Did Steve Get Along with…

Mike and Steve got along very well, up until Steve was demoted and the board, including Mike, supported John Sculley. They conversed well and shared similar and constructive thoughts about ways to change the world and to do important things. Mike was the portrayed in the movie in a very inaccurate and unfair way, making it look like he was financially shrewd. Actually, he was intellectually open and contributing and, more than anyone else, he ran and structured the company in the early days, while Steve floated around getting his feet wet at running a company and learning to be a top executive. John Sculley was like Mike in the sense that Steve saw him open to great thoughts, although not as astute in our business. But John was largely Steve’s shadow in areas of where we should go with products. Eventually, John was more concerned with the total company operation and keeping things going while Steve wanted to keep advancing on the future, company and profits or not, in his own internally conceived directions. Actually, John Sculley promoted technologies like AppleTalk and PowerTalk and QuickTime and PlainTalk and the Newton. He was very supportive of the rare technical geniuses in the company. He was not just a “marketeer” who dressed things up in colors. Any downfalls in the company that weren’t coincidence were probably due more to his marketing mishaps (like not licensing the Macintosh technology in early days) than to hardware ones. This is only my opinion and is based largely on only a few indirect contacts.