Chapter 20 The fourth quarter dynamic duo

Leaving Pepsi's lavish offices for work at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Sculley felt as if he had just graduated from one school and immediately entered another.In this new school, almost everything is very different from Pepsi.Engineers here don't wear uniforms or shirts or suits to work, and the R&D environment is always messy.The relationship between employees and managers here is not as hierarchical as Pepsi.There are new ideas and experiments here every day, and there are people discussing product or technical issues in every corner anytime and anywhere.Sculley felt that this place was simply an engineer's paradise.

At that time, Jay Elliot, Apple's vice president in charge of human resources and other operational affairs, specially arranged for an IT employee to sit not far from Sculley's office in order to let Sculley familiarize himself with Apple's technology and products as soon as possible. seat, so that Sculley can consult at any time.Jobs acquiesced to the arrangement, but wasn't particularly happy.He prefers to be Sculley's only technical and product mentor, although he doesn't have much time to do it himself. Sculley was excited to observe and learn everything in the company.As founder and chairman of the board, Jobs also observed Sculley's every word and deed.Jobs felt that Sculley was like the butler of the British royal family, professional, patient and meticulous, and at the same time thoughtful about marketing and marketing.

When he first came to Apple, Sculley's biggest headache was the ambiguity between Apple's product lines. The four major products of Apple II, Apple III, Lisa and Macintosh overlap each other in positioning. Although the Apple II is oriented to family and education, many users mainly use it for office work. Apple III has become Apple's tasteless. Not long after the Lisa was released, most customers turned away when they heard the high price. The only major order came from NASA. The progress of the Macintosh was seriously delayed, and even Jobs himself could not tell how many times the release date would be pushed back.The most distressing thing is that Lisa and Macintosh are both positioned in the business field. Except for one high-end and one not so high-end, there are many overlapping functions and technical incompatibility.

Together, Sculley and Jobs set out to formulate a product strategy focused on Apple's core markets, trying to make product positioning clear.Apple's core market is schools, homes, and offices. On this point, Sculley and Jobs have no differences.But the problem is that Sculley hopes to logically and methodically analyze what features each product needs, how to package it, and how to price it from the perspective of market demand.Jobs started from the perspective of technological trends and user experience, eager to apply various new technologies and processes in products.Simply put, Jobs could always see what the future would look like in the first place, and Sculley could always perceive in the first place what reality needs us to do.

However, due to lack of management authority, Jobs's keen intuition about the future is sometimes difficult to implement.For example, when Sculley first came to Apple, Jobs, who had been kicked out of the Lisa team for two years, was still looking for opportunities to participate in Lisa design discussions.Once, Jobs strongly suggested that Lisa give up the 5-inch floppy drive and replace it with the 3-inch floppy drive that Sony had just developed. Most of Lisa's team dismissed Jobs' comments.They believe that 5-inch floppy drives are still the mainstream in the industry. In order to ensure compatibility with the disks at hand, Lisa must keep two 5-inch floppy drives.

"You know, this is the future trend!" Jobs looked very excited, "Macintosh computers have decided to use 3-inch floppy drives, why is Lisa so conservative?" "Conservative?" a Lisa employee said in a teasing tone. "Has your Macintosh been released? You haven't even finished your own Macintosh, and you are here to give orders to Lisa? Can you wait until you actually make a Macintosh?" After one product, come to criticize other products?" Scully, who witnessed all this, was stunned.At Apple, the employees of the Lisa team dared to contradict the company founder like this.This does not seem like a normal corporate culture, but rather like a rivalry between departments.Sculley understood that Apple still had a long way to go before it could be transformed into a modern, efficient company.

Sculley was lucky.In his first few months at Apple, the company's sales momentum was pretty good. In June, Apple's stock price has risen from $36 to $63, making more than 100 Apple employees millionaires.But frankly speaking, the sales growth is not mainly because Apple is doing better than other companies, but because the market demand for personal computers has been released on a large scale this year.Products from all manufacturers are in short supply, and every computer production line is running at full capacity.In this year alone, hundreds of computer-making startups were born in Silicon Valley.

