This Man Eavesdropped on Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and What He Heard Changed His Life

In one equation, Steve Jobs was the savior of tech giant Apple and the bad guy is John Sculley, the former CEO of the company, who famously kicked the former genius out of the business he founded himself. This popular narration had everyone thinking that the latter shouldn’t have done that – but most of us didn’t even understand the reason behind the decision.

John and Steve go way back ‘80s, first meeting on Thanksgiving of 1982. The former was then a Pepsi official who was instrumental in transforming the brand into a staunch competitor of the then already dominant Coca-Cola.

John Sculley helped Pepsi become as popular as Coke

The two of them would meet every weekend as Steve tried to convince John to hop aboard Apple. By March 1983, the Pepsi exec refused, but the tech expert couldn’t take no for an answer so he asked if his pal if he wanted to sell sugar water forever instead of changing the world.

That was enough reason for John to join the Apple club and he became the CEO for a decade, having a hand in growing the company’s revenue from half a billion dollars to a whopping $8.3 billion. However, working with Steve had its advantages and disadvantages – perhaps the biggest boon and bane was the late inventor’s attitude when it comes to everything he did.

The late Steve Jobs was too dedicated to his work

Steve didn’t want to compromise so much that he became too demanding of his coworkers. But despite their infamous fallout, John has learned so much from his ex-friend.

Three months into the job, John overheard Steve and Microsoft founder Bill Gates having a conversation, which had greatly impacted his way of thinking. The duo was in the engineering laboratory of Macintosh when they were talking about a noble cause.

John’s life changed forever after hearing the conversation

John was surprised because he had never heard the phrase used in a business setting. He learned that Steve and Bill were focused on making products not for the money but to empower everyone’s minds, proving that they wanted to leave a dent in the world.

They wanted to change the world in a good way and all these were new to John, who, prior to that, only knew business as a competitive field wherein one wins and the other loses.

This idea has stuck with John, who is now pursuing his own noble cause through RxAdvance, a healthcare company that aims to lessen the cost of healthcare. Not only that but he dreams that with this venture, it can help the patients through the seamless blend of technology and healthcare.