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    Photos from Steve Jobs' 1996 return to Apple land on Flickr

    Photos from Steve Jobs' 1996 return to Apple land on Flickr

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    Back in December 1996, Apple was not in a good place. The company had weathered over a decade of declining sales and sub-par leadership, and was on the brink of financial collapse. But that abruptly changed when the company's board decided to bring back co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs as an interim CEO to right the ship. As the story goes, Jobs was able to refocus Apple's efforts and, with a little help from Bill Gates at Microsoft, turn the company around into a profitable business. In the years that followed, Apple would become the largest electronics company in the world, and one of the most profitable companies ever. Thanks to Tim Holmes, former Mac OS evangelist at Apple, we can get a brief peek at that first night back for Steve Jobs at Apple. Holmes has posted a set of photos to Flickr from the town hall meeting where Jobs' return was announced to the company. In an ironic twist, all of the images were shot with an Apple QuickTake digital camera, which Jobs would end up killing as part of his refocusing efforts at Apple.