PREMIUM SEARCH Search by job title, geography and build a list of executive contacts
It has been a while since anyone has heard much from Gilbert Amelio, former CEO of Apple Computer and National Semiconductor. Since getting the heave-ho from Apple's board in 1997, Amelio put in some time at San Francisco-based equity investment firm Parkside Group, and since then he has been at his own company, AmTech, which works with small startups. Now he's raising a venture fund as well as getting more actively involved in corporate governance issues. He believes that many dot.com boards are not sufficiently independent, and he plans to spend a lot of his time drawing attention to these issues.
After giving the keynote speech at the Investor Responsibility Research Center's www.governance2000.com conference on Jan. 20 in New York, Amelio spoke with Business Week's Jennifer Reingold, harshly criticizing the decision of Apple's board to award a generous compensation package to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Here are edited excerpts from their conversation:
Q: What do you think about the news that [Apple CEO] Steve Jobs was awarded a Gulfstream V [corporate jet] and 10 million Apple stock options as compensation?
A: I think that's an absurd number. That is an unreal amount. I'm stunned. You have to look at the board. That's not good corporate governance. Look, I think CEOs should be well compensated. But I don't know how you can justify that. He must have taken lessons from Michael Eisner. I guess I was really cheap for Apple, although I took a lot of heat then for my pay.
Q: But things are going well at Apple, don't you think? Did your ideas have any impact on the turnaround?
A: In the spring of 1996, I wrote a white paper on Apple's strategy. That's the strategy they're pursuing now.
Q: Did you think Apple's board exercised good corporate governance by ousting you? Isn't that what a board must do when the turnaround isn't happening?
A: They did a tough thing. But sometimes you have to have the courage to stay in there longer. I wanted a minimum of three years. It turned out to be 18 months. We had to lay the strategic foundation. Once we fixed the strategy, things started to fall into place. But the board felt under some pressure [from shareholders]. Turning me over bought them time, in effect. What happened was I had fixed the corporate mechanics. Steve is a great marketing guy. He's done great, but I should get all the credit for making [his work] possible. I haven't wanted to dwell on this. But I think people are beginning to see what I said.
Q: How has the board changed since you left?
A: The board is worse than it was then. First, it's smaller. It's made up primarily of close friends of Steve's for decades.
Q: What do you think Apple still has left to do?
A: The real question about Apple is: Is it going to be a real factor helping define the future of computing? It always will have a group of loyal users. But it's not yet clear that they have a real strategy. They backed away from Newton, and now it's all about wireless computing. The Newton had problems, but it could have been repositioned. And the operating system is still too complicated, although the iMac is a step in the right direction. There's a lot more they can do on the communications side
Look, I'm not carrying any axes here. I don't want to rewrite history. But strictly from the shareholder point of view, it's always better when they have the real facts.
Q: What are you up to these days?
A: After I left Apple, my wife and I talked about what I could do. I could retire, but I had too much energy. I could take on another CEO job, but I had done that for 15 years. Been there, done that. Or I could find a way to participate and give something back. So I've spent the last two years as sort of a very aggressive angel investor. I have helped start eight companies [including owners.com, a home-selling site]. It's been the most fulfilling two years of my life. The fun part of the job is working with these young people.
Now, I'm going to launch a venture fund, called AmTech Capital. It will focus on telecom, computers, the Internet, and financial services. And I'm going to put these companies into the fund at my cost, giving investors an instant profit. I'm not dumb, I just want to be giving an incentive to join. We'd like to have the first closing of the fund in late spring. We're targeting $100 million, with a $150 million cap. It will be very hands-on.
EDITED BY DOUGLAS HARBRECHT
Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.
Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed.
Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video.
To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here.
Copyright 2000 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
Printer-Friendly Version
