“Fate had a doozy in store for the men—and they were all men—who dumped the famously combative Jobs. The upstart they fired eclipsed them by many magnitudes, as emphasized two weeks ago when Apple passed Microsoft to become the most valuable technology company in the world,” Weber reports. “The key antagonist in the tech world’s biggest soap opera of a quarter-century ago: John Sculley, the Pepsi executive whom Apple’s board brought in as CEO to oversee Jobs and grow the company.”
Weber reports, “Sculley says he accepts responsibility for his role but also believes that Apple’s board should have understood that Jobs needed to be in charge. ‘My sense is that it probably would never have broken down between Steve and me if we had figured out different roles,’ Sculley says. ‘Maybe he should have been the CEO and I should have been the president. It should have been worked out ahead of time, and that’s one of those things you look to a really good board to do.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: ‘Twas the unprepared sugared water salesbozo who signed the poorly-written contract that unleashed the Dark Age of Personal Computing on the world; a darkness from which most are only now slowly emerging. The fool had a penchant for making unbelievably massive mistakes. Sculley makes Ballmer look like a business genius.
Well now SJ & Apple r laughing all the way to the bank!!!
Great MDN take
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@MDN Take.
Ha-a-rsh.
Untrue. I think it was that firing that galvanized Steve, motivated him even more and gave him some different perspective that allowed him to return to Apple and make it into what it has become.
Not that I’m giving Sculley any credit, he was a nincompoop who made the wrong move. I just think in the end it made Steve better at what he does.
Actually, I don’t think SJ would be the leader and visionary he is today without having been so unceremoniously dumped on his ass in ’85. We should be thanking Sculley for making him what he is today.
OK, *thanking* him may be a stretch.
Damn! You guys at MDN go for the jugular! John Sculley will not be getting any love from MDN anytime soon.
I actual disagree with this premise, I think the firing of Steve Jobs was a good thing… for Steve Jobs. If you guys know the history of Steve Jobs at Apple in the beginning, he was relentless on his developers to the point of crazy. He polarized the Apple II team from the mac team, thus splitting Apple in two. And more importantly, his ego was huge. The firing let him refocus. He built NeXT with an emphasis on the software (OS). And today we are reaping the benefits of all the lessons he learned. Sure, Apple may have been better off (no stupid MS deal, for instance), but I think in the long run, the firing was benefitial to Jobs.
@Macromancer
I agree. I think Steve wasn’t the more mature Steve that returned to the company who realized that people can do great work and be passionate and excited about things and also have a life outside that.
dang, you guys beat me to it
You guys who think Steve needed to be fired in order to change into the current Steve … you don’t know Steve. He would have changed into the current Steve, more or less, in any case. Instead it nearly killed Apple and allowed Microsoft to own the world. That’s not a reality that was good for anyone, nor necessary for Apple’s current success!
Look what Steve did when he got fired. He formed NeXt. Look at Apple now, OS X running the iPhone, built in part from NeXt’s OS. We could have reached this point much sooner if Steve didn’t have a camp of enemies at Apple at the time. (Not saying iPhone would have materialized earlier, but Apple would be even more mature in its products and development today than it is…) Think about it.
Sculley is a classic case of an eejit with no clue who thinks they can run an innovative company by numbers and productivity and marketing alone. Now he’s trying to foist some of the blame (for firing Steve) onto the board. That’s shows his character right there!
MDN take: “Sculley makes Ballmer look like a business genius.”
At least Sculley didn’t dance around stage in a single-cheek attempt to look hip.
If they didnt fire Steve Jobs, Apple would not be what it is today. The firing of Steve Jobs may have been the best thing for all of us.
I not sure that Jobs is not better for having been fired. He surely learned some things at his other companies that he might not have learned if he had stayed at Apple.
I think it was good for Jobs to get fired.
Regardless, bozo Sculley still wrote that contract with M$ giving away the jewels of Apple.
I don’t know. When you get to the edge of the scale where Steve Ballmer is, it is hard to believe anything is past his point. If he looses his standing, I am sure Ballmer will screw something else up and get it back.
Ballmer works hard to hold his title!
Steve Jobs is writing his life story and I’ll wait to see what he has to say about it before judging whether his leaving Apple was, ultimately, a good thing. I held to the Light and did not get sucked into the M$ darkness. Shudder to think if Steve did not return to Apple and resurrect goodness.
@Mac 84 I agree, SJ would have been the same. Apple and the world would be more advanced if he had stayed. However we would not have had Pixar.
Another bozo business decision: Verizon deciding it did not want the iPhone when offered first.
