A company that was, by its own returning founder's later account, roughly 90 days from bankruptcy
A decade of sprawling product lines, licensing missteps, and leadership churn left Apple with collapsing sales and, reportedly, weeks of cash. Its fiercest rival, Microsoft, injected $150 million in 1997 — partly to keep a competitor alive.
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This field is the reason the archive exists. A record of the win without the years it took is a highlight reel, and highlight reels are how people get hurt.
Radical focus: the product line cut to a two-by-two grid, then the iMac (1998). The turnaround that followed became the most valuable company in the world.
Near-death is not death, and the cure was subtraction: the comeback began by killing products, not adding them. Focus is a decision about what NOT to do.
Last verified 2026-08-01
This is a documented business record, not a judgement of a person. Being named here is not being accused of anything. Spot an error? Use Report an Error — corrections are logged, never silent.
The archive names 5 routes through work — employment, trade, ownership, investing, and combinations of them — and each one now documents at least one journey, with its failure and its cost on the page.
One figure per route is a beginning, not coverage: a sample of how a route can go, never a survey of how it goes. This section is derived from the archive on every build, so if a route ever loses its last figure, the missing list above returns on its own.
Same field, or the same route through work. Nothing here says they turned out alike.
