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A History of Adult Supervision in Silicon Valley
- whipoodle 9y agoInteresting description of Sculley's tenure at Apple as having been "mostly successful".
- godzillabrennus 9y agoI met John on the Summit at Sea last year and the way he described his tenure it does seem he had some successes. It might make you realize that a lot of unfair media coverage is out there about him. For example, he didn't fire Steve Jobs, despite the popular myth.
- paulsutter 9y agoBecause his recollection is sure to be 100% accurate/unbiased? (I worked at Apple at that time)
- godzillabrennus 9y agohttps://www.google.com/amp/abcnews.go.com/amp/Technology/steve-jobs-fire-company/story%3fid=14683754 https://www.google.com/amp/abcnews.go.com/amp/Technology/ste... The Board demoted Steve and he quit is how Sculley tells it.
- valuearb 9y agoHis tenure was hugely successful, especially at the beginning. Apple was in lots of trouble, Mac sales way missed forecast, and Sculley turned the entire company around after firing Jobs and Apple was very profitable for most of his tenure. Sculley wasn't good at finding the next great thing, so he's a perfect example for most startups. Once the founders figure out what their real business is, the key is execution. If the founders can't do it, bring in someone experienced to do it.
- smallnamespace 9y agoThe problem with that approach is that outside execs often have their own ideas about what the 'real business' is, founders' wishes be damned.
- icebraining 9y agoWhy is that a problem?
- smallnamespace 9y agoIt might not be a problem to the business, but it may be one to a founder.
- fooker 9y agoThis reflects the current situation at Apple, interestingly.
- kappi 9y agoadult supervision is mostly to give highly paying jobs to old white guys.. do they hire anybody other than them for adult supervision.. so much for liberal mindset of silicon valley
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoI think that's more of a reflection of the fact at the time people who are currently old enough to be considered old were developing their careers the C-level exec path was only really open to white men so right the current supply of old people fit to manage big companies is all white men.
- CalChris 9y agoMeg Whitman, Carol Bartz and Sheryl Sandberg come to mind as adult supervision.
- jamesrcole 9y agoEven if the people being supervised might often be a bit immature, the term "adult supervision" seems to me very condescending.
- throwaway613834 9y ago> Even if the people being supervised might often be a bit immature, the term "adult supervision" seems to me very condescending. In fact, it was Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page who popularized the concept in a 2001 interview with Charlie Rose. When Rose asked the pair, then still in their 20s, why they had brought in 46-year-old Sun Microsystems and Novell Networks veteran Eric Schmidt as CEO earlier that year, Brin responded, "Parental supervision, to be honest."
- flukus 9y ago> Sun Microsystems and Novell Networks That resume would be much less impressive today.
- throwaway613834 9y ago> That resume would be much less impressive today. Maybe because Eric Schmidt got taken away from them?
- havetocharge 9y agoWell, today he also has a decade of being a CEO of Google, and a bunch of more years being Alphabet's executive chairman. Is that more impressive today?
- jamesrcole 9y agoI don't see how that changes anything. They didn't create the term, and most people who use it don't know who popularised it.
- wpietri 9y agoI think what it changes is that it isn't necessarily condescending. It can also be an ironic recognition of a real dynamic. Effective startups focus their innovation on a limited number of things. If you're really innovating in areas A and B, you pick the safe, boring choices in C-Z. That means that in C-Z, you benefit a lot from experience. The people with lots of experience are older. It can feel weird to turn over a lot of power to people who are much older, especially when a) the nominal progression to adulthood involves getting away from that, and b) it involves admitting there are important things you don't really understand, which is a hard admission for founders who have spent their lives mainly distinguished for being super smart. That has to be uncomfortable, and so I admire Page and Brin for using humor to deal with uncomfortable truth rather than sweeping it under the rug.
- pluma 9y agoI kinda expected an article about how startups treat underage tech workers.