“John Sculley was hired from PepsiCo by the iconic but temperamental Steve Jobs with a legendary pitch, ‘Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or, do you want to come with me and change the world?’ Sculley went on to join Apple, but ended up becoming part of a corporate legend by firing Jobs from the company he had founded,” Pankaj Doval reports for TNN.
“As he gears up to start a new venture focused around India for selling low-end mobile phones (not competing with Apple’s top-notch devices), Sculley — now 75 — tells TOI that he regrets the decision taken in 1985 by the Apple board of directors to move Jobs out of the company,” Doval reports. “‘I think, in hindsight, for the founder to leave was a mistake and I was a part of that. But, Steve in 1985 was not the same as the Steve in 1997. By the time he came back, he was a much more matured and experienced executive, while back in the eighties, he was still a young learning executive,’ [Sculley said].”
“[Sculley] still feels that some way would have been found to have them both work for the company and this could have been facilitated by Apple’s board then,” Doval reports. “‘I think there could have been a way, in hindsight, where Steve and I did not need to have a confrontation, and we could have worked it out. And, perhaps the board could have played a bigger role in that. But you can’t change history.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Bozo.
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If John Sculley says Apple must do this then Apple probably shouldn’t – January 17, 2013
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Steve Jobs steps down the first time: The 1985 press coverage – August 26, 2011
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Sculley: Uh, maybe I shouldn’t have fired Steve Jobs – June 7, 2010
Well, as everyone has said, yes and no.
Yes, you guys were morons, but no, Apple and SJ would likely not be at the heights they are now had SJ not had his “walk in the wilderness” and Apple run into the ground.
I only wish maybe SJ had given traditional medicine more faith in retrospect.
“Traditional medicine” “issue” was invented by Walter Isaacson for PR purposes. Jobs’ widow had to release a correction statement back in 2001: http://macdailynews.com/2014/04/11/apples-former-safari-chief-don-melton-reflects-on-time-spent-with-steve-jobs/?replytocom=1400547#respond
fsck you, Sculley.
I never want to wish anyone any bad luck, but in this case, I cannot say that I’m hoping Sculley’s new Indian company is a runaway success. 🙂
I believe that due to Sculley’s specific actions at Apple, American workers as a whole have had to put up with way more Windows BS then we should have ever had to.
Why isn’t he dead yet?
John, your 15 minutes is over.
If SJ remained at Apple…blah..blah..blah.. seems SJ needed to find a new version of himself…away from Apple. The result speaks for itself. Sometimes you have to lose what is seemingly important so you can find what really is important.
bah..bah..bah.
Also wouldn’t have PIxar.
Pixar was John Lassiter, Jobs was the guy who believed in him.
No, it was a mistake to hire John Sculley. Trying to fill the CEO position of a visionary company with the CEO of a commodity company whose product guarantees diabetes if you drink to a day was the big mistake!
Bozo? There is no need to denigrate a famous clown.
Don’t denigrate the Ballmer. Gone but not forgotten.
Ya think? Brilliant!
John Sculley may think SJ was a threat to him; therefore, he fired SJ to eliminate danger to his position.
Steve Jobs himself, in 2005, had this to say about it:
“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
Steve’s take is all that matters. Scully is negating Steve Jobs yet again.
I never ‘knew’ Jobs but I ‘miss’ him as I use Apple products everyday and have done so for years. The use of Apple products have significantly affected my life (like saving my butt as an art director).
Jobs not only changed Apple but the world, today everyone serious about their work is influenced by Jobs philosophies. He has elevated the making of consumer products (and perhaps to work in general) and given sense of “worthiness” to their creators. His ‘merging of art and science’ has influenced all kinds of products (even vacuum cleaners have become stylish!) and his idea that the commercial world should strive for the betterment of mankind through great products and not just for the sake of making money (the money will come if you do good work) have affected many (Jobs in the end really believed that, he took a $1 a year salary since his return in 96-97 and never got stock options since 2003),
The world lost a great asset with his passing.
This story is nothing more than Sculley using the value of Steve Jobs’ name to promote a new business venture.
i think so too.
this mea culpa is definitely a re-run… may be a residual hangover from his days at one infinite loop ?
He should be admitting that he regrets bending over and allowing Gates and his butt buddies to extract Apple Crown Jewels from his orifice. He was in charge and didn’t protect the very soul of then Max. Instead he allowed the evil duo steal a portion of the Mac Soul.
lol Mac not Max.
Iconic? Are we to have iconic people now?
yes, but they’re flat not skeuomorphic now.
An interesting bit of revisionist history.
