I always wonder though what if Jean-Louis Gassée and his BeOS won the deal (instead of Jobs and NeXT) in late 90's, what kind of Apple computer would have become? No doubt he is very capable, though I wouldn't bet on him myself.
He's a mixed bag in terms of track record: You've got the color Mac II which was nothing short of amazing (I know because I purchased a Mac IIcx) and yet you have the disaster known as the Mac Luggable which was terrible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Portable
I think this is a very interesting question. My impression of NeXT is that they nearly priced themselves out of their own market. I am not sure they would have survived without being bought by Apple. Beyond that anything could be speculated. Maybe he would have abandoned computing and gone straight for media, what with Pixar's success.
