A Case in Contrast: SteveJos/Apple

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. -Steve Jobs

1976, invested to proceed to produce a computer circuit board 1976, invested to proceed to produce a computer circuit board. 1977, the new business was incorporated as Apple Computer. 1985, company sales were almost $2 billion.

Steve Jobs saw his role as leader of the development effort to create new computers with many different project teams.

Mac 128k, 1985. (product was considered revolutionary)

Apple Computer Team

Apple had a god strategy, yet Jobs management style caused many problems.

-Failed to establish a clear vision for employees to follow -Played favorites among various employees and teams.

“Lisa” was Jobs personel project and played favorites against the “Macintosh” team.

There was -fierce competition -misunderstandings -distrust among members of competing teams

Jobs was Apple’s chairman John Sculley was Apple’s CEO Who was leading the company?

-Resources were being used inefficiently -Little attention paid to evaluating the performance of the project teams -No budget in control for R&D spending.

RESULT? -Costs started to soar -Profits fell -Whole organization began to disintegrate

Apple’s board of directors asked Jobs to leave…

New ventures: 1. founded NEXT – a powerful new computer

New Ventures: 2. founded PIXAR-computer animation company

Meanwhile in the market were giants(1996): HP Sun Microsystems IBM It was hard to compete….

Apple buys NEXT for $400 million & use NEXT’s operating system for Apples new generation of computers

Jobs came back to Apple in 1997 Jobs came back to Apple in 1997. The company was losing a lot of money but he changed all that.

New product launches followed one after another….