In the late 1990s, I was a precocious Mac nerd who pored over issues of Macworld, stayed up late chatting on IRC, and downloaded pirated software that I didn’t actually need. I came of age at the tail end of the dial-up modem and BBS era—and got to witness the early days of the World Wide Web. I wanted to know where all of this had come from and how it had happened so quickly.
The grown-ups around me seemed mystified at best and indifferent at worst. So I turned to books. I read Fire in the Valley (1984), Where Wizards Stay Up Late (1996), Infinite Loop (1999), and Dealers of Lightning (1999). In my mind (and to a lesser degree, on my actual bookshelf), I had built a mental list of my favorite selections of late 20th-century tech journalism. Despite its 21st-century publication date, Geoffrey Cain’s latest book, Steve Jobs in Exile, would make a comfortable addition to my old list.
I already knew the basic beats of this story: the origins of Silicon Valley, the establishment of the ARPANet, the creation of Xerox PARC, the founding of Apple, its near-collapse, and Jobs leaving the company to launch NeXT. Cain reminds us, in stunning detail, that Jobs’ “exile” era at NeXT was not only critical to his evolution as a man and an entrepreneur, but that it mattered for the rest of us, too.
The technological innovations that came out of NeXT—notably, the NeXTSTEP OS—continue to live on in what we now call both macOS and iOS. As Cain puts it, “NeXTSTEP was Steve’s attempt to make Unix taste sweet.”
The Importance of NeXT's Innovations
The technological innovations that came out of NeXT were not limited to the NeXTSTEP OS. Cain highlights several key examples, including the company’s hiring of Adamation, a two-man Black-owned software development company, in 1989. Despite the project ultimately fizzling, Jobs protected Adamation’s reputation and continued to send them high-profile clients.
The Birth of the World Wide Web
While many tech nerds know that Tim Berners-Lee created the first World Wide Web server on a NeXT machine while working in Switzerland in 1990, few know that NeXT employees were wary of bringing the news to Jobs. They feared his wrath “and that he would dismiss [the web] as ‘shit.’”
A Voicemail that Changed Computer History Forever
One of the wildest anecdotes uncovered by Cain is how one voicemail changed computer history forever. In 1996, a mid-level NeXT product manager asked aloud, “Why don’t we just frickin’ call Apple?” He left what he described as “one of my more inspired sales pitches” on the head of software at Apple’s voicemail, explaining why Apple should be looking at NeXT instead of Be. This seemingly trivial event ultimately led to Jobs’ return to Apple.
Conclusion
Steve Jobs in Exile is a fine profile of Jobs’ years at NeXT, shedding light on a crucial period in his evolution as an entrepreneur and innovator. The book brings new tidbits, detailed texture, and three-dimensional characters to the fore in ways that haven’t been fully realized previously.
Source: Original article