Abstract :
The last time I spoke to Steve Jobs, he was screaming at me over the phone, "I\´m not a failure! I\´m not a failure!" His shouts got so loud, I put him on speakerphone so that my editor could hear him. With Apple among the most valuable companies in the world because of its immensely popular products, the notion of Jobs as a failure seems ridiculous. But less than 20 years ago, in the mid-1990s, when Jobs was struggling to keep his forgettable NeXT computer company afloat, the idea of him failing- the possibility I\´d raised in The Wall Street Journal that spurred his furious phone call- terrified him.