Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
November 1998 sits at one of the most dramatic inflection points in the history of American business. Steve Jobs had returned to Apple in September 1997 — the company he had co-founded and been forced out of in 1985 — and in the fourteen months since his return had executed one of the most remarkable corporate reversals in the history of the technology industry. Apple had been weeks from bankruptcy when Jobs arrived. By November 1998, the company had shipped the iMac, its translucent consumer desktop computer that had become an immediate cultural and commercial phenomenon, selling 800,000 units in its first five months. The cover line "And Now For My Next Trick" captured something essential about Jobs's position at this moment: the first trick — saving a dying company — had already been performed. The question that fascinated the business world in late 1998 was what he intended to do next. Fortune's cover story "The Second Coming of Apple," written by David Kirkpatrick, was among the most substantive mainstream business press attempts to answer that question.
The accompanying interview "The Three Faces of Steve," by Brent Schlender, adds a dimension that makes this issue particularly valuable for collectors interested in Jobs as a biographical subject. Schlender had been covering Jobs for Fortune for years and had developed one of the more candid journalistic relationships with him — a rapport that produced interviews of unusual depth and frankness. A 1998 Schlender interview with Jobs, framed around his evolution from young visionary to seasoned CEO, documents a figure who was genuinely in transition: no longer the impulsive young founder of the early Apple and NeXT years, not yet the canonical legend of the iPhone era, but something in between — a man who had learned difficult lessons and was applying them with new discipline and patience. For collectors focused on Steve Jobs's documented presence in the business and technology press, a Fortune cover from this precise moment in the Apple turnaround story, with both a Kirkpatrick analysis and a Schlender interview inside, is among the most substantive single issues in that archive.
The additional content documented in this issue gives it value beyond the Jobs coverage alone. J. William Gurley's article on how the web would reshape advertising was published at the precise moment when that question was moving from theoretical to urgently practical — Google was one year old, and the commercial architecture of the internet was still being invented in real time. Jim Rohwer's analysis of Japan's bank debt crisis documented an economic story that would reverberate through global markets for years. This is Fortune operating at the intersection of technology, business strategy, and macroeconomics in one of the most consequential years in modern economic history. Collectors assembling a record of American business journalism from 1998 will find this issue captures the era's defining concerns with unusual density and precision.
About the Publication
Fortune, founded by Henry Luce in 1930, was by 1998 one of the two or three most authoritative business magazines in the United States, alongside Forbes and BusinessWeek. Its biweekly format combined long-form reported features, executive profiles, economic analysis, and the signature rankings — most notably the Fortune 500 — that had made it a standard reference in corporate America. The magazine's audience was executive, investor, and management-oriented, and its editorial standard for the depth and rigor of its business reporting was among the highest in American periodical publishing. By the late 1990s, Fortune was covering the technology industry with particular intensity, as Silicon Valley had become the dominant story in American business and the magazine's technology correspondents — including Brent Schlender, who had cultivated access to Jobs, Bill Gates, and other central figures — were producing some of the most informed reporting on the industry available anywhere.
Key Highlights Inside
- "The Second Coming of Apple" — cover story by David Kirkpatrick analyzing the Apple turnaround under Jobs's returned leadership, published fourteen months into his tenure and immediately following the breakthrough commercial success of the original iMac.
- "The Three Faces of Steve" — an in-depth interview by Brent Schlender, one of the journalists with the deepest ongoing access to Jobs, documenting his self-described evolution from young visionary to experienced CEO at this pivotal career juncture.
- "How the Web Will Warp Advertising" by J. William Gurley — published in November 1998, one year after Google's founding, as the commercial architecture of the internet was being actively constructed and the advertising industry was beginning to confront its implications.
- "Japan's Bank Debt Bomb" by Jim Rohwer — analysis of the Japanese banking crisis that was contributing to the broader Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, documenting a macroeconomic story with significant global consequences.
- Cover portrait of Steve Jobs with the headline "And Now For My Next Trick" — one of the most recognized images of Jobs from the interim period between his return to Apple and the product launches of the 2000s that would define his final chapter.
Condition & Rarity
Surviving copies of this issue are graded Very Good, with light wear consistent with a business magazine now approaching thirty years of age — a strong result that indicates the cover, spine, and interior pages are intact and legible without significant deterioration. Fortune's production quality in the late 1990s was high, printed on coated stock that ages more gracefully than wood-pulp newsprint, meaning that Very Good condition copies from this era tend to retain their color saturation and structural integrity well when stored appropriately. The plastic protective covering indicates deliberate preservation. For collector purposes, the critical condition factors in any surviving copy of this issue are the clarity and color retention of the Jobs cover portrait — the primary display and grading surface — and the completeness of the interior feature content, particularly the Kirkpatrick and Schlender pieces that constitute the issue's primary historical and research value. A clean copy of this issue in Very Good condition, with both major Jobs features intact, represents the optimal surviving form for a magazine whose collector significance is rooted as much in its interior content as in its cover.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
A Fortune cover from the Apple turnaround period — with both a major Kirkpatrick analysis and a rare Schlender interview inside — is one of the more substantive single issues in the Steve Jobs magazine archive, and Very Good condition copies don't appear with great regularity. The Steve Jobs magazine collection at OriginalMagazines.com is the most focused resource for tracking down his appearances across the business and technology press throughout his career, and it's the right starting point for collectors building seriously around his documented history. The full Fortune magazine archive covers the publication across its run and regularly surfaces significant technology and business covers from the late 1990s, while the 1998 magazine collection brings together the full print landscape of that extraordinary year in technology and business history.