Sculley Interview

Thursday, March 13, 1997 by Dave Winer.

Fifteen minutes with John Sculley, CEO of Live Picture, at the Apple booth at InternetWorld in Los Angeles. We talked in the seating area of the theater with a small crowd of people listening.

Sculley has doubts about Apple's acquisition of Next, saying that he would have chosen Jean-Louis Gassee's Be operating system instead. I wondered how he feels about Jobs coming back to Apple. "It's his company," he said, "he may be the only person who can run it."

Sculley was brought into Apple by Steve Jobs in 1982, and eventually became the chairman of the company when Jobs left in 1985. Sculley says that he did not force Jobs out of the company.

Jobs and Wozniak are well-known, I asked him about Mike Markkula. He described him as "invisible and powerful."

Sculley was surprised when Gil Amelio was chosen as chairman of Apple. He knows Amelio. "He has lots of credentials in management."

Sculley spends his weeks in California and weekends at his home in NY. Does he like the lifestyle? Yes. Is he working hard? "7-by-24," he says.

Live Picture does photo-spatial imaging software that, according to Sculley, works well with 28.8K connections allowing "panoramic visits thru real spaces."

Picture is at:

http://apple.www.conxion.com/newsRoom/stories/sculleyvisits.html.

Dave Winer