People Who Went To Penn: John Sculley
April 26, 2013 at 11:41 am
John Sculley was a high achiever from the very beginning: at 5 days old, he was one of the first infants to fly the Atlantic Ocean. In the years since, he graduated with an MBA from Wharton ('63) and began working at Pepsi-Cola Company, quickly rising to the top as the company's youngest president and CEO.
The journey didn't end there, as Apple was eager to hire Sculley away. As Steve Jobs made the legendary pitch to Sculley, "Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?" When you put it that way, being in charge of a multibillion dollar corporation does seem kind of mundane. Sculley chose the latter and became the CEO of Apple, with things going smoothly except for the infamous power struggle that led to Jobs' ousting (oops).
Nowadays Sculley has been investing in US health care while advocating for more opportunities to consumerize the industry. Talk about high-achievers...