The Macintosh project was repeatedly delayed, but Jobs himself was always confident. The Macintosh team wasn't organized, but it was full of energy.More than half of this vitality was injected into the team by Jobs.Jobs has a kind of magical, convincing magic in management.Every time he puts forward a proposition, he can always use a few powerful words to convince everyone that it is the only correct direction.Some employees call this magical power the "halo effect", just like Jobs was born with a halo of gods or angels on his head, which makes people awe-inspiring.Other engineers called Jobs' magic the "Reality Distortion Field," borrowing the term from the magazine.It means that Jobs’ ability to sell a point of view is so strong that it distorts reality. Even if this point of view is not so reasonable, it is enough to convince people in the first place, just like the "Nine Yin Scriptures" The soul-shifting method can reach the state where I am happy with the enemy, and I am worried about the enemy.

But Macintosh engineers also know that working under the leadership of Jobs is not an easy and comfortable thing.Jobs has countless convincing ideas, but also countless places where people are at a loss.He often changes the order day and night, and often gives employees an extremely urgent time plan to squeeze out all the energy of the engineer.Jobs is conceited, rough, harsh, and extremely pursuing perfection in his management. At the same time, he also has a childish, fragile, sensitive, and vulnerable side. Macintosh engineers loved and were in awe of him. Sometimes, Jobs would walk up to an engineer out of the blue and ask, "What are you doing?"

After listening to the engineer's report, Jobs would say, "No, no, it's not like this, the function we want is not like this. You need to do this and this." Many times, the engineer went back to try Jobs’s suggestion for a while, and then ran back to Jobs and said, “Steve, we can’t do the function you said, it’s too complicated.” Jobs would interrupt the other party's defense without explanation, saying: "I don't believe it. If you can't do it, I will find someone who can do it to replace you." Jobs also participated in the detailed decision-making of various related products.He always said: "The Macintosh is hidden in my heart, I have to let it out and turn it into a product." But his opinion is not always reliable.For example, he strongly opposes adding a cooling fan to the computer because it would make the computer louder.The failure of the Apple III is precisely because of Jobs' insistence, and the design of the cooling system made a joke.