The best thing Eric Schmidt can do for Google is to fire Larry and Sergey, or at least refuse 9 out of 10 of their *new* ideas and plans, assigned each of them a single secret project to focus on, and tell them to come back in a couple of years. Won’t happen. Page and Brin will spend all their money like a regular lotto winners trotting out half-baked betas and try to copy Apple in every step, and end up getting beat by Facebook and Twitter.
Dirty Harry: “Man has got to know his limitations.”
@Mac 84
Did you even read my comment as to why I think it was good for Steve to get fired? I think I addressed (rather succinctly) all your reasons as to why you think the Steve Jobs we have today would have been same today no matter what. It was a direct result of his lessons learned at Apple that he was able to create NeXT the way he did, and ultimately why it was bought by Apple and brought his Steveness back into the fold.
And if SJ hadn’t been fired, he wouldn’t have founded NeXT, which wouldn’t have developed NeXTStep, which wouldn’t have become the basis of OS X.
Etc.
It is what it is. Being away from Apple made SJ what he is today.
If he had stayed at Apple, Apple might very well have gone out of business in the 1990s.
@Mac 84,
I don’t want to sound like I’m belittling the impact of Steve Jobs’ return to Apple. In fact, I’m certain that his return is what saved Apple from becoming just another has-been computer company from the late 20th century. But Steve doesn’t get ALL the credit. He brought with him the team that was the core of NeXT computers software group. You can’t deny Avie Tevanian’s impact on making NeXT into Mac OS X. I don’t think Apple would have come up with Mac OS X on it’s own; the evidence is Apple’s failed efforts of Pink, Taligent, and Copland to produce a successor to System 7. The question is whether or not Steve (& his minions) could have made anything like NeXTStep in the late ’80s & early ’90s while trying to support legacy “classic” Mac OS at the same time.
Those saying it was good that Sculley fired SJ are just rationalizing. Jobs has said that Apple’s problem after he left was they stopped innovating the Mac. What did the Mac need? Something like Next/OSX. As soon as Jobs left Apple, he went and tried to create Next. Jobs knew exactly what Apple needed when he left. If he could have had Apple’s resources to make it happen, rather than scrounging around at a startup, Apple could have had OSX by 1990-1995. By the time Gates had Windows working, Apple could have been a full generation ahead. The desktop computer landscape would have favored Apple by an order of magnitude, and the world would have looked VERY different.
BTW, it may make us feel better to tell ourselves that things always work out for the best, but that is obviously bunk.
The time with Next and Pixar was critical for a more mature and focused Steve Jobs to taking on rebuilding Apple into his own vision. Curious how both the good and the hard times are integral parts of the road that brings you here.
On the positive side:
Maybe there wouldn’t have been Avi Tevanian and NeXt (OSX)
Maybe there wouldn’t have Pixar and the merger with Disney.
Perhaps the firing made Jobs more savvy and more disciplined
Well, in fairness to Sculley, look at the string of bozos after him.
What do you expect from a sugar water salesman? But Steve Jobs bears some of the responsibility for what happened. Afterall, he hired the guy. But if success is the best revenge, then Steve Jobs can rest very easy at night, with nary a thought in his head about the likes of John Scully.
Well, he did give us the Newton. OK, never mind…
But it is true… I don’t think Steve Jobs would be the leader he is today, if he had not been “fired” by Sculley-led Apple. Yes, it’s possible he would have had even more success by remaining with Apple for all of those “in between” years, but he would not be the same person. And I think Apple would be a very different company today. I’m just an Apple fan, but I’m happy with the way things turned out…
Sculley is a prime example of the executism that grips the top tier of management of US corporations. It is the fantasy of their greatness that makes them believe the are actually worth 400 to 500 times the average worker in their companies.
It is the foolhardiness of boards of directors that decides to pay them that much. But that is an inbred group that mostly gives reach arounds to each other.
Who will actually remember the names of any of the members of that board of directors for anything other than being part of the group that fired Steve Jobs and cast the world into a quarter century of Windows domination.
@alansky
Well said, “nary a thought” indeed. They did follow up Sculley with some clowns, so the board does need to belly up and eat their spinach over that, yeah?
@DavidEgo
Right on the money. NeXt floundered but at the same time grew some excellent technology under Jobs. And Pixar, well I’m at a loss for words to describe the genius behind that.
He should just close his mouth and go back into hiding with Medhi Ali and Irving Gould.
Firing builds character. At least that is what I say when I fire someone.
Telling someone it’s a good thing when you make them unemployed is hard to do. It requires a very gentle touch and an armed security guard at your side.
The iTunes—internet ecology needed faster CPU and server download speeds to become what it is today. Those speeds didn’t get fast enough until the end of the nineties, and the iPhone—iPad need faster satellite/cell tower transmission rates that just now are barely making it worthwhile.
