In 1985, Apple made a decision that now seems unthinkable: firing Steve Jobs. The genius behind the Macintosh was dismissed by the board of directors of his own company. Decades later, John Sculley, who was CEO at the time and a personal friend of Jobs until that point, explains the reasons that led to that outcome.
When Apple fired Steve Jobs: John Sculley tells us the story
The relationship between Steve Jobs and John Sculley began with mutual admiration. Jobs was, in many ways, ahead of his time, but he lacked business experience. Sculley, on the other hand, admits that he did not have Jobs’ vision, but he did have the executive experience gained during his time at Pepsi. Both shared the goal of turning Apple into the leading company in the industry; however, a single point of disagreement led to one of the most famous dismissals in Silicon Valley.
At that time, the Macintosh—the future of Apple, into which Jobs had poured all his time and knowledge—was poorly received, even described as a “toy” for lacking sufficient power. Because of this, Jobs insisted on lowering its retail price and diverting much of the advertising budget from the Apple II, which had been highly profitable, to promote the Macintosh instead.
Sculley believed that would make no difference and that the Macintosh’s limited success was due neither to its price nor to its marketing. He also warned that doing so could expose the company to a significant financial loss.
That was their point of disagreement. The solution? Both appeared before Apple’s board of directors to present their respective arguments and proposed courses of action. As a result, Apple’s vice president and third co-founder, Mike Mara, examined the matter with executives and engineers for several days and eventually reported to the board that his assessment aligned with John Sculley’s view, not with Steve Jobs’s.
For that reason, the board asked Jobs to step down from his role as head of the Macintosh division. He was not fired; he remained chairman and the largest shareholder. However, Jobs—with his strong character and unyielding vision—did not take the decision lightly, which ultimately led to his complete departure from Apple.
At a Forbes conference in 2013, John Sculley himself, Apple’s CEO at the time, recounted firsthand how the decision was made. Although the story was already well known, until that conference it had never been told in such a direct and personal way. Here we can see the eight-minute video in which he tells it.
Sculley explains that the decision was extremely difficult and painful, especially as he now understands that their clash stemmed from two very different approaches: his own, from the perspective of an executive who must report to a board and avoid mistakes that could harm the company; and Steve’s, from that of an artist and visionary who passionately believed in what he was doing and knew he was about to change the world.
Nine years later, in 1996, Apple bought NeXT, a new company Jobs had founded after leaving Apple. That’s how he returned as a complete CEO—a visionary and an experienced executive at the same time (to the point that he even advised the CEO of Starbucks). From then on, Apple’s success changed radically. His return marked the beginning of the era of innovation we know and enjoy today.
On Hanaringo | Charging our iPhones is about to get much greener: Apple announces new renewable energy projects in Europe