Sugar Water

CityVP Manjit

7 years ago · 4 min. reading time · ~100 ·

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Sugar Water

"What can I say, I hired the wrong guy" . . .
 I am massive believer in "Founder Values" and when these values are lost or belief is placed somewhere other than vision that is led by a thinker larger than it, mediocrity will follow. "Sugar water" is a reference to John Sculley who led Pepsi-Co and who Steve Jobs believed will have the executive managerial chops to run Apple. Jobs mistake in appointing Sculley was his trust that Sculley offered something he could not and the reason Steve Jobs never forgave Sculley is because his trust was betrayed. In other words the sugar water of John Sculley was the personal brand of Sculley and the reality of Sculley was "sugar water". He should have remained doing what he was good at in the corporate world of Pepsi, rather than pretend to know the world of Apple. That Steve Jobs was able to reclaim his lost baby and what happened after he saved Apple from inches from going out of business is the stuff of legend. Jobs never made up with Sculley because he took away what he had founded - a betrayal. Some writers say that Steve Jobs faced with such adversity and loss of the company he founded, that the shock was good for him - and when Jobs connected the dots backwards at his Stanford commencement speech he did have an awakening. The question remains once we know the Steve Jobs story, do we learn from it or do we wait for our own awakening? <figure class="image"></figure><picture><source sizes="(max-width: 767px) 250px, 950px" srcset="https://contents.bebee.com/users/id/12027761/article/sugar-water/_768dfe87-950.webp 950w, https://contents.bebee.com/users/id/12027761/article/sugar-water/_768dfe87-587.webp 587w" type="image/webp"><img class="img-fluid" loading="lazy" src="https://contents.bebee.com/users/id/12027761/article/sugar-water/768dfe87.png" alt="“HERE STOTHECRAZY ONES THE MISFITS. THE REBELS. THE TROUBLE MAKERS THE ROUND HEADS IN THE SQUARE HOLES THE ONES WHO SEE THINGS DIFFERENTLY THEYRE NOT FOND WEY HAVE WO RESPECT FOR THE STATUS QUO YOU CAN QUOTE THEM, DISAGREE WITH THEM GLORIFY OR VILIFY THEM THE ONLY THING YOU CAN'T DO IS IGNORE THEM BECAUSE THEY CHANGE THINGS THEY PUSH THE HUMAN RACE FORWARD & WHILE SOME MAY SEE THEM AS THE CRAZY ONES WE SEE GENIUS BECAUSE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE CRAZY ENOUGH TO THINK THEY CAN CHANGE THE WORLD ARE THE ONES WHO DO.” JACK KEROUAC"></source></picture>And yes - again the mistake in the quote above is that it was NOT written by Jack Keroauc - but then only the Crazy Ones care about that level of detail - the rest can keep drinking their sugar water personal branding ...... ""

#Steve #Apple #Crazy Ones #Zuckerberg #Sculley

Comments

#16
This Indian magazine called DNA did a nice piece on that What Steve Jobs did when he was fired from Apple by Vivek Kaul http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report-what-steve-jobs-did-when-he-was-fired-from-apple-1254757 Sculley was a corporate guy, Jobs is an entrepreneur that would die in a corporate machine, and this is a volatile mix, the blessing for Jobs was not that he got fired, that was merely bad medicine - the blessing was that he felt so ashamed he tried to apologize to David Packard, and it is Packard who mentored him during his dark days. The blessing was he got to work with creative folk at Pixar and that Apple had started working with the NeXT computer project - a project which Jobs cancelled as soon as returned to Apple and actually saved the company - they were just weeks from going out of business by the time Jobs saved them. I give credit to Jobs for transforming and growing as an entrepreneur but Sculley's role is best mythic, just as we learn more if we go read Shakespeare about the human condition. Those lessons that Steve Jobs learned the hard way other entrepreneurs can learn the hard way also. The Sculley story serves as a WARNING to founders who limit their own companies by hiring a CEO who has limitations. If this warning is not heeding, it would be a shame for any other entrepreneur to repeat the same mistake. Jobs had no reference point when he made the mistake of hiring John Sculley and he never forgave or reconciled with Sculley, and said openly that he made a big mistake in hiring him. This is the most important and critical lesson that comes from hiring a Sugar Water CEO.