Macintosh engineers had learned to be temporarily persuaded by Jobs' "reality distortion field" while rationally assessing the soundness of Jobs' ideas.Says one engineer: "Just because Jobs tells you something is bad or great now doesn't mean he'll think the same thing the next day. Don't take his opinion too seriously. Also, he's very sensitive to other people's ideas. There will always be different reactions. If you tell him a new idea, he'll usually tell you it's stupid. But a week later, he'll come back to you with the exact same idea, like That's what he came up with." When Sculley joined Apple for a full year, the Macintosh will finally unveil its mystery to the outside world and usher in the day of its official release.Initially, the Macintosh was envisaged to be priced around $1,000.But after the prototype was made, everyone found that the price had to be set at least $1,995 to make a reasonable profit.Sculley wanted to add another $500 to that.His consideration is that because the production capacity may not be able to keep up in the first 6 months of listing, it is better to reduce part of the order quantity with a higher price. Jobs could not agree with this. He said to Sculley: "The price is too high. Lisa's price is too high to affect sales. It is already a negative lesson. If you add another $500, those loyal old users will be scared. Run and feel hurt." Unflinching, Sculley put on his calculating side: "If we didn't add $500 to the list price, we wouldn't have the extra budget to market the Macintosh. You can't do both. Either Use a relatively low price without publicizing it with much fanfare, or raise the price and use a sufficient amount of marketing funds to make a big splash in the publicity." Facing the multiple-choice question given by Sculley, Jobs made a concession.He knew that without great marketing, the revolutionary virtues of the Macintosh wouldn't catch on.In the end, the two agreed to set the Macintosh's launch price at $2,495. On January 22, 1984, at the scene of the Super Bowl of the American Professional Football League Finals, Apple played the advertisement "1984" with a unique concept and shocking effect.Borrowing scenes from George Orwell's novels, the advertisement compares IBM and other competitors to centralized, dark, oppressive human nature, and ubiquitous ruling forces, and compares the newborn Macintosh computer to the freedom to challenge the old forces strength.The image details of the Macintosh computer did not appear in the advertisement, but a grand prophecy that the Macintosh was about to change the world was made in a metaphorical way: "On January 24, Apple will release the Macintosh computer. From this, everyone will see why 1984 in the novel will not reappear in reality." Previously, when discussing the idea, Jobs himself liked the "1984" ad very much, but Sculley thought the idea was too crazy.He tried unsuccessfully to convince Jobs to choose other ideas.Sculley reluctantly backed down, thinking that crazy ideas might win by surprise. But board members don't think so.Markkula and the other directors felt the idea was nonsense and a waste of the company's money.They got Sculley and Jobs to tell the ad agency to pull this ridiculous ad from the Super Bowl. Frustrated, Jobs showed Woz the ad.As soon as Woz watched the ad, he jumped up and pointed to the screen and said: "This ad is so 'us'! It's literally us!" "But the board didn't like it. They voted against it." Jobs looked annoyed. "Come on," Woz yelled, "how much does it cost to air this ad at the Super Bowl?" "$800,000." Woz thought for a while and said, "If the board of directors is unwilling to pay the money, then I will pay half and you will pay half, how about it?" The persistence of Jobs and Woz impressed the board and other executives.In the end, the ad was broadcast as originally planned, and its shocking effect even exceeded Jobs' imagination. The success of the ad was evidenced by the success of the Macintosh when it went on the market.Later, "1984" was hailed by the advertising industry as one of the best TV commercials in history. On January 24, Jobs officially introduced the revolutionary Macintosh computer to the public at Apple's annual shareholder meeting.Facing the audience, Jobs deliberately read the lyrics of his favorite singer Bob Dylan as the beginning of the ceremony: predict the future with a pen come on writers and critics think big Good days never come again, good opportunities never come again don't jump to conclusions The wheels are still rolling forward No one knows who will win Losers may smile in the blink of an eye Because it's a time of change This lyric is from "Age of Change".Undoubtedly, Jobs wanted to tell everyone that another revolution in personal computers will soon be kicked off by the Macintosh. With the influence of the advertisement "1984" and the personal charm of Jobs, the Macintosh computer became a blockbuster.Early in the morning of the listing day, there were long queues for the Macintosh at the door of computer retail stores across the United States.Sales in the first few months exceeded all expectations, with 50,000 Macintosh units sold in just 74 days. In 1984, Apple sold a total of 275,000 Macintosh units. In the first half of 1984, everything looked so good. In April, Apple held a grand press conference for the Apple IIc, the first portable model of the Apple II series. Apple II and Macintosh present a lively scene of complementing each other in sales.No matter how many differences there are in the work, no matter how different in personality, the cooperation between Sculley and Jobs, who have just come to Apple for a year, is impeccable.Sculley was in charge of operations, Jobs was in charge of product, and the two discussed and decided together on major decisions in marketing and sales. On the evening of May 3, Jobs suddenly asked someone to inform Sculley, asking him to rush to the Le Mouton Noir restaurant in Saratoga (Saratoga) immediately.It wasn't until he entered the restaurant that Sculley realized that it was full of acquaintances.All the board members, all the top managers are here.Everyone held a special dinner to celebrate Sculley and Jobs. Raising his glass, Jobs excitedly said to everyone: "Everyone here knows that I love Apple more than anything I have ever encountered in my life. For me, there are two happiest days in my life, one day The day the Macintosh was released, and the day Sculley agreed to come to Apple as CEO." Jobs opened a transparent display box, and inside the box was a group of photos of Sculley, from the time Sculley left Pepsi, including every important moment of Sculley at Apple for a year.Seeing the display case, tears welled up in the corners of Sculley's eyes.He said emotionally: "Apple has only one leader, and that leader is Steve and me." Jobs was equally excited. He said to Sculley: "Although you are not the founder, you are really like the founder of the company. Woz and I created the past of the company, and you and I are creating the future of the company. " In October, Sculley and Jobs appeared together on the cover of Business Week.Media reporters called the perfect combination between Sculley and Jobs the "Dynamic Duo". Maybe it was because everything was too perfect, maybe it was because Sculley and Jobs overestimated their complementary personalities.When the sales performance continues to grow and the company's momentum is very good, no amount of contradictions will be covered up by the rapid development.Even the seasoned Sculley is a little carried away, he seems to have forgotten the truth that extreme joy begets sorrow, and negativity always comes.Once sales decline and development stagnates, can the "dynamic duo" of Sculley and Jobs continue their glory?