14 DAY TRIAL // Former Apple boss John Sculley, who famously ousted visionary genius Steve Jobs during an internal power struggle in the 80s, has a piece of advice for the world’s most valuable tech company.
“Apple’s about building great products, building and shaping markets,” Sculley said in an interview.
“Carl Icahn has suggested to [Apple chief executive] Tim Cook, ‘Why don’t you buy more stock back or make a bigger dividend?’ I’d rather see Apple continue to invest in building… even make big acquisitions that were strategic, as opposed to buying more stock back, or giving more dividends,” he said.
Sculley has openly expressed his remorse – on numerous occasions – towards the ousting of Jobs from the company that later churned out the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad.
In recent years, he’s even taken up the task of mentoring up-and-coming Silicon Valley chief executives, according to The Daily Star. With the passing of time, his vision has changed, but his care for Apple appears to remain a constant.
So he’s dispensing his advice with a few simple arguments.
“Apple’s never been an acquirer of big companies before, and when you look at the [Apple digital ticket system] Passbook, and fingerprint recognition – what would it mean if Apple went out and bought eBay? And they had PayPal, and integrated that?”
“My guess is you’d suddenly see the whole landscape of e-commerce shift […] You have Amazon, which is on the fast-track to dominate every aspect of e-commerce – suddenly the game, the landscape, would change,” he said.
On the one hand, Sculley’s thinking makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, buying a company that’s worth tens of billions just to do something different, all while you’re posting one record quarter after another, is pretty unheard of.