Digital Domain - What Apple’s Steve Jobs Learned in the Wilderness - NYTimes.com

A timely Steve Jobs reality check from Randall Stross

Suppose Mr. Jobs had not left in 1985. Suppose he had convinced the Apple board to oust his nemesis, John Sculley, then chief executive and president. Under Mr. Jobs’s uninterrupted direction, would Apple have arrived at the pinnacle it has reached today, but 12 years earlier?

It’s hard to see how anything like that would have transpired. The Steve Jobs who returned to Apple was a much more capable leader — precisely because he had been badly banged up. He had spent 12 tumultuous, painful years failing to find a way to make the new company profitable.

Digital Domain - What Apple’s Steve Jobs Learned in the Wilderness - NYTimes.com