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2012-01-13 09:26:42
Apple's former chief executive John Sculley is perhaps best known as the man
who first mentored and then clashed with Steve Jobs, leading to the late
co-founder's exit from the firm in 1985.
Mr Sculley was ultimately forced out himself by Apple's board in 1993. Since
then he been an active investor and director in several tech companies
including Audax Health.
He attended this year's Consumer Electronics Show to promote the firm's
Careverge healthcare social network and its young chief executive who he now
advises.
"Because of his experience at Apple and Pepsi he has been able to help me as a
founding CEO... he has been fundamentally critical to changing the business and
we've built a fantastic relationship as a result of it," Audax's founder Grant
Verstandig says.
According to Steve Jobs' biographer, Walter Isaacson, Mr Sculley and Mr Jobs'
relationship also started off well.
But as the book makes clear neither man emerged untarnished from their
subsequent falling out - something the BBC put to Mr Sculley.
You haven't read the biography - but you have discussed it with people who
have. Some people have said neither you nor Mr Jobs come out particularly well
from the book - do you have concerns about it?
Start Quote
When the Macintosh Office was introduced in 1985 and failed Steve went into a
very deep funk. He was depressed
I haven't really thought about it too much because I know what went on back in
the 1980s because I was there.
It's ironic that neither Steve Jobs nor I have read the book but I've seen
interviews that Walter Isaacson has given and they seem to be very credible.
I think he captured Steve in the really good greatness of him, and from what
I've heard from people who have read the book Walter Isaacson cleared up some
of the myths - that I never really did fire Steve Jobs and that Apple was
actually a very profitable company.
When I left Apple it had $2bn ( 1.3bn) of cash.
It was the most profitable computer company in the world - not just personal
computers - and Apple was the number one selling computer. So the myth that I
fired Steve wasn't true and the myth that I destroyed Apple, that wasn't true
either.
A lot of things happened after I left before Steve came back.
From reading the book there is a sense that when Steve Jobs spoke to you he
would say everything you wanted to hear, but then behind your back he was
highly critical of you. To what extent was he difficult to manage?
I think Steve and I had a terrific relationship when things were going well. He
was really interested in consumer marketing because he believed that the future
of the personal computing industry was about marketing computers the way we
marketed big brand consumer products - Pepsi and Coke.
Steve Jobs and John Sculley unveil the Macintosh in 1984. Mr Jobs (left) had
wanted to lower the price for the Macintosh - Mr Sculley disagreed
I was brought to Apple not because I knew anything about computers - building
them - but because the company had to keep the Apple II commercially alive, it
was near end of life, for three more years to generate enough cash so that
Steve could build the Macintosh and have time to do that and launch the Mac
successfully.
So during that time Steve and I got along great.
When the Macintosh Office was introduced in 1985 and failed Steve went into a
very deep funk. He was depressed, and he and I had a major disagreement where
he wanted to cut the price of the Macintosh and I wanted to focus on the Apple
II because we were a public company.
We had to have the profits of the Apple II and we couldn't afford to cut the
price of the Macintosh because we needed the profits from the Apple II to show
our earnings - not just to cover the Mac's problems.
That's what led to the disagreement and the showdown between me and Steve and
eventually the board investigated it and agreed that my position was the one
they wanted to support.
Ironically it was all about Moore's law and it wasn't about Steve and me.
Computers just weren't powerful enough in 1985 to do the very rigorous graphics
that you had to be able to do for laser printing, and ironically it was only 18
months later when computers were powerful enough that we renamed the Mac
Office, Desktop Publishing and it became wildly successful.
It wasn't my idea, it was all Steve's stuff, but he was just a year and a half
too early.
Walking around CES it's apparent that smartphones and tablets are everywhere.
You pioneered Apple's Newton handheld which was later killed off by Mr Jobs
after his return. What do make if that decision now?
Start Quote
Healthcare has been the last major industry that hasn't been touched by
technology in terms of productivity and consumer adoption in the way so many
other industries have
Well the facts are that we had to create a new microprocessor for the Newton as
there was no low-powered microprocessor that could handle object orientated
programming.
So when we were creating Newton we also co-founded a company called Arm.
Apple owned 47% of it, Olivetti owned 47% and the founder Hermann Hauser owned
the rest.
Arm not only was the key technology behind the Newton but it eventually became
the key technology behind every mobile device in the world today including the
iPhone and the iPad.
The Newton was clearly much too ambitious just like Steve's Macintosh Office
was a year and a half too early.
Newton was probably 15 years too early. I'm not a technologist. I didn't have
the experience to make that judgment but we were I think right on many of the
concepts.
The product clearly failed in terms of taking on such an ambitious goal. I
think in hindsight there is a lot of good legacy there with the Newton.
Even if the product itself never survived the technology did.
Despite your problems in Apple you have remained active in the tech sector. Why
do you remain so attached to it?
I never claimed to be a computer engineer, but I did train as an industrial
designer and I am a consumer marketer and I am very comfortable dealing with
complex businesses and complexity in general and simplifying it - basically a
systems designer.
So what intrigues me about the businesses that I have invested in over the
years is always about there has to be a better way of doing something and using
technology as the game changer.
Steve Jobs presents the iPad Mr Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, and remained
there until his death in 2011.
The area I am particularly excited about now is healthcare. Healthcare has been
the last major industry that hasn't been touched by technology in terms of
productivity and consumer adoption in the way so many other industries have.
While I'm not bringing any technology experience to the healthcare industry, I
do see some similarities between what I was asked to do when I came to Apple,
which was to bring big brand consumer marketing to Apple and carry it over to
the whole Silicon Valley industry - because everybody does that today - well
that same opportunity exists today in healthcare.
Health innnovation enabled by digital technologies to build big consumer
service brands, is an incredibly interesting complex problem to work on.
Audax is really the first social health company and it's focused on consumer
engagement in the healthcare space bringing in a lot of the social media
technologies and experiences that have been learned from companies like
Facebook and Zynga and others.
When I started working with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates they were 27 years old.
Grant Verstandig, the founder and CEO of Audax health solutions, is 23 year
old. And it couldn't be done by somebody my age. It has to be someone who has
grown up and understands and whose brain is wired differently to mine.
How much have you invested in this project?
I can say it's over $1m, so I look at this as a significant investment and I am
actively involved as an advisor. In my experience there is a very thin line
between success and the failure of almost any company. So what a mentor can do
is to be an advisor and help the CEO have higher odds of being on the success
side of the line than the failure.
John Sculley and Grant Verstandig Mr Sculley has now turned his attention to
working with new companies and entrepreneurs
Apple is not at CES. But many of the keynotes have centred around the launch of
new Smart TVs and the innovations behind them. Do you have any thoughts about
how Apple should fit into this sector?
I remember that Walter Isaacson said that Steve told him before he died that he
had figured the problem out of how to do a great TV experience.
I think that Apple has revolutionised every other consumer industry, why not
television?
I think that televisions are unnecessarily complex. The irony is that as the
pictures get better and the choice of content gets broader, that the complexity
of the experience of using the television gets more and more complicated.
So it seems exactly the sort of problem that if anyone is going to change the
experience of what the first principles are, it is going to be Apple.