Apple began as a two-man partnership in a garage. It grew rapidly and, by 1985, became a large publicly traded corporation with 60 million shares of stock and a total market value in excess of $1 billion. At that time, the firm's more visible cofounder, 30-year-old Steven Jobs, owned 7 million shares of Apple stock worth about $120 million.

Despite his stake in the company and his role in its founding and success, Jobs was forced to relinquish operating responsibilities in 1985 when Apple's financial performance turned sour, and he subsequently resigned altogether.

Of course, you can't keep a good entrepreneur down. Jobs went on to found Pixar Studios, the company that is responsible for the animation in the hit movies The Incredibles, Cars, and Ratatouille. And just to show that what goes around comes around, Apple found itself struggling for relevance in a “Wintel” world and decided to go the sequel route when it hired a new interim chief executive officer (CEO): Steven Jobs! With Jobs back on the job, Apple's fortunes improved considerably. In November 2001, Apple introduced its first iPod music player. By early 2007, sales passed 100 million units. Over the same period, the companion iTunes Store sold over 2.5 billion songs, 50 million TV shows, and 1.3 million movies. And in a long-anticipated move, Apple announced its entry into the mobile phone business with its new, and very cool, iPhone.

Understanding Jobs's journey from garage-based entrepreneur to corporate executive to ex-employee and, finally, to CEO takes us into issues involving the corporate form of organization, corporate goals, and corporate control, all of which we discuss in this chapter.

TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THE CHAPTER, WHEN YOU ARE FINISHED STUDYING IT, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A GOOD UNDERSTANDING OF:

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