First, neither Sculley nor the board ousted Jobs. Jobs was running his projects financially into the ground (as well as spending huge sums on idiotic things at Apple that were not directly part of his projects) and thus the board stripped him of those projects and any other power in the company. Jobs got pissed off and quit, selling all but one share of Apple stock. In reality Jobs had more power at Apple the day before he left than he did when he came back as an adviser to Amelio — and we all know how Jobs turned that position around.
During the late 80s and even 90/91 Sculley was hailed by virtually everyone as doing exactly what Apple needed. Apple was at its all time highest market share (across both Mac and Apple ][ lines) at over 19%. Apple had great sales figures and was, for a while, the darling of Wall Street.
Did Sculley do lots and lots of stupid things that eventually led to Apple’s Dark Days? Absolutely — not the least of which were
— caving in to Gates and licensing the source code to the Mac’s System Software to Microsoft (this was Sculley’s biggest mistake probably worse than all others combined)
— the eventual cacophony of dozens upon dozens of Mac models that virtually no one understood or could differentiate among them
— the release of the MessagePad with what was effectively a beta of its handwriting interpreting interface (which became a bigger media joke than even Apple’s Maps fiasco)
— strong support for Blue (System 7) and not realizing it should have been just a short, interim step to Pink.
— the extremely lukewarm support for Pink (which effectively killed it) (Apple had what was effectively an Alpha version of Pink running as far back as 1990).
— and many more…
However, Sculley did not oust Jobs. Jobs did that to himself. Jobs could have stayed and maybe the Dark Days would not have happened though that is extremely unlikely. It just was not in him back then. Jobs’ walk in the wilderness was necessary to create the Jobs that took over in 1997.
Odd how we remember it differently. I remember sitting in the audience of the FY89 worldwide sales meeting and John Sculley proclaimed this the worst year in Apple’s history. He said the same thing the next year, too.
You remember correctly. In 1989 combined personal computer sales were at 6%, giving them their lowest sales (in terms of market share) since 1978.
See: http://www.angelfire.com/planet/cuproject/marketshare.htm
Thanks for not being afraid to speak the truth. But it will probably get you scolded around here.
@Shadowshelf, I agree with everything you wrote, but want to make a minor correction:
During the late 80s and even 90/91 Sculley was hailed by virtually everyone as doing exactly what Apple needed. Apple was at its all time highest market share (across both Mac and Apple ][ lines) at over 19%.
Apple’s peak personal computer market share (compiled Mac/Apple II) was in 1984 at 22%. It went down from there until 1991:
1984-22%
1985-14%
1986-12%
1987-11%
1988-7%
1989-6%
1990-6%
1991-12%
1992-12%
Still, the point you made is entirely valid.
Apple would not be the company it is today if Sculley hadn’t pushed Jobs aside in 1985.
That action forced Jobs to found NeXT, which gave the opportunity design a brand-new — and far superior — operating system and developer tools from scratch, which is now the basis of every Mac, iPhone, and iPad. If Jobs had never left Apple, that would have never happened the way it did.
Jobs also learned a ton of valuable lessons, business acumen, etc, and Apple learned some lessons, too. Bringing the wiser Jobs back to the humbled Apple was key to the success that followed.
So, while Sculley was (and still is) rightfully cursed for essentially kicking Jobs out of the company he helped found, in the long run it turned out to be the best thing that could have ever happened to Jobs and Apple.
I’m certainly not giving Sculley *credit* for doing anything good. It seemed like a bad decision, and was done for poor reasons….it just worked out well in the long run.
As my mother would repeatedly tell us as kids: “Everything happens for a reason.” (Though when it comes to violent or perverted crimes, I have always struggled with this simplistic theory. In day to day issues, hindsight often validates it though.)
If Steve didn’t leave, there may not have been an OS X or Toy Story.
If Steve didn’t leave, there may not be an Apple today.
First, I’m a huge fan, and SJ will forever be on top of my hero’s list.
But fact is, SJ was a terrible manager during his youth. Back in the mid-80s, Apple sis not have pockets too deep to just burn money. And the cash cow was the Apple II.
SJ wanted to kill the Apple II altogether, and push the Mac.
The management team knew the Mac was the future, but they wanted a slow transition.
Back in the 80s, SJ had no problem burning through cash. Back in 1997, he was especially careful not to burn through cash.
In the 80, he was a visionary genius and a terrible manager. In 1997 he was a visionary genius and a razor-sharp manager.
So, hard fact is, back in the 80s, Steve could have run Apple to the ground. Maybe not, but it’s easy to judge in retrospective, without all the facts in hand.
I’m kind of worried about John Sculley apologizing over and over and over for forcing Jobs out of the Apple Board of Directors and all the other dirty doings behind Job’s back. It’s over. He’s apologized at least three times in public. Live, learn, move on, direct the interviewers to your previous interviews.
