Chapter 17 Section 1: Selling sugar water or changing the world

November 1982, New York.People who have worked hard all day are leaving their offices in skyscrapers in a hurry and rushing into large and small supermarkets and convenience stores to prepare for the upcoming Thanksgiving. The 43-year-old professional manager John Sculley looked at the sculptures in the garden downstairs through the glass window of his office. In the early winter season, the cold air in New York seemed to be a bit bleak and dignified. "It's time to get off work and rest, another warm Thanksgiving." Sculley said to himself. Sculley is very pleased with his form.As a professional manager, he has almost got everything that ordinary people can only dream of. At the age of 31, he became the youngest vice president of marketing of PepsiCo, a subsidiary of PepsiCo. He personally organized and planned the famous Coke blind test event, and won a considerable market share from Coca-Cola through a series of fierce market offensives. At the age of 34, he became the cover figure of "Business Week".With outstanding marketing performance, Sculley became the youngest president of Pepsi at the age of 38.

Additionally, Sculley is close to PepsiCo co-founder, CEO and chairman Donald Kendall.Before joining Pepsi, Sculley was briefly married to Kendall's step-daughter.As Sculley's former father-in-law, Kendall did not alienate Sculley because of Sculley's divorce from his daughter. Instead, he recommended him to work at Pepsi and gave his best support in his career.The moment Sculley was nominated as the president of Pepsi, almost everyone believed that sooner or later he would become Kendall's successor and take charge of Pepsi's highest power. Sculley's office is more than 9 meters long and 6 meters wide, which is comparable in size to the Oval Office of the President of the United States in the White House.The floor is covered with beautiful Persian carpets, and the walls are full of antiques and famous paintings.Sculley is not dissatisfied with everything around him.Just as he was stretching and about to leave the office for Thanksgiving break, the phone rang.

It was a call from a headhunter. As the de facto heir to the Pepsi kingdom, Sculley has been classified as "untouchable" by most headhunters.Who, and which company, would come to poach Sculley at this time? The headhunter who called was Gerry Roche, one of New York's most famous headhunters and an old friend of Sculley's.As soon as Sculley heard Roach's voice, he had a premonition that today's phone call was extraordinary.With Roach's qualifications and knowledge, he would not call Sculley himself without a very attractive position. "John, what's the matter, do you want to move?" Roach tentatively asked Sculley.

"Jerry, don't you know me?" Sculley said with a smile, "Pepsi is my life, and I'm not interested in any other opportunities." "John, you and I have known each other for so long, of course I know you. I know, no one can try to poach you, you are not interested in outside opportunities at all." Roach said, the topic changed, "Of course, you must I also know that if there is no perfect opportunity that cannot be missed, I will not call you. Today, I must tell you that if there is an opportunity, you will be tempted no matter what. " "Oh? There is such an opportunity in the world?" Sculley wanted to hear, what other opportunities in this world he must pay attention to.

"Did you know? On the West Coast, in Silicon Valley, there's a bunch of brilliant guys. They built a company called Apple, and they invented a computer called an Apple II. I remember, you have an Apple II on your desk. They were looking for a The new CEO has been busy for several months. John, if all traditional companies have lost their allure in front of you, don’t you think that Apple, a company that represents the future, is your heart anyway? Don’t you Don’t want California to have a chat with these guys from the future?” "apple?" Sculley was too surprised to speak.He never imagined that a professional manager like himself who had sold soft drinks in PepsiCo for many years would be involved in a high-tech company founded by a young man.That night, Sculley carefully read the Apple materials sent by Roach, and he was gradually attracted by the legendary stories of Jobs, Woz and others.This group of young men with full of personality and unlimited energy are using magical computer technology on the west coast to do things that no one has ever tried.Sculley thought of the Apple II in the office again, and he liked the dexterity and convenience of the Apple II.Now, he has the opportunity to get in touch with the young man who invented the Apple II, and the other party even offered him a CEO position!

