Apple picker Apple Inc. was founded in 1976, then as Apple Computer. Over the course of 37 years, seven men took turns at its head, from Michael Scott to Tim Cook. The most prominent name is undoubtedly Steve Jobs, two years have passed since his departure to the eternal hunting ground just today...
1977–1981: Michael "Scotty" Scott
Since neither Steve-founder (Jobs nor Wozniak) had the age or experience to build a real company, the first big investor Mike Markkula convinced the director of production at National Semiconductors (a company now belonging to Texas Instruments) Michael Scott to take on this role .
He took up the position conscientiously when, immediately after his arrival, he banned the use of typewriters in the entire company, so that the company would set an example in the early days of the promotion of personal computers. During his reign, the legendary Apple II, the forefather of all personal computers as we know them today, began to be produced.
However, he did not end his tenure at Apple very happily when he personally fired 1981 Apple employees in 40, including half of the team working on the Apple II. He defended this move by their redundancy in society. At the following staff meeting over beer, he declared:
I've said that when I'm tired of being Apple's CEO, I'll step down. But I've changed my mind - when I stop having fun, I'll fire people until it's fun again.
For this statement, he was relegated to the position of vice president, in which he had virtually no power. Scott officially retired from the company on July 10, 1981.
Between 1983 and 1988 he ran the private company Starstruck. She was trying to build a sea-launched rocket that could put satellites into orbit.
Colored gems became Scott's hobby. He became an expert on the subject, wrote a book about them, and assembled a collection that was exhibited at the Bowers Museum in Santa Anna. He supported the Rruff project, aimed at creating a complete set of spectral data from characteristic minerals. In 2012, a mineral - scottyite - was named after him.
1981–1983: Armas Clifford "Mike" Markkula Jr.
Employee number 3 - Mike Markkula decided to lend Apple in 1976 the money he had earned in stocks as a marketing manager for Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel.
With the departure of Scott, Markkula's new worries began - where to get the next executive director? He himself knew that he did not want this position. He remained in this position temporarily, but in 1982 he received a knife to the throat from his wife: "Find a replacement for yourself immediately.” With Jobs, suspecting that he was still not ready for the role of CEO, they turned to Gerry Roche, a "smart head" hunter. He brought in a new CEO, whom Jobs was at first enthusiastic about, but later hated.
Markkula is replaced after 1997 years as chairman of the board after Jobs' return in 12 and leaves Apple. His subsequent career continues with the founding of Echelon Corporation, ACM Aviation, San Jose Jet Center and Rana Creek Habitat Restoration. Invests in Crowd Technologies and RunRev.
He also founded the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, where he is currently the director.
1983–1993: John Sculley
"Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling fresh water, or do you want to change the world?" That was the sentence that finally convinced the head of PepsiCo to switch to Apple and Jobs. They were both excited about each other. Jobs played on emotions: “I really think you are the one for us, I want you to come with me and work for us. I can learn so much from you.” And Sculley was flattered: “I got the feeling that I could be a teacher to an excellent student. I saw him in the mirror of my imagination as myself when I was young. I too was impatient, stubborn, arrogant and impulsive. My mind exploded with thoughts, often at the expense of everything else. And I was not tolerant of those who failed to meet my demands.”
The first major crisis in their collaboration came with the launch of the Macintosh. The computer was originally supposed to be really cheap, but then its price climbed to 1995 dollars, which was the ceiling for Jobs. But Sculley decided to raise the price to $2495. Jobs could fight all he wanted, but the increased price remained the same. And he never came to terms with that. The next big fight between Sculley and Jobs was over a Macintosh ad (1984 ad), which Jobs eventually won and had his ad run at a football game. After the launch of the Macintosh, Jobs gained more and more power both in the company and over Sculley. Sculley believed in their friendship, and Jobs, who perhaps believed in that friendship as well, manipulated him with flattery.
With the decline in Macintosh sales came the decline of Jobs. In 1985, the crisis between him and Sculley came to a head, and Jobs was removed from the leadership position of the Macintosh division. This, of course, was a blow to him, which he perceived as a betrayal on Sculley's part. Another, this time the definitive blow, came when in May 1985 Sculley informed him that he was removing him from the position of chairman of Apple. So Sculley took Jobs's company away.
