On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple

by Gil Amelio/William Simon

Gil Amelio was head-hunted at the end of 1995 to be Chief Executive of ailing Apple. He lasted just 500 days until being ousted by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Here, ghost-authored by Bill Simon, is Amelio's account of his rocky ride in the Apple hot seat.

This review, by John Kerr, appeared in edited form in the mid-August 1998 issue of Computer Weekly.

Here is the full 800 word original.

Ever fancy life as Chief Executive of a glamour technology company?

You might not be quite so keen after reading this memoir of Gil Amelio's short tenure at the top of Apple.

"Boy, have we got ourselves in a fix!" Amelio's rallying cry as he took over in early 1996 should have come as no surprise to the Apple faithful. Still hankering for its roots, still doggedly trying to tap the loyalty of its legions of offbeat devotees, the company was struggling to find its way in a world dominated by Windows. Apple culture had survived, yet the corporation was saddled with massive debts and huge stockpiles of rotting fruit: the wrong products with the wrong features at the wrong price and no means of disposal other than a $1billion write-off. No wonder Apple managers were found hiding in their bunkers.

‘Water-shooting' is a term familiar to apple-growers. After cutting out the dead wood and even sawing back on healthy branches it involves pruning back the fresh new growth. Drastic measures to be sure but, if you're lucky, the trees will bear better fruit the following season. Unlucky and you might have to wait another year. Amelio was unlucky. His biggest mistake was to promise return to profitability by the winter of 1997. So further enormous losses and some less-than-shrewd manouevres were enough to ensure his downfall.

No politician or silicon star himself, Amelio seems to have lacked the charisma so cherished by Apple camp-followers. From the start, he had a reputation for being ‘buttoned up', a process man used to downsizing the hard way: ("....planning, process, orderly function, though boring to children, are the tools of mature business leaders".) Yet he comes across as a decent hard-working guy, not afraid to stand up to the corporate honchos and evasive high command who tried to stand in his way. ("My parents taught me that regardless of the consequences, I should always try to do the right thing.....If you start with what is honourable rather than what is profitable, you can hope to achieve both honour and profit")

Was Amelio the fall guy for a company which had become dysfunctional? Did he get tough on the usual problems but miss the more glaring problems? Certainly his decision to scrap several promising developments and licence Mac clones, seen by many as the ultimate heresy, seems to have lost him many friends.

Given the hankering for past glories, it was perhaps inevitable that Amelio should meet his nemesis in Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Once courted as a friend, Amelio details how the black sheep of the Apple family found his own way back into the fold, riding inside the NeXT trojan horse. Jobs is variously described as machiavelian, impatient, lacking integrity, schizophrenic ("Betrayal, assassination, trashing of reputations all part of the everyday tool-kit of a person obsessed with power, control or revenge"). Jobs may have played Cassius, but there were others only to eager to get the knife in. Yet Amelio remains gracious towards his enemies (some of them), loyal to friends, and humble in defeat, an honourable Brutus of a man rather than a Julius Caesar.

Even if they fail in the Tom Cruise Mission Impossible stakes, top guns inevitably get to rub shoulders with other giants of the silicon world. We are treated to some fascinating, though not necessarily original, insights into legendary characters like Bill Gates ("humourless, but not often given his due as a human being"), Steve Jobs the chamaeleon ("genius behind the manic mask, manic behind the genius mask"), Steve Wozniak, Lou Gerstner, Larry Ellison and others.

Like ousted politicians, the sacked bosses of corporate America have found a way to profit from failure - by getting someone like Bill Simon to write their memoirs. Why do they feel the need to do it? Perhaps it's just an extension of the recent ego-trip, or maybe a necessary process of catharsis? Either way, this latest lid-lifting insight, complete with mischievous misquotes from Shakespeare, paints a revealing picture of board-room antics in a Fortune 500 company. Like the showbiz personalities quoted as fans, this one had undoubtedly seen better days.

This is a well-crafted book, a good read for anyone facing similar circumstances (!). In the end, there are perhaps too many bland descriptions of tired Apple executives and American has-been personalities to make it hugely appealing to European readers.

Apple is now reporting a return to profitability and high demand for its latest products. Whether that's owing to Amelio's stewardship or Jobs' flare only history will tell.

Let's leave the last words to the man who seems to have done his best to stop the rot: "I have few regrets. It was a hell of an experience".

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