An ousted CEO and his successor

Take from this what you will, because what I'm about to say is by no means conclusive or authoritative. It's just one example that supports what I believe to be common sense, which is "history is written by the victor", and the victor is the one in power.

I'm sure you will recall Apple computer in the late 90's. Michael Dell famously advised that Apple sell its assets and give what it could back to its investors and shut its doors. The CEO at the time was a man by the name of Gil Amelio.

I remember Amelio talking up his book (http://www.amazon.com/Firing-Line-500-Days-Apple/dp/0887309194/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201646112&sr=1-1) by taking credit for any future success that Apple may have ("Here's Amelio's version of events: "Early in my time at Apple, I identified what I called `the five crises.' By the time I left, we had resolved the most pressing of the five: liquidity, product quality, the future of the Macintosh operating system software, and the severe fragmentation of the company's organizational structure. ... Even more important, although people outside the company had not yet recognized it, we had set a course for taking Apple into the next generation of personal computing." from http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/1997/12/01/editorial2.html). Admittedly, and obviously, people who weren't Amelio also speculated that any future such success could be attributed to Amelio ("Although Amelio may one day get credit as the set-up man--should Jobs return Apple to prosperity--his legacy hardly stacks up with his paycheck." from http://www.businessweek.com/1998/18/b3576047.htm and "When Gil Amelio opted for NeXT instead of BeOS insiders said Steve Jobs would “F--- Gil so hard his eardrums will pop.” Those who are not privy to the sexual predilections of Cupertino denizens might wonder just what part of the anatomy those folks are interested in, but that is a topic for independent research. In any event, though he doesn’t get nearly enough credit, Gil Amelio put Apple back on track by raising scads of cash, cutting Apple programs deeply, and killing off the Performa line." from http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/10-best-apple-decisions-of-the-last-decade/).

But the questions now are, "Who does Apple celebrate? Who is responsible for Apple's turnaround? Who will Apple celebrate 5, 10, 20, 50 years from now?" Did Amelio have a key role in Apple's current state? I would say undeniably. But popularly, historically, and also undeniably, I think it is Jobs that will take the lion's share of the credit and Jobs that will be remembered instead of Amelio. Personally, I'd say Jobs did do a lot to get Apple to where it is today, which has more to do with image, interface, consumer electronics (ipod, etc...), than was Amelio's focus (which apparently was uninnovatively business oriented).