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I think he meant had he not returned after leaving apple the first time.

Now it is, but look back at Apple's share prices in 2000 and what Apple was when Steve Jobs came in. It was a struggling company trying to figure out whom to please, their offering of computers is what HP is now: a multitude of options that does could do anything for everyone.

Steve Jobs' personality and drive created Apple and then saved it by having the executive power to focus the brand away from the various iterations of computers to get to one idea: Beautiful products that people want.

Apple have their golden goose now, they just have to flog it. Like Microsoft did. Maybe they will continue to make new breakthroughs with the massive cash reserves they had, but it's hard to imagine they could top what they've already done.