Under Sculley's baton, Apple developed the PowerBook and System 7, which was the predecessor of the Mac OS. MacAddict magazine even referred to the years 1989–1991 as "the first golden years of the Macintosh". Among other things, Sculley coined the acronym PDA (Personal digital assistant); Apple called the Newton the first PDA that was ahead of its time. He left Apple in the second half of 1993 after introducing a very expensive and unsuccessful innovation - an operating system running on a new microprocessor, the PowerPC. In retrospect, Jobs said that being fired from Apple was the best thing that could have happened to him. So the fresh water seller was not a bad choice after all. Michael Spindler replaced him in the management of Apple after his departure.
1993–1996: Michael Spindler
Michael Spindler came to Apple from the European division of Intel in 1980 and through various positions (for example, the president of Apple Europe) he got to the position of executive director after John Sculley. He was called "Diesel" - he was tall and lasted a long time working. Mike Markkula, whom he knew from Intel, said of him that he is one of the smartest people she knows. It was at Markkula's instigation that Spindler later joined Apple and represented it in Europe.
His biggest success at the time was the KanjiTalk software, which made it possible to write Japanese characters. This started the rocket sales of Macs in Japan.
He enjoyed the European division, even though it was a startup he had never worked for before. For example, one of the problems was payments - Spindler didn't get paid for almost six months because Apple didn't know how to move the funds from Canada to Belgium, where the European headquarters were. He became the head of Europe during the reorganization at Apple (by that time Jobs was already gone). It was a strange choice because Spindler was a great strategist but a bad manager. This did not affect his relations with Sculley, they continued to be excellent. Gaseé (Macintosh division) and Loren (head of Apple USA) also competed with him for the future position of executive director at Apple. But both foundered due to problems with margins on the new Macs.
Spindler enjoyed his moment of fame with the launch of the Power Macintosh line of computers in 1994, but his support for the idea of cloning the Macintosh proved counterproductive for Apple.
As CEO, Spindler carried out a large number of reorganizations at Apple. He laid off about 2500 employees, nearly 15 percent of the workforce, and completely overhauled the company. The only thing left of the old Apple was Applesoft, the team responsible for developing the operating system. He also decided that Apple should only operate in a few key markets and not venture anywhere else. Above all, he wanted to keep SoHo - education and home. But the reorganization did not bear fruit. The layoffs caused a quarterly loss of about $10 million, and the phasing out of employee benefits (paid fitness and canteen that were originally free) caused employee morale to decline. The software developers programmed a "bomb" called "Spindler's List" that displayed a list of people who had been fired on a computer screen to all employees across the company. Although it managed to increase its overall market share over time, in 1996 Apple was at the bottom again with only 4 percent of the market. Spindler began negotiating with Sun, IBM, and Phillips to buy Apple, but to no avail. That was the last straw for the company's board - Spindler was dismissed and replaced by Gil Amelio.
1996–1997: Gil Amelio
You see, Apple is like a ship that is loaded with treasure but has a hole in it. And my job is to keep everyone rowing in the same direction.
Gil Amelio, who joined Apple from National Semiconductor, was arguably the shortest-serving Apple CEO in the company's history. Since 1994, however, he has been a member of the board of directors at Apple. But his career at the apple company was not very successful. The company lost a total of one billion dollars and the value of the shares fell by 80 percent. One share was selling for just $14. In addition to financial difficulties, Amelio also had to deal with other problems – low-quality products, bad company culture, basically a non-functional operating system. That's a lot of trouble for the company's new boss. Amelio tried to solve the situation in every possible way, including selling Apple or buying another company that would save Apple. Amelia's work is closely connected with the person who reappeared on the scene at this time and also ultimately blamed for his removal from the position of the company's head - with Steve Jobs.
Jobs understandably wanted to get back to his company and saw Amelia as the ideal figure to help him on his way back. So he gradually became the person with whom Amelio consulted every step, thus getting closer to his goal. The next step, a rather significant step, in his efforts took place when Apple bought Jobs' NeXT at the behest of Amelia. Jobs, reluctant at first glance, became an "independent consultant". At that time, he still claimed that he was definitely not going to lead Apple. Well, at least that's what he officially claimed. On 4/7/1997, Amelio's tenure at Apple ended definitively. Jobs convinced the board to fire him. He did manage to throw a weight in the form of a Newton from the treasure ship, which had a hole, but Captain Jobs was actually already at the helm.