Sculley never thought about leaving Pepsi.Apple was a very different company than PepsiCo, with people and culture he didn't understand.The most important thing is that Sculley's career in Pepsi is booming. No matter how attractive Apple is, it is not worth betting on his own future.Sculley discreetly told Roach that he agreed to meet and chat with young people at Apple, but not for a job change. And just like that, Sculley boarded a flight to the West Coast. On December 20, Sculley arrived at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino.Here, Sculley met Jobs for the first time. Mike Markkula, Apple's CEO at the time, hosted Sculley.After a brief meeting, Markkula brought Sculley to Jobs' office.

According to Sculley, Jobs' office was like an event center.A group of people stood outside the house waiting to get in.Inside the house the phone rang non-stop.The most amazing thing is that there is no computer in the office.Instead, electronic accessories and boxes were strewn about.All kinds of posters were randomly pasted on the walls.On Jobs's desk were the new electrical appliances he had just brought back from Japan, but he had dismantled them to pieces. Sculley still remembers that Jobs was wearing blue jeans, a checkered shirt with sleeves rolled up, sitting in a small conference room 3 meters square next to the office, pointing and discussing issues with four or five people.

Markkula and Sculley waited a few minutes outside the office before Jobs ended the meeting and walked up to Sculley. "Hi," Jobs said, "I'm Steve Jobs. It's great to have you here. Nice to meet you." "I have to let you know," Sculley said, "that I'm not really here to apply for a job." "We know," Markkula said. "We're very happy to meet you and hear your marketing experience." The three went to a restaurant near the company for lunch.Jobs ordered a vegetarian entree and salad.For the first half hour, Sculley was mostly talking to Markkula, while Jobs just listened, interjecting an occasional sentence or two.Sculley noticed that although Jobs was bored, his eyes were piercing even when he was listening to you.

It wasn't until Sculley asked how to use his Apple II to communicate with Pepsi's bottlers that Jobs opened the conversation.He gushed to Sculley about his various ideas for improving the Apple II.Finally, Jobs said: "Apple will become the most important computer company in the world, far more important than IBM." Three weeks later, at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan, Sculley saw Jobs again.In the living room of the suite on the 21st floor of the hotel, a group of young people from Apple gathered.Jobs told Sculley that the small team had come to New York to brief the press on the upcoming Lisa computer.

"Hey, man," Jobs said to Sculley in the tone of an old acquaintance, "Lisa is awesome, every reporter who sees Lisa loves it. It's unbelievable. We can show you right now. " In the hotel room, Sculley was one of the few dozen people outside of Apple to witness the earliest graphical user interface (GUI) in computing history before the Lisa was released.With the help of John Couch, the general manager of the Lisa department, Sculley bravely picked up a mouse that ordinary people had never heard of, and tried to draw a simple graphic on the Lisa computer. "We're going to keep IBM out of the water," Jobs said proudly. "When the Lisa came out, they just watched us go away. They couldn't do anything. It was a revolution. It was unbelievable!"

