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Bill Campbell Reflects on 17 Years on Apple's Board of Directors

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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Alongside his resignation from Apple's board of directors after 17 years of service, Intuit chairman Bill Campbell spoke with Fortune about his time with the company, sharing some insights about the company he first became associated with over 30 years ago as a marketing executive.

bill_campbell_celebrating_steve.jpg
Bill Campbell at Apple's "Celebrating Steve" event relating the story of Steve Jobs trying out Siri​
Among the topics touched on by Campbell was the conflict he faced while serving on Apple's board while also assisting Google's then-CEO Eric Schmidt, a situation not always embraced by longtime friend Steve Jobs.
"Steve would say, 'If you're helping them you're hurting me.' He would yell at me," recalls Campbell, whose normal banter typically needs to be sanitized for most publications. " I'd say, 'I can't do HTML, come on. I'm just coaching them on how to run their company better.'" He continued in both roles for years.
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Long seen as "Steve's guy" on the Apple board, Campbell also had praise for Tim Cook, who has been officially at the helm of Apple for nearly three years now.
"Apple is an institution now," he said. "Tim's done an amazing job of building bench strength within the organization. There's a whole set of new and smart people who are taking over. You're watching that company grow up." [...]

"Tim is a calm, thoughtful guy," he said. "He studies things and thinks about them, makes a decision, and moves on."
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Highlighting his feelings on Cook, Campbell notes that Cook has thoughtfully offered to make a contribution in Campbell's honor to recognize his service to Apple. That unspecified contribution will involve Campbell's home town in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area.

Article Link: Bill Campbell Reflects on 17 Years on Apple's Board of Directors
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/07/17/bill-campbell-reflects/
Rogifan

Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,142
31,197
"Apple is an institution now," he said. "Tim's done an amazing job of building bench strength within the organization. There's a whole set of new and smart people who are taking over. You're watching that company grow up." [...]
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I like hearing this. Tim's the guy to lead a grown up Apple. Steve knew that, hence why he recommended the board put Tim in charge.
 
nutmac

nutmac

macrumors 603
Mar 30, 2004
6,057
7,320
I have been Apple's shareholder for well over 10 years. One thing I always voted against, was keeping Bill Campbell on the board. Intuit has consistently and intentionally produced inferior applications for Mac, starting with perhaps their biggest insult, Quicken for Mac.
 
grundoon

grundoon

macrumors member
Feb 2, 2013
92
46
IJ Reilly said:
Campbell's company sure showed Apple a lot of love. How he remained so close to Steve is a mystery to me.
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nutmac said:
I have been Apple's shareholder for well over 10 years. One thing I always voted against, was keeping Bill Campbell on the board. Intuit has consistently and intentionally produced inferior applications for Mac, starting with perhaps their biggest insult, Quicken for Mac.
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You all seem to forget that his actual job was CEO of Apple-spinoff Claris, not “on the board of Intuit”.
 
T

theheadguy

macrumors 65816
Apr 26, 2005
1,156
1,385
california
Rogifan said:
"Apple is an institution now," he said. "Tim's done an amazing job of building bench strength within the organization. There's a whole set of new and smart people who are taking over. You're watching that company grow up."
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I like hearing this. Tim's the guy to lead a grown up Apple. Steve knew that, hence why he recommended the board put Tim in charge.
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A lot of people have heard enough of it. It's been three years. Time for the players to get off the bench and play.
 
Rocketman

Rocketman

macrumors 603
Dec 2, 2001
6,191
1,186
Claremont, The intellectual capitol of the world.
Intuit had a facility in San Bernardino, CA for decades. They finally escaped the neighborhood and moved on.

Now Bill has finally got this Apple ball and chain off him, albiet with accomplishments unparalleled in world finance, you know, ever.

http://developers-beta.slashdot.org...icrosofts-missed-opportunities-memo-from-1997

Soon Apple will own IBM too. Not just the entire HP HQ facility.

:D

Rocketman

I was pithy.
 
J

jeremysteele

Cancelled
Jul 13, 2011
485
394
I always found it quite ironic how the Intuit chairman was on our board - yet their offerings for Mac OS (classic and X) have always been complete garbage compared to the windows versions.
 
