Announcing My New Book: Steve Jobs in Exile

Jobs Hit Rock Bottom. Then Came the Greatest Comeback in Business History.

It’s time to let you in on a secret.

If you’re a regular reader of The Burner Files, you’ve no doubt noticed I’ve been quiet lately. That’s because I’ve been working on a big project that I’ve had to keep under wraps.

Until today.

I’m thrilled to finally share my latest book with you. It’s called Steve Jobs in Exile: The Untold Story of NeXT and the Remaking of an American Visionary. It comes out May 19^th from Portfolio at Penguin Random House, and is available now for preorder.

It’s the story of Jobs who, at thirty years old, was pushed out of his own company and thoroughly humiliated. He then spent the next twelve years—a full third of his adult life—watching his reputation crumble and his products flop as he struggled to build a company called NeXT.

Why this story?

There’s the Steve Jobs narrative everyone knows: brash young founder builds Apple, gets pushed out, wanders aimlessly, and then returns triumphantly in black turtlenecks armed with incredible keynotes. It’s a memorable story. But it misses a crucial truth.

Jobs’ emergence as a legendary operator took place during his years of hardship. He was tried, tested, and ultimately grew from failure. He learned how to channel his drive for perfection, build top-flight teams, and listen to their advice.

At NeXT, he also built amazing technology. He championed AI development thirty-plus years before the release of ChatGPT. And NeXT’s software was so advanced that it formed the backbone of Apple’s tech dominance for decades to come.

This year, Apple celebrates its 50th anniversary. But the story of how the company survived to see this milestone hasn’t been fully told before. Without NeXT, there would have been no Apple renaissance in the late 90s and 2000s. And without the renaissance, there would be no Apple as we know it today.

Photographs courtesy of Doug Menuez. Used with permission.

What I found

I spent the past three years researching this book. I interviewed 111 of Jobs’s closest colleagues, obtained thousands of private emails and company documents, and reviewed hours of never-before-seen footage from NeXT meetings—showing Jobs pacing across conference rooms, firing up his executives, thinking out loud.

Most of this material has never been seen by anyone outside the company. Archives that had been sealed for decades were opened for me. People who had never spoken publicly about this era trusted me with their memories and private documents.

I don’t take that lightly. The people I talked to worked alongside Jobs during his hardest—and cruelest—years. They watched him fail. They watched him grow. And they saw something in him that the rest of the world missed. I greatly value their insights and I sincerely hope that I did their stories justice.

I’m particularly honored that the book features contributions from two of the people who knew Jobs best: a foreword by NeXT cofounder Dan’l Lewin and an afterword by Pixar cofounder Ed Catmull.

Why it matters now

While I’m proud that this book sheds new light on Jobs, NeXT, and Apple, I believe it also gets at something universal.

Maybe you’re staring at a rejection letter. Maybe your startup is burning through cash. Maybe you’re lying awake at 2 a.m. wondering if you’ve made a big professional mistake. This book reminds us that Steve Jobs was there too.

By learning from failure and embracing personal transformation, Jobs shows us how we might turn our own struggles into triumphs.

What comes next

This announcement marks a new chapter for The Burner Files.

Now that the book is finished, I’m going to be posting here more regularly. Expect behind-the-scenes stories from my reporting, lessons I learned from studying Jobs’s wilderness years, and thoughts on reinvention, transformation, and what it takes to build success.

If that sounds interesting, stick around. And if you know someone who might like this newsletter, I’d be grateful if you shared it.

Preorder the book

Steve Jobs in Exile comes out May 19^th. Preorders matter a lot. They help the book reach bestseller lists and signal to bookstores how many copies to stock.

If this story resonates with you, preordering is the single best way to support it.

Let’s talk

I speak to teams and organizations about transformation, reinvention, and the lost years of Steve Jobs. Speaking engagements come with bulk preorder options. If you’re interested, please reach out to Tom Neilssen at tom@brightsightspeakers.com.

For media and podcast requests, please contact Lauren Ball at laball@penguinrandomhouse.com.

Thank you for being here. It means more than you know.

—Geoff