Apple Computer, founded as a garage start-up by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976, was once a shining example of the American success story. The company launched the personal-computer revolution in 1978 with the first all-purpose desktop PC, the Apple II. In 1980, long before technology stocks were popular, Apple's initial public offering was one of the most highly awaited events in Wall Street history. Jobs at twenty-five and "the Woz" at thirty became instant millionaires.

Within five years, Apple, with sales of $300 million, catapulted itself into the ranks of the Fortune 500 and became the darling of the national business press. Then came the Macintosh computer, so easy to use, it had a ten-year jump on the industry. Sales peaked at $11 billion in 1995. But by that time, Apple had become a troubled company.

This book, written by a Wall Street Journal technology reporter, is the most detailed study to date of the past decade of Apple's turbulent history. Jim Carlton walks us down company corridors, into the boardroom, and through barriers to research laboratories, and reveals a seething cauldron of petty infighting and buried secrets.

Through exhaustive interviews with more than 160 former Apple employees, industry experts, and competitors - including Bill Gates, Sculley, and Amelio - Carlton discovers confidential memos, late-night rendezvous, and fateful decisions that forever changed the company's path. He portrays a company very different from the glamorous technology leader that designed computers for "the rest of us" and illuminates what might have been and what really happened to this once-great icon of American business.