Bloomberg Businessweek: Being Steve Jobs' Boss

A very interesting article by Bloomberg Businessweek, Being Steve Jobs' Boss. Interview with John Sculley. If you like Apple story, you shouldn't miss it.

John Sculley was hired by Apple board as the CEO to assist Steve Jobs back in 1980s. Steve Jobs was ousted by Sculley in a power struggle in the company. Apple's revenue was increase from 800 million to 8 billion in 10 years time with Sculley. This could be the best 10 years of Apple (at that time) and the worst 10 years of Apple, because Apple can not compete with the strong Microsoft-Intel alliance, and go all the way down hills and almost close shop till they bring back Steve Jobs.

Is true that Apple almost close down at mid 1990s. That's the classic Michael Dell comment on Apple:

"I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

Michael Dell is not wrong, if he is the CEO of Apple, that could be the best decision that he can do. Not for Steve Jobs, is just the right people, making the right decision at the right time. Steve Jobs was name the best CEO of the decade by Fortune (and not Michael Dell).

Sculley didn't bring back Jobs to Apple, Gil Amelio does. Gil Amelio was ousted by Apple board for the continuous low share price and performance, but Amelio did do one thing right, which bring back Jobs, choose NeXT system in favor of Be system as next operating system for Mac machines, "choose Plan A instead of Plan Be".

The rest of the story is what is happening now, Mac OS X and iOS (iPhone OS) was based on NeXT's technology.