1997–2011 : Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs didn't graduate from Reed and is one of the founders of Apple Inc., which was born in a Silicon Valley garage in 1976. Computers were Apple's flagship (and only ship). Steve Wozniak and his team knew how to make them, Steve Jobs knew how to sell them. His star was rising fast, but he was fired from his company after the failure of the Macintosh computer. In 1985, he founded a new company, NeXT Computer, which was bought by Apple in 1997, which needed, among other things, a new operating system. NeXT's NeXTSTEP thus became the basis and inspiration for the later Mac OS X. A year after the founding of NeXT, Jobs bought the majority of shares in the film studio Pixar, which produced animated films for Disney. Jobs loved the job, but in the end he preferred Apple. In 2006, Disney eventually bought Pixar, and Jobs became a shareholder and member of Disney's board of directors.
Even before Steve Jobs took the helm of Apple in 1997, albeit as "interim CEO," the company's chief financial officer, Fred D. Anderson, served as CEO. Jobs acted as an advisor to Anderson and others, continuing to change the company in his own image. Officially, he was supposed to be an advisor for three months until Apple found a new CEO. Over time, Jobs forced out all but two of the board members—Ed Woolard, whom he truly respected, and Gareth Chang, who was a zero in his eyes. With this move, he gained a seat on the board of directors and began to devote himself fully to Apple.
Jobs was a disgusting stickler, a perfectionist and a weirdo in his own way. He was tough and uncompromising, often being mean to his employees and humiliating them. But he had a sense for detail, for colors, for composition, for style. He was enthusiastic, he loved his job, he was obsessed with making everything as perfect as possible. Under his command, the legendary iPod, iPhone, iPad, and a series of MacBook portable computers were created. He was able to captivate people, both with his better personality and – above all – with his products. Thanks to him, Apple shot to the top, where it remains to this day. Although it is an expensive brand, it is represented by perfection, fine-tuned details and great user-friendliness. And customers are happy to pay for all this. One of Jobs' many mottos was "Think different". Apple and its products can be seen to follow this motto even after Jobs left. He stepped down as CEO in 2011 due to health issues. He died of pancreatic cancer on October 5, 10.
2011–present: Tim Cook
Timothy "Tim" Cook is the person whom Jobs chose as his successor even before his final resignation in 2011. Cook joined Apple in 1998, at that time he worked for Compaq Computers. Previously also for IBM and Intelligent Electronics. He started at Apple as senior vice president of worldwide operations. In 2007, he was promoted to Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the company. From this time until Jobs' departure in 2011, Cook regularly filled in for him while Jobs was recovering from one of his surgeries.
Tim Cook came from orders, which was exactly the training we needed. I realized that we look at things the same way. I visited a lot of just-in-time factories in Japan and built one myself for the Mac and for the NeXT. I knew what I wanted and then I met Tim and he wanted the same thing. So we started working together and it wasn't long before I was convinced that he knew exactly what to do. He had the same vision as me, we could interact at a high strategic level, I could forget a lot of things, but he complemented me. (Jobs on Cook)
Unlike Jobs, the current CEO is calm and doesn't show much of his emotions. He's definitely not the spontaneous Jobs, but as you can see in the quote, they share the same view of the business world and want the same things. That's probably why Jobs put Apple in the hands of Cook, whom he saw as someone who would carry on his visions, although he might do it differently. For example, Jobs' obsession with all things thin remained characteristic of Apple even after his departure. As Cook himself said: "He was always convinced that what is thin is beautiful. It can be seen in all his work. We have the thinnest laptop, the thinnest smartphone, and we're making the iPad thin and thinner.” It is hard to say how satisfied Steve Jobs would be with the state of his company and the products he creates. But his main motto "Think different" is still alive at Apple and it looks like it will be for a long time. Therefore, it can perhaps be said that Tim Cook, whom Jobs chose, was the best choice.
Nice article, thanks for it. I just don't understand the sentence: "Under Sculley, Apple developed the PowerBook and System 7, which was the predecessor of the Mac OS.".
I look at all eight of my Macintosh Classic's original installation disks, and they all have both the Mac OS logo and that "seven" in the black rectangle. You probably meant the predecessor of OS-X, because even "eight" and "nine" were referred to as Mac OS.
... just an addition, I don't eat eights and nines... but even OS X was driven by MacOS X, just look at Leopard or Panther... OS X itself appeared I think with SnowLeopard....
I think that since Mountain Lion, "OS X" was instead of "Mac OS X".
But back then it was really just called System 7. Then I think it was System 7.5. I remember it quite well from those diskettes, etc., because I was slightly confused by the later name change. The Mac OS designation started to be used around Mac OS 8. By the way, try putting "About This Macintosh" on your Classic :-)