Daily Inspiration Quote by Andy Hertzfeld

The sting here is in the casual correction: Hertzfeld punctures a popular myth with the kind of pedantic precision engineers use when they’re trying to keep history from turning into brand lore. Everyone remembers Steve Jobs as Apple’s eternal CEO because Apple’s story has been edited, replayed, and merchandised into a single, clean hero narrative. Hertzfeld is reminding you that titles matter, not as trivia, but as evidence of how power actually works.

The subtext is that Jobs’ influence pre-1997 was real, but structurally constrained. In the early Apple years he was a co-founder, a visionary, a force of personality, but not the formal executive in charge. That distinction helps explain the company’s internal conflicts, his eventual ouster, and why his “return” reads like a restoration arc: the mythology needs him to have always been the captain, even when the corporate org chart said otherwise.

Context sharpens the point. Jobs came back in 1997 after Apple’s crisis years, first as “interim” CEO, then permanently. From that moment on, “Steve Jobs = CEO” calcified into public memory because the turnaround was so dramatic that it overwrote the messier earlier record. Hertzfeld’s intent isn’t to diminish Jobs; it’s to insist that Apple’s success wasn’t fate or genius alone. It was also governance, timing, and the unglamorous fact that being the face of a company isn’t the same as legally running it.