After his return to Apple CEO Steve Jobs wanted to fire the chief designer of the company Jonathan Ive shows an excerpt from the book Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader ("Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a reckless upstart visionary leader"), published by Fast Company.
When he returned to Apple in 1997, Jobs took the extraordinary straightening affairs of the corporation. With him in the company had a team of talented engineers from NeXT, and integration with Mac system NextStep already promised success, but does not guarantee it. Inside the prospects do not seem rosy: Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy, and it could save only by resorting to the most desperate measures.
Jobs had Apple to sell its stake in the company ARM (had it not been that, would not need to buy PA Semi in 2008) and to reduce all projects does not make money. So goodbye to the corporation Pocket PC Newton, which in total was invested billions of dollars. If Gil Amelio reduced the number of research projects from 350 to 50, the Jobs went even further and left only ten. Layoffs also occurred at an alarming rate. Could go into the elevator with Jobs and exit unemployed.
Under threat of dismissal at the time was also a grocery Apple designer Jonathan Ive. After returning to the company Jobs began to negotiate with the designer Hartmut Esslinger, founder of the studio Frog Design, with whom he collaborated in previous years. Jobs have not had to work with Ive who began his career at Apple in 1992. The founder of the company is considering the position of chief designer Richard Sapper and, the creator of IBM ThinkPad. The latter, however, has not expressed a desire to "work in a tiny company."
Once inspecting research department, Steve Jobs ran the drawings compact computer-piece designed by Jonathan Ive. The project he liked, and he decided to take up the implementation and to continue to cooperate with the designer. As you can guess, this prototype was released under the name iMac. He became the most well-selling computer of the time. For Apple began to return former glory, not fading today.
"You know Johnny. He's kind of a cherub - Jobs said in an interview with one of the authors of "The Formation of Steve Jobs" - I liked it. After the first meeting, I could tell that he [former Apple CEO Gil Amelio, approx. iPhoneBul is wasting his talent".
It is thanks to Jonathan Ive and his collaboration with Steve Jobs were born iconic products Apple: MacBook, iPod, iPhone and iPad. Later, Jonathan Ive has won countless awards, hit the Time 100 list and was knighted for his services to design and enterprise. After the death of Steve Jobs, Ive become one of the most important figures in Apple.