catmull read the whole book.Source
Summary
Geoffrey Cain follows Steve Jobs through the twelve years between his 1985 departure from Apple and his return in 1997. The focus is NeXT: the company Jobs built while trying to make a new kind of computer and recover from a very public setback.
Cain draws on internal documents, new interviews, oral histories and previously unbroadcast footage of NeXT meetings. The account examines ambition, costly mistakes and changes in how Jobs worked with other people. It gives sustained attention to a period often treated as a short bridge between his two eras at Apple.
Why read it Our view
Read it to examine what a founder does after losing a company role and starting again. NeXT gives you a case for comparing ambition with limits in money, products and team work. Look for changes in behavior across the years, rather than assuming every setback was a necessary step toward later success.
Written about
- Steve JobsBiography subjectCain focuses on Jobs’s years building NeXT after his departure from Apple in 1985 and before his return in 1997.Source