Rogifan

Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,142
31,197
theheadguy said:
A lot of people have heard enough of it. It's been three years. Time for the players to get off the bench and play.
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WTF was WWDC and the IBM announcement then? Seems to me that's getting off the bench.

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AxoNeuron said:
This Sue Wagner lady who is going to replace him on the board....yuck. Another Wall Street type, just what Apple needs...
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She was hired for a spot on the board not to run product development.
 
S

sixrom

macrumors 6502a
Nov 13, 2013
709
1
theheadguy said:
A lot of people have heard enough of it. It's been three years. Time for the players to get off the bench and play.
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You're right. In addition, it seems like there's an undercurrent of mild chaos and uncertainty that is interfering with the development and execution of a clear plan of action going forward. It's as though Apple has stalled. Oh sure there's some movement and the ever present profit taking. But it just seems as though Apple could be doing so much more. Between the personnel changes and other changes, stability seems challenged.
 
S

scottmp

macrumors newbie
Feb 19, 2009
5
5
Quicken

My biggest gripe with Bill Campbell is that for almost a decade now he has allowed Intuit/Quicken for the Mac to languish with problems of incompatibility with OSX (Lion, I believe), iOS, lack of support, lack of improvements and sheer and utter lack of responsiveness.

Quicken was a piece of software that was an early hit with the Mac Community -- nothing else including the Intuit-owned Mint (anybody heard anything about that lately?) has even come close to taking Quicken's place.

Mr. Campbell ought to give the software to Apple and let it get the development it's due. Now that it's APPLE/IBM such an action might be worthy.

It always has bothered me that Campbell's Intuit just ignored the Mac audience that helped building the company and has continued to adapt, improve and support the Windows world.

I, for one, think a not so very good friend has left the building and his exit need not be bemoaned.
 
kjs862

kjs862

macrumors 65816
Jan 21, 2004
1,297
24
What does he mean by "Apple is an institution now"?

Apple has been an institution for some time, no?
 
B

bob_hearn

macrumors regular
Jan 15, 2004
115
3
Vancouver, BC
You people don't have a clue what you're talking about. Take it from someone who knows him. He was a big boon to the company; he will be missed.
 
69Mustang

69Mustang

macrumors 604
Jan 7, 2014
7,895
15,043
In between a rock and a hard place
kjs862 said:
What does he mean by "Apple is an institution now"?

Apple has been an institution for some time, no?
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I would say he's pretty spot on. You have to remember Apple's ascendance to the top of the heap is a relatively new occurence. Only a decade ago Apple's net revenue was only $8 billion. 5 years ago it was $36.5 billion. Apple didn't cross that magical $100 billion in net revenue until 2011.

Just an aside: To go from $8 billion in 2004 to $170 billion in 2013 is abso-f'n-lutely Chris Bridges.

I think that's what he meant by "now".
 
S

scotty321

macrumors regular
Jun 4, 2003
229
181
Finally, this disgusting parasite of a human being is gone!! Good riddance to this disgusting man who has done more to hurt the Mac platform than almost any other man in existence. The man who has always allowed his company Intuit to treat all Mac users like second-class citizens, which still continues to this day. The man who has never lifted a finger of good for the Mac platform. The man who allowed his company to drop all support for Quicken for the Mac, then drop all support for QuickBooks for the Mac, then reluctantly bring back QuickBooks after many years, but still never brought back Quicken and still keeps QuickBooks paralyzed with 99% less features than the Windows versions of QuickBooks. The man who allowed his company to never develop any other accounting products for the Mac. The man who made everyone in the entire tech industry doubt that the Mac was a viable business machine. Why Steve Jobs was EVER friends with this pathetic human being is beyond me. Good riddance. At first, I actually misinterpreted the headline to read that Bill Campbell had died, which would be even BETTER news… but this news will still suffice as the best news of the day.
 
KENESS

KENESS

macrumors regular
Mar 14, 2003
202
625
mangonights said:
Go Pittsburgh! Go Pittsburgh! :cool:

Easily one of the best cities in the US.
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Agreed!

He's actually from Homestead, and contributes quite a bit to the borough himself already... As a resident, too, I'm dying to know what this Apple contribution is going to be. If it is ever even made public. Homestead is so small that things like this (his contributions over the years, and the potential Apple one) can really make a huge impact.
 
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