Given the long list of Jobs’ achievements, it is easy to forget that he suffered some setbacks along the way that might have downed lesser characters. But every time he was thrown from his horse he got straight back in the saddle – showing remarkable psychological fortitude in the process.

Manoeuvred out of the Apple exit door in 1985, it is fair to say that the experience, above any other, knocked Jobs sideways. He would later speak about it in terms of a punch to the stomach that knocked all the wind out of him. But rather than sitting around moping – or enjoying the not-inconsiderable fruits of his labours on some desert island – he quickly decided that his life’s work was not yet done and began seeking out new opportunities. It was indicative of the restless energy that powered him throughout his life.

Jobs, it should be remembered, was just thirty at the time. He told those who would listen that he knew he still had at least one more great computer in him – a rare instance of chronic underestimation on his part, as it turned out. So, having lost his first company, he promptly set up his second, a new computer firm that he called NeXT, the name itself a grand statement of intent to move forward. He also bought a little-known company that manufactured graphics gizmos and which was destined to be renamed Pixar. The seller was one George Lucas, whose Star Wars franchise had shaken up the world of cinema almost as much as Jobs had shaken up computing.

If Apple was always a partnership, NeXT was decidedly Jobs’ firm. As such, the shackles were off: he had a hand in everything the company did. He came up with a vision of an all-singing, all-dancing computer to take the form of an elegant cube. But it soon became clear that this machine, pairing high-end performance and cutting-edge aesthetics, was going to arrive late and could not be done at a knockdown price. Even more problematically, it was entirely uncertain that there would actually be a market for it when it finally was released.

The NeXTcube was launched in 1988 with a user-unfriendly $6,500 price tag – and more if you wanted all the supplementary kit that went with it. Even with Jobs’ mighty media presence and some serious financial backing, the NeXTcube would only shift a decidedly disappointing 50,000 units in the four years that followed. The bottom line just wasn’t adding up and nobody needed to tell Jobs that NeXT was not the new Apple.

By 1993 the firm had got out of the hardware market altogether – even though Tim Berners-Lee used a NeXT machine to program the fundamentals of the modern World Wide Web – and was concentrating solely on software instead. Nor was Jobs’ investment in Pixar looking like a good long-term bet. As the firm struggled to find a place for its undoubtedly ahead-of-the-curve software, Jobs adopted a high-risk strategy. Pixar would focus all its attentions on film animation, an industry hardly renowned for its stability. Unimpressed with the idea of overseeing the company’s collapse, he showed his ruthless side, too. In return for keeping the business funded, he demanded virtually all of Pixar’s stockholding.

In 1993 the Wall Street Journal wrote about Jobs and his ‘steep fall from a very lofty perch’. At the time few would have argued, but, as Mark Twain might have said, reports of Jobs’ demise were greatly exaggerated. The journey might have been getting bumpy but he was determined to stay in the saddle.

‘The magic of Steve was that while others simply accepted the status quo, he saw the true potential in everything he touched and never compromised on that vision. He leaves behind an incredible family and a legacy that will continue to speak to people for years to come.’

GEORGE LUCAS