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Steve Jobs in Exile
The Untold Story of Steve Jobs’s Wilderness Years—and the Creation of a Legend
n 1985, Steve Jobs—the brilliant, volatile founder of Apple Computer—walked out of his company’s headquarters, driven from the very corporation he had created. What happened next would transform not only his life and career, but the future of technology itself.
For twelve years, from 1985 to 1997, Jobs wandered the business wilderness with his new venture, NeXT. It was a period of spectacular failures, near-bankruptcy, and brutal humiliation. But out of this crucible of defeat emerged the visionary leader who would go on to create the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, transforming Apple into the most valuable company on earth.
Drawing on previously unpublished materials and new interviews with the key players, Geoffrey Cain reveals the untold story of Steve Jobs’s “lost decade”—the formative years that shaped the icon we thought we knew.
With unprecedented access to unbroadcast footage of Jobs in NeXT meetings, private company documents, and interviews with his closest colleagues, Cain offers the definitive account of how failure transformed a brash wunderkind into a true business genius.
This is the story of how Steve Jobs learned to lead, how he discovered the power of discipline, and how a spectacular failure became the foundation for one of the greatest comebacks in business history.
It is nothing less than the missing piece in the legend of Steve Jobs.
Coming May 19, 2026
Praise for
Steve Jobs in Exile
“Finally! A full biography of the most consequential years of Steve Jobs’s life. Too often seen as a detour, Cain portrays Steve’s twelve-year exile as formative, the time when he transformed from an impulsive, know-it-all brat to an introspective visionary who could trust and delegate. This will be a source of inspiration for latecomers and lost souls.”
—Patrick McGee
author of Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company
“Steve Jobs in Exile tells the story of America’s greatest visionary from humiliation to reinvention. Essential reading on the transformation of Apple, the evolution of the computer, and the fall and rise of Steve Jobs.”
—Chris Miller
author of Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology
“A remarkable fly-on-the-wall account of the wilderness years that taught a visionary monster empathy and humility. Geoffrey Cain’s inside story of how an outcast Steve Jobs engineered one of the great comebacks in business history is also a surprisingly human tale of self-reinvention.”
—Peter Robison
bestselling author of Flying Blind
“Steve Jobs in Exile is the definitive chronicle of NeXT, the transitional company that helped Steve Jobs cross the chasm from failed cofounder of Apple to its brilliant savior.”
—Steven Levy
author of Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything and Facebook: The Inside Story
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