And seriously John: Do some reading about classic personality clashes. Marketing folks and production folks do NOT get along well with each other. Kind of inevitable. Too bad you and Jobs were too inexperienced to understand and compensate.
Meanwhile, good came of it: Jobs needed some personal growth of his own at the time. His adventures after resigning from Apple gave him exactly that. He returned to Apple a honed master of his field. He also brought with him the solution to the stagnant Mac OS problem.
(And, as ever newbies, note that Steve Jobs resigned from Apple. He was never fired. Whether he was ‘pushed out’, however, is a very reasonable question. The board made his resigning rather inevitable).
As quoted above in his Stanford commencement speech, Steve Jobs thought of himself as having been fired. The fine spectrum of hydrogen doesn’t change its incendiary characteristics any more than the precision of a verb changes the emotional charge of what happened.
I’ve been reading up again about the situation. It was classic relational personality HATES and DESTROYS productive personality. I’m not at all surprised that Jobs ‘felt’ fired. There was a variety of dirty stuff going on behind his back as well. I’ve watched and been part of these personality classes. Once a relational is out to get you for being a productive, they WANT you to feel like you’re being murdered. It’s damned scary and cruel.
This sounds like a more realistic statement:
“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a RELATIONAL PERSONALITY scorned.” – Distorted from ‘The Mourning Bride’ by William Congreve
What’s a ‘relational personality’? It’s a concept I learned from Dr. Tony Alessandra, himself a relational, who teaches about optimizing human interactions within business. The concept covers roughly a quarter of Jungian personalities.
http://www.alessandra.com/abouttony/aboutpr.asp
May our analytical personalities flame according to their own passions, and never clash over any disputed territory of thought 🙂
I’m only dangerous when i get tired out. Grumpy needs a nap, then he’s all happy and charming again. 😉
Meanwhile, I’ve never seen you flame, only glow. The glow gets occasionally blinding, but that means I’m getting a deeper tan.
So diplomatic of you to say I haven’t flamed! You conveniently averted your gaze on those occasions, I trust. 🙂
It’s so nice to have a smile at the end of a tough week. Much appreciated! Enjoy your holiday weekend, dear goddess.:-D
Well, if the guy who did it is calling it pushed out, then it was not that Steve really wanted to resign. It was one of those resign or we fire you eventually as soon as we can collect enough good ammo (or we make you so damn miserable if you stay that you will “fire yourself” in the next year anyway. That’s what they do where I work. Know people who’ve had it done to them. It’s the Politically Correct way to fire someone.
I always defer to what’s factual. There’s a physical resignation letter. There never was any firing.
But as Hannah and I were chatting about last week, we all live inside our heads, no matter what’s real outside.
Fact: Forced Resignation = Politically Correct Firing.
In someone’s head.
I have close relationship with co-workers who have had this very thing done to them. I’ve witnessed it used on many individuals among the very large employee base where I work. The other trick is, if you are near retirement, eliminate the job. Wait awhile, rewrite the specs a bit and repost it. You get rid of the long time employee with the big salary, hire someone else far cheaper. Third way I’ve watched is change their job description adding things you know they don’t do well, or promote them to a job they won’t do as well, setting them up for failure and and obtaining the legal excuse to get rid of them. Years ago we watched 3 different people we knew Mgmt didn’t want anymore “promoted” to a management position of a known failing division. Then when it keeps failing Mgmt strongly suggest the person retire or voluntarily step down so their resume is not marred with a firing. There are many tricks to get someone out without blatantly firing them.
I haven’t disagreed with any of this human behavior.
Neither am I ever going to agree with your apparent conclusion that human perception equals reality. That’s deceptive thinking we all have to solve for ourselves.
I don’t care if you don’t agree. Just stating the reality I’ve seen.
Proving my point that ‘reality’ is inside our heads. It’s our worst fault.
Yep. Whatever you say.
Thus my cynicism, finding it pointless to ‘argue with a crazy mind.’
OK, you can have the last word. Pretend I didn’t post this.
Mind, he hadn’t had his coffee 😉
Ramblings from a man who’s finally woken up to the crap he’s done because he’s facing near death.
What you sow you reap John, and at 75yrs old I certainly wouldn’t be wasting the. 5 years of my life left setting up some shitty cheap mobile phone company.
I would be doing they hinges I love.
I’m glad you shared your love of hinges with us. Thanks for sharing.
Autocorrect, creating forehead smacks everywhere.
This has obviously troubled Scully for quite some time, and this is not the first time he’s expressed regrets about his actions at the time. Not everyone can own up to their mistakes like that. It takes a mensch.
29 years later this occurs to the imbecile?
We know, Sculley, we know. Stop saying it, we know.