The analysis overlooked the obvious answer – that neither Apple's success nor its failure had much to do with Mr Sculley, an able corporate bureaucrat who rode the roller-coaster of high technology. Our desire to see history through the lives of great men blinds us to the real complexity of politics, business and finance, and leads us to find intentionality and design where there are only chance and improvisation. The philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre, put it acerbically: “When imputed organisational skill and power are deployed and the desired effect follows, all that we have witnessed is the same kind of sequence as that to be observed when a clergyman is fortunate enough to pray for rain just before the unpredicted end of a drought!” He also said: “One key reason why the presidents of large corporations do not, as some radical critics believe, control the US is that they do not even succeed controlling their own corporations.” That was the experience of Chuck Prince, former Citigroup chief, and Stan O'Neal, former head of Merrill Lynch.
這種分析忽視了一個明顯的答案，即蘋果的成功和失敗都與斯卡利沒有關系。他是位能干的公司官僚，卻坐上了高科技的過山車。我們想通過偉人的人生觀察歷史，但這種渴望蒙蔽了我們雙眼，讓我們看不到政治、商業和金融的實際復雜性，也引導著我們去發現意圖與計謀，其實其中只存在運氣和即興發揮。哲學家阿拉斯戴爾?麥金泰爾(Alasdair MacIntyre)刻薄地說過：“當所指的組織技巧和權力得到運用，接著也達到了想要的效果時，我們目睹的一切與另一種情形有著相同的先后次序，就好比在干旱不可預知地結束前，一位牧師幸運地在祈雨?！彼€說：“正如一些激進的批評人士認為的那樣，大量公司總裁控制不了美國，關鍵原因之一，是他們甚至不能成功地控制他們自己的公司?！边@就是花旗集團(Citigroup)前老總查克?普林斯(Chuck Prince)和美林(Merrill Lynch)前首腦斯坦?奧尼爾(Stan O'Neal)的經歷。