John Sculley

About the John Sculley

John Sculley IIIis an American businessman, entrepreneur and investor in high-tech startups. Sculley was vice-presidentand president of PepsiCoof Apple Inc. on April 8, 1983, a position he held until leaving on October 15, 1993. In 1987, Sculley was named Silicon Valley’s top-paid executive, with an annual salary of US$10.2 million.: 412

While Sculley was at Apple, Apple’s sales increased tenfold from $800 million to $8 billion. However, many attribute his success to the fact that he joined the company just when co-founders Steve Jobs’s visions and Steve Wozniak’s creations had become highly lucrative. His stint at Apple remains controversial due to his departure from Jobs’s sales structure, particularly regarding Sculley’s decision to compete with IBM in selling computers to the same types of customers. Others say that the “two clashed over management styles and priorities, Jobs focusing on future innovation and Sculley more on current product lines and profitability”. But Sculley ultimately was forced to step down as Apple CEO because he was opposed to licensing Macintosh software and was talking to Goldman Sachs about splitting Apple into two companies. When Sculley left in May 1993, Apple had $2 billion in cash and $200 million in debt.

Sculley is recognized as an expert in marketing, in part because of his early successes at PepsiCo, notably his introduction of the Pepsi Challenge, which allowed the company to gain market share from primary rival Coca-Cola. He used similar marketing strategies throughout the 1980s and 1990s at Apple to mass-market Macintosh personal computers, and today he continues to speak and write about disruptive marketing strategies. In more recent times, Sculley has invested in and has been involved with a number of high-tech start-up companies, and as of 2016 serves as Chairman of the PeopleTicker and SkillsVillage.