Everyone knows Parisians are snobs. So it probably shouldn't have come as a surprise that an unshaven, middle-aged American, speaking English and dressed in cuffed jeans, sneakers, and a worn black T-shirt, was rudely turned away from the bar at a lavish fete inside Paris's Musee d'Orsay on September 16, 2003.

Except that the man was Steven P. Jobs, the cofounder and chief executive of Apple Computer Inc., and it was his party. And some bash it was. For three hours, Apple's guests grazed on foie gras and seared tuna canapes, and sipped champagne while strolling under a massive glass arcade that shelters one of the world's largest collections of Impressionist masters, Rodin sculpture, and art nouveau furniture. In a Baroque salon at the far end of the museum, a raucous jazz band played. As one guest observing the scene intoned, "This is huge."

Not huge enough, it seems, to make room for Jobs. But if the boss was peeved at getting the bum's rush, he didn't show it. Together with his entourage of suited computer executives, Jobs retreated quietly to a bar on a lower level, and the party celebrating the 20th anniversary of Apple's European trade show, Apple Expo, proceeded without further incident. Maybe "Bad Steve" has mellowed at the age of 48.

Then again, maybe Jobs has just gotten used to being tossed out of his own parties. You could say that the personal-computer industry itself began as an Apple wingding when the Cupertino, California-based company introduced the Apple II in 1977. Ever since, Apple has played the role of generous host, spicing up the festivities with one tasty offering after another. Following the PC, Apple served up many of the features that computer users have since come to take for granted, including the graphical user interface, the mouse, the laser printer, and the color monitor. Yet Apple has been forced to watch the celebrations from out in the alley, its nose pressed longingly to the window as others feast: Today, more than a quarter-century after its founding, it commands just 2% of the $180 billion worldwide market for PCs. Almost everyone agrees that Apple's products are not only trailblazers but also easier to use, often more powerful, and always more elegant than those of its rivals. Yet those rivals have followed its creative leads and snatched for themselves the profits and scale that continually elude Apple's grasp.

All of which raises some interesting questions. If Apple is really the brains of the industry--if its products are so much better than Microsoft's or Dell's or IBM's or Hewlett-Packard's--then why is the company so damned small? (Consider that in the last 10 years alone, Apple has been issued 1,300 patents, almost one-and-a- half times as many as Dell and half as many as Microsoft--which earns 145 times as much money.)

TRUTH IS, SOME OF THE MOST INNOVATIVE INSTITUTIONS IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN BUSINESS HAVE BEEN COLOSSAL FAILURES.