Reversion to the mean

Sure, he would have done a lot better had Apple performed well under his reign, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that the bottom line for Scully is the bottom line for Scully.

If the only point of a corporation is to make profit, isn’t the only point of being the head of a corporation to make yourself rich?

Scully simply didn’t understand how to do anything else but marketing. When it came to developing technology, manufacturing or organizing an actual computer company, he was at sea. The company ran for five years on inertia as the central coordination broke down into a series of competing fiefdoms. Scully did everything wrong. He chopped up costing so that one department made money on a transaction while another one payed the cost. He shutdown quality assurance which lead to the Great Quality Implosion of ’96 which would have destroyed an ordinary company. The man was a disaster from top to bottom.

I think the rule is that if you ran a major company, you must have something important to say. This is something akin to the idea that the son of great king will be a great king himself. Anyone can blunder into the job of running a major corporation. At that point, however, its like being born on 3rd base. If you start at the top, the measure of your accomplish lies in increasing or at least maintaining superior position. If the company takes a nose dive during your tenure. Then you failed and no one wants to read your book.