Getting fired from Apple led me to the most creative periods of my life: Steve Jobs

John Sculley's role in ousting Steve Jobs from Apple is well documented. What's not known is how Jobs's counterculture traits rubbed conservative suits the wrong way and eventually forced his exit.

How are such strange names as AC Markkula Jr, Peter O Crisp, Philip S Schlein, Arthur Rock, Henry E Singleton and John Sculley woven into the saga of Steve Jobs's genius? They are the men who fired Jobs from his own company, Apple, in 1985. How? And Why?

The answer to the first question is simple, and it comes from Steve himself. "As Apple grew, we hired someone [John Sculley] who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of future began to diverge and eventually, we fell out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him," Steve said in his famous 2005 Stanford speech.

But the story is far more intriguing than it appears from that admission. In 1981, Apple Computer went public. Just two years later, Apple made the Fortune 500 list and Jobs recruited John Sculley, the head of Pepsi, to be its new chief executive.

"Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?" Jobs popped the question. Sculley's entry into Apple changed Jobs's world. Steve had always wanted Sculley as CEO and when he hired him he saw himself as the chief visionary.

But that arrangement didn't last long. Steve, who didn't much understand Sculley's working style, got disenchanted and wanted the control of Apple again. Steve plotted Sculley's exit from the organization by sending him to China on a business tour and wresting control of Apple in his absence.

While in China, Sculley got wind of Steve's schemes. On his return, he made a case before the board and asked it to vote against Steve. The board agreed and Steve was shown the door. But the nasty spat with Sculley was not the only reason for Jobs's exit.