“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, 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
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
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.