Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple.

• Author: Zachary, G. Pascal

Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple.

Like the turn of the century automobile revolution, the rise of the personal computer has entered American folklore. It is an appealing tale: a group of scruffy young computer hackers led by a couple of college dropouts named Steve (Jobs and Wozniak), set out to create a new industry based on a populist credo--"one person, one computer." The established computer companies, who build the big mainframes that are shared by large groups of users, possessed the technology to transform the computer into a tool for individuals. But these companies--most notably Xerox, which had an entire lab working on personal computers, and Hewlett Packard, which rejected Wozniak's offer to build his first computer--turned their backs on the idea out of a desire to protect their existing products. Rather than seeing the potential of personal computers, the computer establishment saw only the threat. That left the field to business novices like the two Steves to trigger a revolution in personal productivity--and build huge new American industry.

Jobs and Wozniak formed Apple Computer about ten years ago to spread the gospel about personal computers. The company and its cause soon attracted the attention usually reserved for rock stars and royalty, and it has now spawned an unusual corporate memoir by Apple's current chief, John Scully.*

* Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple. John Scully. Harper and Row, $21.95.

After its fast start, Apple ran into trouble, a victim of its own grandiose dreams and the entrance into the personal computer market of the world's biggest computer company, IBM.

To fend off Big Blue, Apple's board of bluechip directors figured the company needed a dose of establishment medicine. For all his creativity and showmanship, Jobs was no manager. Early in Apple's history he had relinquished day-to-day management duties, allowing him to indulge his passion for the Macintosh Division, which eventually consumed Apple's resources.

In from the East came Scully, president of Pepsi-Cola, to tame this wild child and teach it corporate manners. Jobs had personally wooed Scully, challenging him with the question, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want to change the world?" Scully, ripe for change, took the bait.

At Pepsi, Scully had measured corporate success in market points and battled fellow executives for the right to succeed the company's revered chairman, Donald Kendel. At Apple, protocol was...