He was being a little hyperbolic there. Which is one of Steve Jobs' tendencies. They had "90 days of working capital" left, but it was still $1.2B and they had annual revenues of $7B in 1997 and pretty much no debt. They had to replace the CEO to restore investor confidence, and Jobs was clearly the best choice, but they could have found a different CEO and muddled through.

It was the worst state the company had been in, but the losses had stopped even before Jobs took over. Not to understate Jobs accomplishments. Just saying a competent CEO could turn Apple from a doghouse company to a profitable company. It took a genius CEO takes a company from the the doghouse to the most valuable in the world.