So what could Steve had done during the late 80’s and 90’s? make iMac’s based on slow chips and dial up modems??
Another thing to consider is that it was Steve Jobs who brought John Sculley onboard Apple.
So…. who was it that really made a major goof
Sculley… or Jobs, for hiring Sculley?
It’s kind of like the old religious dichotomy about who’s really responsible for evil in the world? Man, due to his sinful nature, or the devil, for tempting man?
Or God, because He created both man and the devil?
Your insulting remarks often added in and after items you report really detract from a good service you provide. I love MacDaily News but cringe when I see an editorial comment never knowing what self serving childish thing you might say.
Scully may be many things but he’s not a bozo. And ny guess is you were still in grade school when Scully came in.
So keep up the food reporting but keep the wise cracks to yourselves.
Dennis mooney
He blurts this out in 2010?
Dick move.
@ Dennis Mooney:
I get your point, as uptight as it is. But sometimes they are damn funny, damn funny.
P.S. As off-base as you think they are, they don’t actually do FOOD reporting.
Wait…I’m sorry…am I being to juvenile here? Oh well, guess I have no choice but to develop a sense of humor.
Both Sculley and Jobs have matured quite a bit from this ordeal. Jobs admitted that (bittersweet manner) in his famous graduation speech for the Stanford ’05 students. Sculley has been very forthcoming in admitting his mistakes in recent days.
I feel, now is the best time to move on from the past, Apple has earned to the right to bury the hatchet. I propose, we turn to the future and current enemies, starting with ‘all things’ Google.
There are some redeeming qualities in MS, but I can’t see any in Google-a true evil conglomerate, if there ever any.
@Original Jake + Mac 84 + Cascadians
+10
Weren’t you listening when I told Lucy this?
No one is EVER told what WOULD have happened.
I’m with the camp that thinks the time in the wilderness was made Steve, and hence Apple what it is today.
Let’s face it, Mac OS X came from the work Steve did OUTSIDE Apple, there is is no guarantee that if Steve had stayed at Apple that the Next OS which became OS X would have been developed.
It is OS X, and the move to the use of open standards that has made Apple resurgent… Apple was in no mood for open standards prior to Steve being fired, and whilst he was running the company – so why does anyone think he would have just “caught onto it” without being sent into the wilderness?!
And as others have said – it was Jobs that wooed Scully to Apple, so why isn’t it actually his fault for what happened?!?
Why do we have to assume that everything Steve Jobs does is 100% right, and anything someone that disagrees with him does is 100% wrong?
I can assure you, prior to OS X, Apple would NOT have become the powerhouse it is today.
As much as you Apple Kool Aid drinkers want to think, the Apple OS was a dog for many many years, and so was the proprietary software/hardware model they pursued that locked them into a niche player.
In the end Scully is correct – he was appointed CEO, and he could not as CEO have someone else calling all the shots and undermining him. Steve and Apple’s board should have made better decisions and put him in a different role, letting Jobs run the company as CEO and had Scully in an advisory role (again remember it was Jobs that courted Scully).
Either way – both MEN have moved on – pity MDN and the Apple Kool Aid drinkers are still playing these childish name calling games!
My 2 cents
1) @leodavinci is right. Jobs brought in Sculley. So if Jobs hadn’t have convinced a sugar water salesman to come on board… he wouldn’t have got the sack… So you can’t start name-calling Sculley without name-calling the doofus who hired him.
2) Undoubtedly Steve’s exile made him what he is today, and what Apple is.
Dear Mr. Sculley,
The problem was not that you fired Mr. Jobs. That was inevitable, knowing your skill set.
The problem was that Mr. Jobs HIRED you.
Marketing-As-Management has doomed many a company. Thankfully Apple and Mr. Jobs learned the lesson brilliantly.
If only a few other companies would get the clue, such as:
Sony
Kodak
Adobe
The banking industry
The insurance industry
Microsoft
The oil industry
Wallstreet…
Steve Jobs was fired because while Sculley was in china he tried to buy Rank Xerox AND Federal Express, costing Apple so much money that they would have had no chance to defend themselves against a buy out.
so, no, it wasn’t a mistake at all, Jobs was crazy to do that.
and, we would not have mac os x without Next, and no Toy Story either
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Steve ought to hold a special debate after the WWDC to settle this issue once and for all.
Sculley never had it, al least not like Jobs- the man with the golden gut for where stuff is going.
Aside from that, the Steve Jobs that came back was and is a different man and the Steve Jobs of today has been profoundly changed by his bout with cancer.