Apple announced on 20 December 1996 that it would acquire NeXT for $400 million, according to a source recounting the deal. The target was the computer company Steve Jobs started after leaving Apple.
Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple in his parents' garage. By 1985, in Jobs's words, it had become "a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees." The Macintosh had come out a year earlier, and its sales disappointed. Jobs clashed with John Sculley, the chief executive Apple had hired. The board sided with Sculley and removed Jobs as head of the Macintosh division. On 16 September 1985 he resigned as chairman.
At Stanford in 2005 he described it like this: "So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out." He started a new computer company, NeXT.
Under the announced deal, Jobs returned to Apple, reporting to Apple's chief executive at the time, Gil Amelio. By September 1997 he was Apple's interim chief executive.
Jobs later called getting fired "the best thing that could have ever happened" to him.
The source notes that for anyone running an acquisition, buying NeXT and bringing Jobs back were one deal, and that putting him in charge of Apple came about nine months later.