Apple Setback

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1. Did the setbacks at Apple drive innovation? Please explain
The enormous setback of Apple during the absent of Jobs played an important role for their innovation. During the Stanford commencement address, Steven Jobs himself stated that “getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened” to him. (JobsSteve) He got his second chance to start something over again from the beginning, away from the glorious chair of success.
After leaving Apple, Jobs started two astonishing companies: Pixar and NeXT. NeXT was the core of Apple’s takeoff when the company decided to acquire NeXT and bring Jobs back to his position. In detail, the software from NeXT (WebObjects) was a backbone of Apple online store and iTunes. (SchlenderBrent, "I just knew in my bones that this was going to be very important" (cover story) ) And, just like any other startups, NeXT had ups and downs over time, and Jobs learned lessons through mistakes. His business plan of selling beautiful personal computers turned out to be failure because of the cost. He had to downsize the company lying off most of staffs. NeXT also was a practice field for Jobs to examine his ideal corporation culture; corporation works like a body with differently specialized cells for each part. (SchlenderBrent, "I just knew in my bones that this was going to be very important" (cover story) ) His experiences in NeXT, as well as its products, helped him to improve his ability to take Apple to a new height.
The other company born during the period, Pixar was a place where Jobs’ totally different way of leadership encouraged creativity. Jobs provided a place where people can interact with each other. As a result, the Toy Story was able to be introduced to the world in 1995...

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...xactly Jobs wanted.
As practiced in NeXT, Jobs successfully turned Apple into like a body that moves as Jobs thinks and wants. As Jobs mentioned, Apple culture was similar to that of startup; they move fast and continuously move their direction quickly. (MerchantNilofer) Even though Apple was a huge corporation, it can act like a startup because of its special organizational structure. There are relatively few people in the company who make decisions; others follow the order. Also, everyone is specialized in their own field and there was no ‘general manager.’ (LASHINSKY, ADAM, and Doris Burke)
However, the Apple culture, which was created and managed by Steve Jobs himself, was also the main drawback for Apple. After the death of Steve Jobs, Apple lost the direction and it resulted in products that don’t make people excited. Tim Cook has different leadership style

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