“Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”
—
What Steve Jobs said to Pepsi executive John Sculley to lure him to Apple. Sculley mentions it in the documentary Bloomberg Game Changers: Steve Jobs. The series also features profiles of Zuckerberg, Brin/Page, and other tech founders.
What Steve Jobs said to Pepsi executive John Sculley to lure him to Apple. Sculley mentions it in the documentary Bloomberg Game Changers: Steve Jobs. The series also features profiles of Zuckerberg, Brin/Page, and other tech founders.
Joe
on 16 Mar 11Sculley should’ve stuck with selling sugar water.
Don Schenck
on 16 Mar 11@Joe: Amen, brother.
Michal Till
on 16 Mar 11Except that this quote is made ex-post.
Zingus
on 16 Mar 11IIRC that sugar water vendor extromitted jobs
Joe Snuffy
on 16 Mar 11Yeah, and how’d that work out for either of them?
Mark
on 16 Mar 11I love Game Changers. The most interesting profile is not of Jobs or the all too familiar technos, but rather Jay-Z.
Dmitry
on 17 Mar 11I just really hate this quotation. It created an astonishing number of dumb startups and failed companies. What is more, it absolutely corrupted a healthy attitude to job and fair working. I was once on a job interview where guy just stood up and said that ‘I see no future with your company, because you will never change the world’ – the guy was from a ‘startup’ culture (but actually had no idea how to build the business and obviously have never had experience working somewhere). Apple has never changed the world. It just sell electronics and digital goods to people. It shapes some industries, but it does not really make a difference in the overall world’s scale.
Scott
on 17 Mar 11+1 Dmitry.
This quote from Braintree’s Bryan Johnson’s is more useful.
“These days, there’s lots of talk of ‘following your passion.’ But can you really be passionate about credit card processing? I’m not particularly passionate about payments, but I am passionate about trying to build a good company,” says Johnson.
Erin
on 18 Mar 11Whoa Dmitry. Whoa. The fact that you can so boldly state Apple hasn’t changed the world just “sells digital goods” is unsettling. The youngest generation is now born into a world where creativity, logic, and music can be tangibly discovered (successfully unlocked & wholly discovered) from infancy. Failure to see how this strikes world change in a perfect pose demonstrates not only deeply distracted cynicism but a heart-breaking disbelief in humanity.
Erin
on 18 Mar 11In reading over what I just posted, I realize a significant hole for debate. I will state now too that – yes – all three: creativity, logic, and music exist and are available without Apple. So I ask this: can a grandfather play the same trombone at the same time as his grandson? Can a child readily paint in the car? And can one study the most recently published articles in magazines and newspapers? Technology advances the uniquely normal parts of life to a conceptually common place.
Americo Savinon
on 18 Mar 11Awesome Quote
Dmitry Kanevsky
on 18 Mar 11Dear Erin,
I am sorry that my comment offended you or resonated so much with your feelings.
Apple might influence some industries and consequently people. Though its influence is really small and intangible, while there are many more companies that really change the world (e.g. those that push technology to save people from poverty or develop methods of coping with complex and important deceases, and Apple is not among them). You might be really surprised that outside US there are dozens of countries where nobody has ever heard about Apple and their products and very often some of them are just out of access due to technological or economical reasons (e.g. in Ukraine, for example. a kilo of meat what is an approximate amount that 2-people family eats per week costs like few songs on iTunes). The choice is obvious.
P.s. I do not want to offend you again, but I will not read this post again, so cannot see your answer. I think that your point of view is adequate for your and your current situation. We can have our opinions and should not try to persuade each other.
Hernan
on 18 Mar 11Hey Steve, do you want to sell overpriced pretentiously-designed baubles for rich ne’er-do-well’s for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?
hasen
on 19 Mar 11I love this quote. It embodies the idealistic spirit.
Sorry to all the practical people who don’t get it—you’re just not wired to think that way, and that’s ok, but really you shouldn’t try to belittle it.
Donny V
on 21 Mar 11The only way Apple has changed the world is by creating bigger trash piles in China, full of old iPads and iPhones.
This discussion is closed.