Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple : A Journey of Adventure, Ideas, and the Future [Hardcover]

John Sculley (Author), John A. Byrne (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1987

ODYSSEY 1987 FIRST EDITION

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The chairman and CEO of Apple Computer, with the aid of a Business Week editor, vividly describes how, after working as an executive for Pepsi-Cola, developing winning strategies in the Cola Wars, and being promoted to president at age 38, he abandoned a "second-wave" company to join Apple, a "third-wave" firm epitomizing flexibility, creativity, and innovation. Sculley tells of his mistakes, failings, and successes and ends chapters with lessons in management or marketing. Highly recommended for business students and anyone curious about a CEO's life.Leonard Grundt, Nassau Community Coll. Lib., Garden City, N.Y.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 450 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins; 1st ed edition (October 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060157801
• ISBN-13: 978-0060157807
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.8 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #735,664 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Lesson About Incentives, August 17, 2001

By 

J. Reynolds (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple : A Journey of Adventure, Ideas, and the Future (Hardcover)

Mr. Sculley describes how Steve Jobs lured him to Apple, and blithely exposes his thought processes behind the decision to go. Among other things, he insisted upon a lucrative compensation/house package, explaining that he simply could not be burdened with any personal financial considerations while dedicating his self-appraised tremendous powers to running Apple. The Apple folks agreed, Sculley got his huge salary and his new house, and under his hand the company tanked down the tubes forthwith.

Sculley presented management lessons as his narrative progressed. He did not directly discuss the matter of incentives, and the complacency which unearned wealth induces so quickly, electing instead to present that lesson by his own example. Perhaps if Mr. Sculley had been more concerned about his own financial condition as a function of the company's success or failure, he would have been more highly motivated to do a better job running the firm.

At least one member of every corporate board of directors should read this book, and keep this lesson about incentives in mind whenever it's time to hire new executives and develop their compensation packages.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Long, Boring and slow, March 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple : A Journey of Adventure, Ideas, and the Future (Hardcover)

I started with an expectation of something that would be fast paced; however, this was not to be. Sculley's style is repetitive and slow. He makes a point in a couple of paragraphs and then goes on and on about the same thing. He also gives too much importance to his personal life in the book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, although the author explains only part of the history, April 8, 2011

By 

cgriell - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple : A Journey of Adventure, Ideas, and the Future (Hardcover)

Well, I read this book after viewing Job's lecture at Stanford [] really fascinating. So I would know what was happening behind the scenes, and what went wrong on the love story of Jobs and Sculley.

The book explains Sculley's East Coast (and Republican) vision of how to manage a big company, which, is, essentially, I may say a "military" way to organize a company, with clear objectives and responsabilities, vs. the West Coast (and Democrat) which is more cooperative and less organized. Of course you cannot manage a multimillion company with the manager deciding on everything, from the profile of the programmers to hire to the marketing budget.

It explains also the big mistake Sculley (and others have done) when trying to emulate the Sosa wars, with IBM-PC vs. Macintosh. A consumer may just pick one Pepsi on the shelves of a supermarket, and test it, and eventually switch brands... An IT Manager simply cannot do that, and its amazing that people as smart as Apple Board of Directors didn't see this. Anyhow, since then Apple has profiled his public and they did not try to compete with PC clones anymore. They aim their sales to a prospective buyer who is not the IT Manager anymore. Probably this is not a decision done by Jobs when returning to Apple.

What the book says is not as important as what the book hides, probably the fact that not all companies are created equal, and there is no such thing as "one size fits all". Probably Sculley was the right man for the job in a certain moment, but sure Apple under his management would have become a "me too" company, as Hewlett-Packard is now. Of course I prefer the panache of DEC trying to convince the world to follow their way - although they did not suceed - to the Compaq-HP deal, manufacturing dull machines with dull O.S.