[Okay, okay – title corrected. It was supposed to say Russian, not Russia – no offense intended (p.s. my great-grandparents were from Minsk and Odessa)]

All next week I’ll be in Kiev to deliver a speech about how better marketing saved Apple from extinction. You can check it out here (if you want to translate the page from Russian then go here)

While putting together the speech, I relived a lot of my time at Apple and how the company really lost its way under the Sculley/Spindler/Amelio regimes. I think that Apple’s near death experience was the catalyst for the company turning itself around. And by company I mean Steve Jobs. I truly think he was the most motivated person in the company in those days to see to it – personally – that Apple didn’t die. After all, watching your own child suffer is the worst thing possible and in many ways Apple was Steve’s baby. Just try to imagine the PC, music or phone industries today if Apple’s star had twinkled out 10 years ago.

A lot has been written about Apple’s amazing resurgence following the return of it’s once-ousted wunderkind. But my speech will provide an very different, insider’s view at what it was really like to feel Apple’s soul return during its brush with bankruptcy. And for those of you who won’t be in Kiev next week, perhaps there will be a webcast or a book on the subject real soon. Stay tuned!

[Okay, okay – title corrected. It was supposed to say Russian, not Russia – no offense intended (p.s. my great-grandparents were from Minsk and Odessa)]

All next week I’ll be in Kiev to deliver a speech about how better marketing saved Apple from extinction. You can check it out here (if you want to translate the page from Russian then go here)

While putting together the speech, I relived a lot of my time at Apple and how the company really lost its way under the Sculley/Spindler/Amelio regimes. I think that Apple’s near death experience was the catalyst for the company turning itself around. And by company I mean Steve Jobs. I truly think he was the most motivated person in the company in those days to see to it – personally – that Apple didn’t die. After all, watching your own child suffer is the worst thing possible and in many ways Apple was Steve’s baby. Just try to imagine the PC, music or phone industries today if Apple’s star had twinkled out 10 years ago.

A lot has been written about Apple’s amazing resurgence following the return of it’s once-ousted wunderkind. But my speech will provide an very different, insider’s view at what it was really like to feel Apple’s soul return during its brush with bankruptcy. And for those of you who won’t be in Kiev next week, perhaps there will be a webcast or a book on the subject real soon. Stay tuned!