For someone to be considered a fallen hero they would have had to be a hero to begin with. While most high level executives are very respected people I do not consider them hero’s. With that being said I chose John Sculley. If you have seen the movie Jobs, then you most likely already know who John Sculley is. Sculley started working for Pepsi in 1967 at a bottling plant in Pittsburgh. Working his way up from the bottom Sculley became Vice President of marketing at the age of 30. From 1970 to 1983 Sculley served as the Vice President and then later President for Pepsi. At Pepsi Sculley was most well known for his expertise in marketing. While at Pepsi he introduced the Pepsi Challenge which was huge for Pepsi helping them gain market share on Coca-Cola.
In 1983 Sculley was offered and excepted the position of CEO at Apple. In his early years at Apple the company saw some success, although some say this success was caused by Steve Jobs. While at Apple Sculley made several mistakes like trying to compete directly with IBM, focusing to much on current products and profitability rather than innovation, Apple’s Newton, and most notably getting rid of Steve Jobs. After 10 years at Apple Sculley was forced to step down. Unlike these other executives Sculley’s downfall was not caused by fraudulent acts, but you could say that greed played a part in his move from Pepsi to Apple. Sculley went from being one of the best executives to one of the worst. In 2010 Business insider placed Sculley on the list of 15 worst CEO’s in America history. I think this is a little harsh considering sales at Apple rose from 800 million to 8 billion in Sculley’s time there. At the same time looking at where Apple is now and looking how much of a positive impact that Steve Jobs has made to the company it would be hard to say that John Sculley didn’t make some really bad decisions at his time at Apple.
Dilemmas... 