How Steve Jobs became Steve Jobs

The Vergecast

Vox Media Podcast Network

News, Tech News, Technology

4.3 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2026

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Long before Steve Jobs was the unstoppable force of nature atop Apple, shipping hit product after hit product, he was practically run out of the company after a series of bad product and management decisions. But as Geoffrey Cain argues in his new book, Steve Jobs in Exile: The Untold Story of NeXT and the Remaking of an American Visionary, the 12 years Jobs spent outside of Apple turned him into the leader the world came to know. Cain joins the show to talk about Jobs' experiences at NeXT and Pixar, how Jobs learned to be a successful leader, and the true power — and danger — of the reality distortion field. Further reading: Steve Jobs in Exile Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed.We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11. (Timestamps are approximate.) 00:01:30 Intro 00:01:56 90 Seconds on The Verge 00:03:46 Interview with Geoffrey Cain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of web objects. I'm your friend David
0:06.6	Pierce, and today on the show we're talking about Steve Jobs, and specifically a new book about
0:11.8	the time between when Steve Jobs was essentially run out of Apple and the time he triumphantly
0:18.4	rejoined and took off in one of the great runs in tech history.
0:22.7	That middle period doesn't get talked a lot about, and it's pretty fascinating.
0:26.0	But first, here's a look at everything else happening on The Verge today.
0:29.1	It's 90 seconds on the Verge for Tuesday, June 9th, 2026.
0:32.5	It's the day after Apple's WWDC keynote, so of course we are deep in all of the OS27 developer betas.
0:39.3	But so far so good on these.
0:41.6	The liquid glass changes seem to be good insane design choices.
0:45.1	I love a good opacity slider.
0:47.1	And the fact that app corners now work on a Mac, huge win.
0:51.0	A few people are starting to get access to the new Siri AI and seem to be saying mostly
0:55.4	good things about it even just as a conversational tool, but we're still waiting for developers
1:00.4	to integrate with Siri and the new shortcuts and all of the other Apple Intelligence stuff
1:04.7	before this rolls out this fall.
1:07.3	Meanwhile, Verge contributor Lawrence Ulrich got a ride in the Rivian R2 and seemed to have a pretty good time. The R2, of course, is the cheaper, smaller EV from Rivian, and it seems to be just as peppy and fun to drive as you would want it to be. It's just not quite as, you know, powerful and sort of road-owning as the R1, but I think for a lot of people, that'll be a good thing. We got two great game announcements from this morning's Nintendo Direct. The first is The Legend
1:31.9	of Zelda, the Ocarina of Time, is getting a remake for the Nintendo Switch 2. As a Switch
1:36.6	two owner and an Ocarina of Time fan, this is huge news for me personally. Also, Kingdom
1:41.8	Hearts 4, the first Kingdom Hearts game since 2019, is
1:45.4	coming. We didn't get a release date, but we got a name, we got confirmation that it's real.
1:50.9	Huge day for Disney Goths everywhere. And finally, speaking of things with no release dates,
	...

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