John Sculley Says It Was A 'Big Mistake' That Apple Made Him CEO

John Sculley was hired as CEO of Apple in 1983 causing a power struggle between him and founder Steve Jobs that eventually led to Jobs being ousted from the company.

CultofMac has published an interview with the former CEO in which he states that it was a big mistake for Apple to have ever hired him.

Looking back, it was a big mistake that I was ever hired as CEO. I was not the first choice that Steve wanted to be the CEO. He was the first choice, but the board wasn’t prepared to make him CEO when he was 25, 26 years old.

They exhausted all of the obvious high-tech candidates to be CEO… Ultimately, David Rockefeller, who was a shareholder in Apple, said let’s try a different industry and let’s go to the top head hunter in the United States who isn’t in high tech: Jerry Roach.

They went and recruited me. I came in not knowing anything about computers. The idea was that Steve and I were going to work as partners. He would be the technical person and I would be the marketing person.

The reason why I said it was a mistake to have hired me as CEO was Steve always wanted to be CEO. It would have been much more honest if the board had said, "Let's figure out a way for him to be CEO. You could focus on the stuff that you bring and he focuses on the stuff he brings."

Check out the transcript of the extensive interview which covers numerous interesting topics at the link below...


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