Sculley: ‘Steve Jobs’ is Great Entertainment, not a Biopic or History of Apple

During an interview on the FOX Business Network’s Mornings with Maria, former Apple CEO John Sculley discussed the new ‘Steve Jobs’ film.

“This is the young Steve Jobs,” he said. “This is Steve Jobs, who was, as a person, a work in progress. If you look at Steve Jobs in the latter part of his life, he became a full person. He had a happy marriage, three more children -- he was a very different person later on in life and this picture is all about Steve Jobs when he was obsessive with changing the world with products that the world wasn’t quite ready for.”

Sculley compared the young portrayal of Jobs to the version that created the successful Apple Company (NASDAQ:AAPL).

“The young Steve Jobs had all of the brilliant ideas -- the vision; he knew where the world was going, even back in the early 1980’s. The problem was Moore’s law -- the technology just wasn’t ready to do the things and that’s why they used to call it the Steve Jobs reality distortion field. He was not the engineer but he had the vision from the beginning. All of those things that he did so well late in life turned out to be based on the same first principals that I learned working with Steve back in the early 1980’s,” he said.

When asked why people close to Steve Jobs were upset with his depiction Sculley said: “They are upset that they don’t want the world to think this was the complete man… It was what Steve was like when he was a very young person back in his 20’s and so people change over time, he learned from the mistakes he made.” He added: It’s just... great entertainment, it’s not a biopic or history of Apple.”

He also weighed in on his portrayal in the movie.

“It’s hard to explain just how close we were back in those early days and then suddenly we are put into this win or lose type situation because it was either drive the company into losses and potentially bankruptcy, if we had abandoned the Apple II. Or, lose the friendship and the close level of trust that Steve Jobs and I had. And that was the huge dilemma and that’s what the movie focused on. Jeff Daniel’s did a superb job I think.”

He also discussed where he’s putting his money.

“I’m investing in a new consumer fin tech platform which we think is going to completely revolutionize consumer credit finance. I’ve just launched a smart phone in a totally different part of the market than Apple is in with the iPhone. It’s affordable products in the fastest growing markets around the world. I’m into health-tech as well with Telehealth. So exciting things on the forefront,” he said.