CityVP Manjit

7 years ago #6

#14
It is true that Jobs had to leave and that the competencies he learned at NeXT and Pixar were critical, as was the mentoring he received from people like David Packard, and Packard was no angel either but he instilled him a business sense that was missing on his first time around at Apple, and Jobs did listen to charlatans in his first time at Apple, even breaking trust with Steve Woznaik who did have an honour code. These are interesting lessons in trust. Sculley had the keys to the magic kingdom and the interesting thing is Jobs recognized he had made a huge hiring error. It is an error which was one of his last messages to his board, as he was creating the Apple University that getting the right leaders on board was absolute key. Sculley helped him to recognize B-Players the second time around or what he called Bozo Leadership and that led to his No-Bozo rule. Google did not make that mistake in hiring Schmidt. For sure Jobs was difficult and challenging but we absolutely swallow the mythologies of Jobs, but they are stories that make us think - and if this lens we put on him does not serve us to think, then we are merely practicing idolatry. None of us actually know this guy, but it is a fascinating story for our own tiny embers of imagination, yet we are far from being these crazy ones.

CityVP Manjit

7 years ago #5

#12
Sculley should have written another book called Apple to Sugar Water. He should even get Walter Isaacson to ghostwrite it. Apparently he co-founded a company called Misfit in 2011 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misfit_(company) - Very appropriate.

CityVP Manjit

7 years ago #4

#8
Sandra what I love about your response is that you must surely hold Jim Murray in great regard that this is who you were thinking of when you tagged the response - this is precious. I have a Springsteen documentary on HBO on my PVR that I still have to watch. With Seth Godin, he is like Jim Murray - he comes from the world of marketing and for me I will reference that but Seth Godin sits at the periphery of my own learning journey and if there is one thing our world a lot of, it is marketers. Just the acumen of Steve Jobs and his role as a marketer is plenty for me to dine alone just as a statistical n=1.

CityVP Manjit

7 years ago #3

#6
Dear Sandra, a biography either takes an individual off their pedestal or adds even more size to their myth, at the end of the day those that reach mythological scale will be washed clean of all that detracts from the iconic image. The same is true with John Lennon. I did purchase the Isaacson biography but that is not where I relate with Steve Jobs. It is at his commencement speech where he talked of connecting the dots backwards - this is something that I find affinity with and the good news is that our dots will not become the subject of any immortalization because with the billions born in and then born out we go with the dust of time. The greatest learnings of life are the regrets - and so there is an endless stream of associations where we actually can do what we mostly do with biographies - we step into larger shoes in order to see a bit of our own-selves in our small sandles. The one big thing metaphor that we find at beBee is Honey. So this is the particular shoes I have slipped into here because there is more liquid sugar in our world than there is true honey and this honey is not the kind that mankind steals, it is the one that sits in the core of our trust, our foundation, the most meaningful essence of our life. Imagine what it must feel like that when John Sculley and his board ripped Apple out of the hands of Steve Jobs, how that alone as a human effect is profound in its pain. There is a tonne of pain in Jobs story, as there is in John Lennon's story but in both cases they took this as raw material to create fundamentally bigger realities. It is not that I want to create those bigger realities but I know our farting begins right at the beginning of our journeys, whereas look at what Lennon and Jobs went through - it is human to fart but not at that scale, but joking aside if these stories don't move our stomach and work on our mind, then what I think here is just a time passing playtime.

CityVP Manjit

7 years ago #2

#3
Dear Ali Anani it is modern man who sells the honey and strips the hive and then turns/burns that honey into liquid sugar. I would never associate you with sugar water, you my friend are the land of milk and honey - the land itself - a golden honey.

CityVP Manjit

7 years ago #1

#1
The irony here José is that sometimes we have to lose our business in order to see our business. Steve Jobs, William Hewlett and David Packard are all connected in the story of Steve Jobs and that is why I honour all three - but that is another story for another time 😊

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"What can I say, I hired the wrong guy" . . .

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