Scores of people have become famous, at least in tech circles, via their affiliation with Apple Computer (AAPL). There are "the Steves" who founded the company: Jobs and Wozniak. And former CEOs John Sculley, Michael Spindler, and Gil Amelio, not to mention a colorful cast of characters such as Jean-Louise Gassée, Jef Raskin, and Mike Markkula.
Then there's Edgar S. Woolard Jr. The former chief executive and chairman of chemical giant DuPont (DD) was also on Apple's board at perhaps the most critical point in its history. He joined during the dark days of 1996, soon after Gilbert A. Amelio had joined as CEO. After watching Amelio's plan fail to take hold, Woolard was the director who in July, 1997, called Steve Jobs to invite him to once again take the helm.
Jobs, who had been a consultant since late 1996 after Apple bought his NeXT Software, refused to take the CEO job at first, but a few months later agreed to take it on an interim basis (remember the iCEO?). Jobs dropped the "i" in 2000, and the rest, as they say, is history.
CURBING COMPENSATION. No doubt, none of the normal Apple adjectives -- hip, stylish, trend-setting -- apply to Woolard. The 71-year-old has an old-money, patrician air and had served on the boards of Citigroup (C), IBM (IBM), and the Business Council. Yet Jobs evidently liked what he saw, as Woolard was one of only two Apple board members who didn't depart in a shakeup in August, 1997, that brought Jobs, Oracle (ORCL) CEO Larry Ellison, and others onto Apple's board.
As for Woolard's legacy, some questioned Apple's decision to grant Jobs options to buy 10 million Apple shares and a Gulfstream V jet in January, 2000. But Woolard defended that decision, pointing out that Jobs had worked for nothing to that point, during which Apple's market cap had soared from less than $2 billion to more than $16 billion. Now, with Apple's stock at $72, that controversy is a distant memory.
And Woolard, who was brought in to head the compensation committee of the board of the New York Stock Exchange after the Richard Grasso pay scandal, is earning hosannas from corporate-governance experts for his plan to curb CEO compensation.
His idea: limit the role of outside compensation consultants and tie CEO pay to the average pay of the company's other executives, rather than to rival CEOs. Woolard spoke with BusinessWeek Silicon Valley Computer Editor Peter Burrows about Steve Jobs, as Jobs prepares to join the board of Walt Disney (DIS), after selling Pixar Animation Studios (PIXR) to Disney on Jan. 24. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow:
So what do you think of this merger? I think it's fantastic. There are so many mergers where people talk about synergies, but the synergies here are totally obvious. We're talking about two companies that have been involved in a partnership that has worked extremely well, and this will take it to another level. There won't be any more tension over how to split the profits or about the extent to which the two sides should share their secrets. I think the synergies will escalate dramatically.
Some of our sources wonder what this will mean for Disney CEO Bob Iger. After all, Steve Jobs has very strong feelings about the way things should be done. Do you think Jobs will be a positive influence on Disney's board? I think people are misreading Steve Jobs. My opinion is that he will not come in with a heavy hand. I think he will try very hard to identify opportunities, and I think he will listen carefully to what Iger and the Disney management team has in mind, and will add suggestions.
The two men seem to have a good relationship, and there's one thing that's for certain: If Steve has a good relationship with you, there's nobody better in the world to work with. He trusts you, and he listens, and he bounces his ideas off you. But if he doesn't trust you, it doesn't work.
Can you give an example of this? Well, he worked very closely with Larry Ellison on some of Larry's ideas on technology. Larry would say, have you thought of doing this or that? And Jobs's response was usually, "great idea!" He never said "no, no no" to ideas just because they weren't his.
What about your work with him? Well, I'm not a technology nerd at all. But we spoke a lot about financial and personnel issues -- about people we wanted to recruit and promote. I recall at one point he had an idea to change the incentive compensation plan. I'd make suggestions, and he modified it. We compromised until we ended up with something that everyone thought was better.
He didn't agree with everything I said, but I never found him to be stubborn or unwilling to consider ideas. My guess is that's the way he'll approach his new position at Disney.
