
John Sculley: The Secrets of Steve Jobs’ Success - samiq
http://www.cultofmac.com/john-sculley-the-secrets-of-steve-jobs-success-exclusive-interview/21572
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dandrews
" _... we had to learn to make products the way the Japanese wanted products.
We were assembling products in Singapore and sending them to Japan. And the
first thing the customer saw when they opened the box was the manual, but the
manual was turned the wrong way around – and the whole batch was rejected. In
the United States, we’d never experienced anything like that._ "

My employer learned a similar lesson years ago, securing a fat citrus contract
in the process. Before the Japanese buyers arrived to inspect our packing
facility, management insisted that every crate on the floor be opened, and the
top tier of oranges all turned stems-up. (The packers thought that management
had lost its mind. Who cares about presentation of a crate of oranges?) But
when the buyers arrived they selected a random box for inspection, saw the
fruit arrayed neatly, and nodded their approval.

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devmonk
(argh! somehow this comment got posted into the wrong thread originally:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1790564> )

Sculley seems to be saying the following about Jobs:

\- Straddles the line of micromanagement vs. personal communication with
workers. (Interested in every detail of the process.)

\- Acknowledged all workers (memorized first names of Mac team).

\- Directly communicated with all workers. Example was telling developer that
their code isn't good enough.

\- Is a perfectionist.

\- Kept teams small (Mac team limited to 100) and fired people if needed new
talent on the team to keep team to that size (enforced accountability).

\- Hired well.

\- Focused on simplification.

\- Got rid of the bad.

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kogus
This raises my opinion of John Sculley more than it does of Jobs. Considering
the obvious conflicts he's had with Jobs in the past, plus the fact that Jobs
basically succeeded where he failed, this is a very gracious and (apparently)
honest appraisal of his former rival's abilities.

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TomOfTTB
I agree that Sculley is a class act but I think your history is a little off.

First, Sculley and Jobs were never really rivals and while Sculley did force
Jobs out of Apple it was only after literally begging him to make changes (at
the time the Mac was failing and just about every Apple manager was being
driven crazy by Jobs). Sculley tried to bring Jobs in-line and Jobs tried to
turn everyone against Sculley. At least that’s the story I’ve read from
several accounts (some of which actually depict Jobs drawing an imaginary line
on the floor and saying “you’re with me or you’re with him”).

Also Sculley’s run wasn’t really a failure at Apple. Even Jobs admits the
original 1984 ad was more Sculley than anyone else (Sculley’s claim to fame
before that was creating the “Pepsi Challenge” marketing push). After Jobs
left Sculley put Jean Louise-Gassee in charge of the Mac and that’s when it
really took off. Sculley’s rein did have some lows but he always managed to
pull it back out (and in fact was in the middle of a plan to do so again when
the board fired him). I don’t dispute the fact that Jobs is MORE successful
than Sculley was but Sculley wasn’t a failure. Apple really entered a death
spiral during Spindler’s rein.

~~~
stinkytaco
I don't think Apple would be successful today without both of them in their
past. Jobs' inability to be satisfied could have killed the company but
Sculley's ability to build revenue gave Jobs the cash to build a small number
of great products and have a few fail when he came back. In the hardware
industry being a visionary is easier with a lot of cash on hand.

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chegra
I think Steve founded a hack in telling people it is not good enough.

It's highly unlikely that these guys were giving him crappy work. I think they
were giving him good industry standard work, but given the type of people he
selected he knew they have better stuff to give. So, he probably pre-decided
that whatever was shown to him was not good enough.

It really depends on the people you hire. For some, they might get depress and
want to quit[encouragement might work better for them], but for others they
would take it as a challenge to do better.

Even if he thought it was brilliant on first go, I suspect he would say redo
it because he figured the person could do a better job[he probably wouldn't do
it all time less people caught on].

~~~
wildwood
Kissinger do this, too, apparently.

[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-15/l...](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-15/lord1.html)
\- scroll down to the last paragraph on the page.

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Tycho
Steve Jobs isn't just a CEO, he's the _mentat_ CEO:

 _Above all else, the mentat must be a generalist, not a specialist. It is
wise to have decisions of great moment monitored by generalists. Experts and
specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit-
picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma. The mentat-generalist, on the
other hand, should bring to decision-making a healthy common sense. He must
not cut himself off from the broad sweep of what is happening in his universe.
He must remain capable of saying: "There's no real mystery about this at the
moment. This is what we want now. It may prove wrong later, but we'll correct
that when we come to it." The mentat-generalist must understand that anything
which we can identify as our universe is merely a part of larger phenomena.
But the expert looks backward; he looks into the narrow standards of his own
specialty. The generalist looks outward; he looks for living principles,
knowing full well that such principles change, that they develop. It is to the
characteristics of change itself that the mentat-generalist must look. There
can be no permanent catalogue of such change, no handbook or manual. You must
look at it with as few preconceptions as possible, asking yourself: "Now what
is this thing doing?"_ \- The Mentat Handbook (Frank Herbert)

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aycangulez
Great insight: "The thing that separated Steve Jobs from other people like
Bill Gates - Bill was brilliant too - but Bill was never interested in great
taste. He was always interested in being able to dominate a market. He would
put out whatever he had to put out there to own that space. Steve would never
do that. Steve believed in perfection.”

~~~
TetOn
What has always interested me in this vein is the intersection between Jobs'
own "Real artists _ship_ " and his obvious and well documented details-
oriented perfectionism. It seems to me the real power of Jobs intellect is in
that ability to know that the product has reached some critical mass of good
enough to ship (and improve later).

~~~
Tycho
I think what sets Apple apart is an unshakable belief in the quality of their
own products. While Blackberry etc. release a whole armada of smartphones, as
if to say 'we hope variety can make up for a lack of quality,' Apple typically
release one model with some minor variation, as if to say 'we tried to make
the best, and we know we have, so here it is. There's no point in releasing
anything else.'

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devmonk
Full transcript: [http://www.cultofmac.com/john-sculley-on-steve-jobs-the-
full...](http://www.cultofmac.com/john-sculley-on-steve-jobs-the-full-
interview-transcript/63295)

Provided in: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1792349>

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j_baker
It's amazing to see how some of these have been accepted as conventional
wisdom in startups while others seem to be completely rejected by startups.

In particular, the whole perfectionism thing seems to be pretty much rejected.
Most startups would say that it's better just to get something launched. I'm
definitely not saying that's wrong. Just saying that it's interesting to hear
another point of view.

~~~
Nate75Sanders
An important distinction, though, is that with software, particularly server-
side software, it's fine to get it wrong several times, as you can fix it
quickly and all in one place.

The difficulty increases as you move to desktop software and it increases a
LOT more as you move to hardware, obviously.

~~~
deadmansshoes
i-tunes seemingly has to have a new update and install every time I open it,
so I'd question how much "perfection" goes into the releases of Appl software.

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herdrick
I get the impression that this is heavily influenced by everyone else's
analysis of Steve Jobs. Disappointing but not surprising.

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bearwithclaws
Perfectionism was mentioned at least three times (3. Perfectionism, 7. Sweat
the details, 10. Perfection). That says a lot about Steve Jobs. I'm still
amazed how the 'death grip' slipped through.

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8ren
An interesting perspective, esp actually studying Italian cars.

BTW: Edison also worked in terms of systems (electric power + grid + lights),
as did Mr. Birdseye (refrigerated supermarkets + trucks + frozen food). Yah,
that was his actual name: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Birdseye>

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dmak
I loved the entirety of this article. It felt really genuine like I was being
told a story by my grandpa. I cannot explain it, but this article is worth
being reminded of in my future.

