Business Photo Slideshows

Robert Nardelli

Photo by William Philpott/Reuters/Corbis (left), Rebecca Cook / Reuters/Landov

No second acts in American life? Nonsense. Just look at corporate America, where some of the best-known executives have at one point or another suffered a very public firing. The latest example: Nardelli. Once a failed candidate to succeed Jack Welch at General Electric, he was forced out of Home Depot in January, criticized for excess pay and poor performance. Now he's C.E.O. of the newly private Chrysler Corp.

Steve Jobs

Photo by Doug Menuez/Corbis (left), Kim Kulish/Corbis

Having built Apple Computer, Jobs brought in John Scully as C.E.O. in 1983, then introduced the first of the revolutionary Macs. He was on top of the world. By May 1985, he was out in the cold. Clashes with Scully and others triggered a boardroom putsch. Jobs went off to found NeXT Computer and then Pixar Animation before returning to revive a moribund Apple.

Bernard Marcus

Photo by Rob Kinmonth//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images (left), Erik Lesser/Liaison

A long career in retailing led Marcus to the corner office at Handy Dan, a Los Angeles- based hardware store chain. A clash with the company's owner cost him his job in 1978. He rebounded quickly, founding The Home Depot a year later with the help of former Handy Dan colleague Arthur Blank and the money raised by New York investment banker Ken Langone. He retired a billionaire in 2002.

Jamie Dimon

Photo by Suzanne Opton//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images (left), Ezio Petersen/UPI

When he crashed, Jamie Dimon fell far. He and mentor Sandy Weill had transformed a little-known consumer finance company into financial services giant Citigroup. Dimon was anointed president in 1998, only to be fired — by Weill, no less — a few months later. Dimon has since climbed back to become C.E.O. of J.P. Morgan Chase — and is now challenging Citigroup.

John Mack

Photo by Jon Levt/ Agence France Presse (left), Jim Sulley/newscast

A lifer at Morgan Stanley, Mack rose to president after 30 years. Then came a bitter power struggle with Phil Purcell of Dean Witter after it merged with Morgan Stanley; Mack lost in 2001. He jumped to Credit Suisse, where he slashed 10,000 jobs, cementing his reputation as “Mack the Knife." After Purcell stumbled, Mack returned to Morgan Stanley in 2005.

John Bogle

Photo by Ken Cedeno/Bloomberg News/Landov

After losing his job due to a merger gone awry, this former Wellington Management C.E.O. bounced right back, opening the Vanguard Group of Investment companies in 1975. Today Vanguard manages more than $520 billion in mutual funds, including the Wellington Fund, operated by Bogle’s former employers. It is the world’s largest pure no-load mutual fund company.

Jeffrey Katzenberg

Photo by Alan Levenson//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images (left), Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

When Disney C.E.O. Michael Eisner wouldn’t promote him to president — after a decade as head of Disney Studios — Katzenberg quit the Walt Disney Company in 1993. He quickly teamed with Stephen Spielberg and David Geffen to found DreamWorks SKG. In 1999, Disney settled a three-year lawsuit by paying Katzenberg millions of dollars in compensation he said he had earned.

Robert C. Stempel

Photo by Peter Yates/REA/Redux (left), Rebecca Cook/ Reuters/Landov

Once ousted by the board at General Motors, Stempel joined Energy Conversion Devices as C.E.O. in 1995. During his tenure, he oversaw the construction of a 170,000 square-foot plant and commercialized the company’s nickel- metal hydride battery. He has been awarded the Golden Omega Award and the Soichiro Honda Medal Award for significant contributions in his field.

Bernd Pischetsrieder

Photo by Str Old/ Reuters (left), DPA/Landov

His 1994 decision to have BMW buy Rover ultimately cost Pischetsrieder his job when he was unable to turn around the failing British carmaker. Although the deal gave BMW the popular Mini car, BMW's board fired him in 1999. He resurfaced in 2002 as chairman of Volkswagen, where he raised the images of VW and Audi, but not their sales. He retired at the end of 2006 and is now chairman of Scania AB.

Tom Stemberg

Photo by Kim Kulish/Corbis

Having been fired from his top post at First National Supermarkets’ Edwards-Finast division when it sold in 1985, Harvard Business School grad Stemberg quickly made the best of his would-be humiliating career defeat—by founding office supplies mega-chain Staples, where he remained C.E.O. until 2002. He is currently managing general partner at Highland Capital.

Mickey Drexler

Photo by Ed Kashi/Corbis (left), James Leynse

Having built the jeans-and-T-shirt store The Gap into the global casual wear behemoth Gap Inc., Drexler fell victim to his own success. Gap had grown bureaucratic and unwieldy, while nimble copycat competitors were able to keep abreast of fashions, especially for free-spending teens and young adults. Gap forced him out in 2002, and he jumped to J. Crew, where he has started the brand-building process anew.

David Neeleman

Photo by Mark Peterson/Corbis

As deregulation transformed the airline industry, Neeleman took advantage, cofounding low-cost carrier Morris Air in Salt Lake City. As entrepreneurship gave way to a round of consolidation, he sold Morris to Southwest Airlines in 1993 and briefly worked for that company. After brief stints working for an airline information technology firm and then the airline WestJet, he founded JetBlue, which began flying in 2000.

Carl Bass

Photo by Natalie Behring/Bloomberg News/Landov

Bass arrived at Autodesk in 1993, when it bought his computer graphics company, Ithaca Software. It wasn't a good fit: He spent a lot of time telling C.E.O. Carol Bartz what was wrong with her company. She finally asked if he'd ever be happy; he said no, and she fired him. He soon returned, chastened. Last year, he succeeded Bartz when she retired.

Michael Bloomberg

Photo by Edward Hausner/The New York Times (left), Frank Veronsky/Corbis

When he was fired from Salomon Brothers in 1981, Bloomberg bought his wife a sable jacket so she wouldn’t be ashamed of their reduced circumstances. Instead of resting on his $10 million severance, he got to work developing data machines that serve some 75,000 trading rooms around the world. He’s now mayor of New York, and worth about $20 billion.