Former Apple CEO John Sculley's Message to Tim Cook
Developers, tech experts and industry leaders are headed to the Silicon Valley for Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) weeklong annual Worldwide Developers Conference. On Monday, while the world watches for major announcements and new products, Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO will take to the stage to deliver his keynote address.
Ahead of the big day, FOX Business sat down with Former Apple CEO, John Sculley to gain insight on the state of the tech industry and future of Apple. Co-founder, Steve Jobs, wooed Sculley from Pepsi-Cola in 1983 and under his direction, Apple experienced a “Golden Age.” Jobs was forced out of the company in 1985, where Sculley remained at the helm until 1993.
“We were tool makers building tools to enable ordinary people to do incredible things.” says Sculley.
With Sculley as CEO, the tech giant produced the iconic 1984 Super Bowl commercial introducing the Macintosh computer. In its time past the launch, Apple has skyrocketed setting the industry standard and is in the race to be the first trillion dollar company.
“When I joined Silicon valley in the early days of the personal computer, and in those days Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Andy Grove and others, we kind of knew it was going to be a [huge] industry but none of us had real clarity on what it is looking like today,”
Sculley says the future of technology will still be about enabling ordinary people to do extraordinary things with an emphasis on photos, video, voice recognition, augmented reality and virtual reality.
“These products are going to become more invisible in terms of the physical form factors but they are going to become even more intrusive in terms of how we do things throughout the day,” says Sculley.
Although Sculley does not have the ear of Cook or Apple leadership any longer, he has a simple message for the tech giant.
“In technology there is always something that is next. So I think Apple has to be able to make those big bets,” says Sculley “You see Google making big bets, you see Amazon making some big bets. I think Apple has to start identifying what are those big bets they are working on that will enable them to be as important five years from now that they are today.”
Be sure to watch Sculley’s full interview above.