In just a few minutes, Jobs impressed Sculley with the Lisa computer.Sculley believes that no company is more passionate and creative than Apple.Although Sculley still firmly believes that he is not worth sacrificing everything he already has in Pepsi, but compared with three weeks ago, Sculley is willing to admit in his heart that if everything goes well in Pepsi, the Apple CEO is really An attractive opportunity. That night, Sculley had a long chat with Jobs, Ke Qi and others.They ate dinner together and chatted about marketing and the future of computers. The next day, Roach called Sculley and told Sculley that Jobs was very satisfied with the meeting last night. Jobs even thought it was the most perfect night of his life.Sculley told Roach, as usual, that he didn't want to change jobs now. After this meeting, to Sculley's surprise, Jobs called every two or three days.Moreover, every time he called, Jobs didn't mention the business, but just casually said: "Hi, John, how are you? How are you doing?" Sculley was initially indifferent to Jobs' constant "harassment" on the phone.But after a few weeks, Sculley realized that things were getting out of hand.He called Roach and said: "Jerry, it's been a while. I told you I didn't want to change jobs. Now, I'm getting 'harassing' calls every day." Jobs is still relentless.After calling "harassment" for a period of time, Jobs actually flew to New York again, and made a special trip to visit Sculley's home in Greenwich (Greenwich), a suburb of New York. It was a Sunday afternoon.Jobs was wearing a leather jacket, blue jeans and gray running shoes.Sculley let Jobs into the study.Jobs was very interested in the collection of books on the bookshelf, and he deliberately browsed through several books on Buddhism, philosophy and art. "Steve," Sculley said straight to the point, "why did you come to me? Why didn't you go to someone from IBM or Hewlett-Packard? How did you ever think of looking for a CEO of a computer company from the soft drink industry? I don't know I don't understand computers." "We're doing something no one else has done before," Jobs said. "We want to build a completely different company, and we really need someone as brilliant as you. My dream is that everyone in the world can have it." My own Apple computer. In order to realize this dream, we must become a company that is good at marketing. And you are the one who knows marketing best.” After leaving home, Sculley drove Jobs to visit PepsiCo's office, and took Jobs to see IBM's headquarters by the way.In front of IBM's mediocre office building, Jobs was stunned.In Silicon Valley, everyone thought that IBM was a huge technology empire.But what appeared in front of him was such a featureless office building.Jobs said excitedly: "I'm going to charter a Boeing 747 and fly the entire Macintosh division down here to see what IBM is like in reality." Under Sculley's leadership, Jobs was as happy as a child.But Scully couldn't be happy, because he kept fighting repeatedly in his heart.He said to Jobs: "We're already good friends. But I have to say, I don't think it's a good idea to hire someone from a soft drink company to run a computer company." Jobs just said flatly: "Okay. But I want you to think about it." After sending Jobs away, Sculley fell into a tangle.His heart told him that he had fallen in love with apples.But intellectually, he really couldn't convince himself to give up everything he had obtained and go to a place that had nothing to do with him to work hard again. In order to make himself no longer entangled, Sculley decided to go to Silicon Valley to meet Jobs for a while. The second time he came to Cupertino, Sculley saw the legendary Macintosh prototype at Apple headquarters.That computer is like an exquisite little TV, not only has a revolutionary graphical interface similar to Lisa, but also has a much simpler motherboard and exterior design than Lisa.Jobs introduced Sculley to the talented engineers in the Macintosh team, and called these engineers artists.Sculley felt that he felt as if he had come to the future world, where all the technologies were so fantastic and everyone had such distinctive personalities. Back in New York, Sculley still couldn't make up his mind.This choice was really too difficult for him.But on the other side of the continent, Jobs was not so hesitant. He had already identified Sculley as the best candidate for Apple CEO. On March 20, Jobs flew to New York again.After dinner with Sculley, the two took a walk in Central Park together. "How are you feeling?" Jobs asked. "I'm really excited to see what you guys are doing," Sculley said. "You guys are really, really changing the world." "So, I think you're the one we're looking for. I want you to come and work with me, and I can learn a lot from you." The two talked about computer design, business management, similarities and differences between Pepsi and Apple, and marketing experience and skills.They walked out of Central Park and walked down Broadway to the San Remo apartment on Central Park West and 75th Street, where Jobs had bought an apartment a year earlier and where Not far from here is the Dakota apartment where Jobs idol John Lennon was assassinated. They climbed onto the terrace of the apartment building, looking west toward the Hudson River. Sculley said to Jobs: "Steve, I would really like to be your consultant and provide you with all possible help. Because you are the best person I have ever met. But I don't want to work at Apple, no matter No matter how high the salary is, I don’t want to go.” Jobs looked down at the ground, bit his lip and said nothing.This moment of silence made Sculley uncomfortable.Suddenly, Jobs raised his head, looked at Sculley with sharp eyes, and said something that Sculley will never forget: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?" Scully felt that these words were ringing in his heart like a bell.Faced with Jobs' sincerity and an opportunity that might change the world, he understood that he could not say "no" anyway.