About John Sculley
John Sculley III (born April 6, 1939) is an American businessman, entrepreneur, and investor in high-tech startups. Sculley was vice-president (1970–1977) and president of PepsiCo (1977–1983), until he became chief executive officer (CEO) of Apple Inc. in April 1983, a position he held until October 1993. In 1987, Sculley was named Silicon Valley's top-paid executive, with an annual salary of US$10.2 million. During Sculley's tenure at Apple, the company's sales increased tenfold from $800 million to $8 billion, while the period between 1989 and 1991 was regarded as the "first golden age" of Macintosh. Some attribute his success to the fact that he joined the company just when co-founders Steve Jobs's visions and Steve Wozniak's creations had become highly lucrative. Jobs and Sculley "clashed over management styles and priorities, Jobs focusing on future innovation and Sculley more on current product lines and profitability". Sculley won a power struggle leading to Jobs's ousting, and departed from Jobs's sales structure, instead deciding to compete with IBM in selling computers to the same types of customers. This strategy was initially successful due to the launch of fresh new Macintosh models for different segments which generated increasing profits. By the early 1990s, profits declined due to increasing competition from less expensive IBM PC compatibles running Windows 3.0. Sculley was ultimately forced to step down as Apple CEO because he was opposed to licensing Macintosh software and was talking to Goldman Sachs about splitting Apple into two companies. When Sculley left in May 1993, Apple had $2 billion in cash and $200 million in debt. Sculley is recognized as an expert in marketing, in part because of his early successes at PepsiCo, notably his introduction of the Pepsi Challenge, which allowed the company to gain market share from primary rival Coca-Cola. He used similar marketing strategies throughout the 1980s and 1990s at Apple to mass-market Macintosh personal computers, and today he continues to speak and write about disruptive marketing strategies. Sculley has invested in and has been involved with a number of high-tech start-up companies, and as of 2016 served as Chairman of the PeopleTicker and SkillsVillage. Sculley won a power struggle leading to Jobs's ouster, and departed from Jobs's sales structure, instead deciding to compete with IBM in selling computers to the same types of customers. In 1970, at the age of 30, Sculley became the company's youngest marketing vice-president. Sculley initiated one of the company's first consumer-research studies, an extended in-home product test in which 350 families participated. Sculley was vice-president (1970–1977) and president of PepsiCo (1977–1983), until he became chief executive officer (CEO) of Apple Inc. on April 8, 1983, a position he held until leaving on October 15, 1993.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.