Its fascinating how idiotic a board of directors can be. You have _Steve Jobs_ as your CEO, he's literally resurrecting your company in front of your eyes, and you're not making sure that he's happy? I mean, what do you want - to fire him, let him start another competing company, take all the talent with him, let you go nearly bankrupt, and have to buy him back?
Oh wait... this hasn't been the most insightful board of directors, has it?
Also, at the time this began, Apple was far from resurrected. It was a freighter headed in the wrong direction. Steve had thrown it in reverse, and it was definitely slowly decelerating, but it hadn't yet stopped and started moving where he wanted it to go. If it had, the options wouldn't have needed backdating.
Jobs took the role back over in 1997. The iPod launched in 2001 and became the hit that saved the company over the next few years. The backdating began in 1997 and stopped in 2002, right about when the ship started moving in reverse.
I found it interesting how little he talked about the monetary value of various compensation mechanisms, and how much about the emotional value. "So I was hurt, I suppose would be the most accurate word..."