So how would you say Jobs stands out, as an executive? I'd say he has five special characteristics, and everyone knows the first two. For starters, he's incredibly creative and has great vision. That's an overused word, but he just kind of senses where people might want to go.
Two, he's an absolute perfectionist. For example, I remember he worked for hours with one of his guys on the colors for the first iMac. It had to be just right.
Three, he has a great ability to attract outstanding people to work with him. I'm talking about outstanding and extremely loyal people. As soon as he took over Apple, we had lots of great people who had been at the company previously, and people from Sun (SUNW) and Oracle and lots of other companies wanting to come back.
Four, if he respects you, he will interact with you and modify his ideas -- whether it's dealing with people or finance or technology.
Five -- and nobody ever seems to think about this one -- the damn guy knows how to make money! He just makes money. I remember how he cut inventory from over $400 million to less than $100 million in one year's time.
And he knows how to make decisions. If [an executive] isn't cutting it, he'll make the change. He doesn't do it in an ugly way, but just says "this isn't working" and does something about it. He does the kinds of things that an operating CEO is supposed to do.
I recall how one of his first moves was to cut Apple's product line from dozens of models to just four, so the company could get a better handle on its operations. Our jaws dropped on that one. But it was brilliant.
It seems to me that in some ways, Jobs almost runs Apple like a private company -- that maybe he's willing to make bold moves like that because he's so confident that Apple can succeed long-term just on the strength of great products. It's almost as if he's willing to let Wall Street think what it wants -- that in the end, if the company delivers great products, that the profits will take care of themselves. Yes, I think you're onto something there. First of all, Steve had great confidence in [CFO] Fred Anderson, so he let Fred deal with Wall Street for the most part. But it was clear that we were not going to play any games. We were not going to move revenues from one quarter to another to make a number. We were just going to make great products, price them well, and advertise them well. In fact, I think the first thing he did when he came back was to hire his old advertising firm.
What would have happened had he not come back? Oh, the company was going bankrupt. I should say, that's only my opinion. But cash was running out, a lot of good people were leaving, and the stock had gone from $40 to $12. And nobody wanted to buy the company.
Getting back to Disney, won't it be hard for a perfectionist like Jobs to sit back if he sees things he doesn't agree with? Look, he's only on the board. He's not the vice-chairman or president. He's on the board. He has been on boards before, including Gap (GPS). So he knows what a board member's responsibility is. He once told me he thought I was an excellent director because I made a lot of useful suggestions.
So I think he'll actually have relatively little to say in board meetings. I'd be astonished if there are any big arguments. And to the extent that some of the things are not to the perfection he might like, I think he can live with that. It's not his company.
Some folks in Silicon Valley wonder if Jobs may one day take Iger's job. After all, they say, Jobs insisted he didn't want the Apple CEO job at first, as well. That's so phony. Look, I was the guy who called him and begged him to please come back and be the CEO and chairman. And at first he said no. It's only my opinion, but I think he wanted to size it up for a while and see if he could fix it. But I told him he was the only guy who could save that company. I think he came to see that was true. So the comparison is so nonvalid.
He has no desire to be the CEO of a big multifaceted company. He likes to be in the action -- where he can get three or four people to work around the clock to come up with some great idea. My God, I think the bureaucracy at Disney would drive him crazy! And guess what? He still has a full-time job at Apple, and he's got to keep coming up with new iPods and iMacs. He's got a big job there.
So what do you think it's all about for Jobs? What really makes him tick? Money, power, legacy? It's certainly not financial. His first three years [back] at Apple, he took no money at all. I tried my best to get him to take stock options that would have been worth $500 million, but he said no. He didn't want the people of Apple to think he was just there for the money.
I think he's driven by wanting to make unique products that are outstanding and change the perspective for consumers. He wants to be the leading-edge guy -- which he is. He's the leading-edge guy in the world.
Burrows is BusinessWeek's Computers editor in the Silicon Valley bureau
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