Jobs scaled everything back - cut divisions, cut product lines, reorganized everything, got a big investor (Microsoft) to help shore up finances. Then, he waited.

His strategy, as he described it at the time, was "to wait for the next big thing." All his life, Jobs had seen wave after wave of new technologies coming along. He knew there would be another one.

As it turned out, that "next big thing" for Apple was the iMac.

Remember that thing? It looks kind of goofy now, but at the time, it was at the leading, bleeding edge of cool. Not only did it help save Apple, it helped millions of people get on the Internet for the first time.