After graduating from the
California Institute of Technology, Scott worked at
Fairchild Semiconductor, where he shared a cubicle with
Mike Markkula and Gene Carter; all 3 would later end up working together at Apple.
Apple Attempting to set an example for all businesses, in 1979, Scott declared there would be no typewriters at Apple. In 1979 and 1980,
Jef Raskin's
Macintosh project was a four-person
research effort. It was not considered important within Apple and was almost canceled a couple of times. When Apple had another major reorganization in the fall of 1980, it was terminated again, but Raskin pleaded with Scott and Markkula for more time and was granted three more months to show that he was really onto something. On February 25, 1981, the day known as "Black Wednesday" at the company, Scott personally fired forty Apple employees, including half of the
Apple II team, in a belief that they were redundant. Later in the afternoon he assembled the remaining employees with a keg of beer and explained the firings by stating, "I used to say that when being CEO at Apple wasn't fun anymore, I'd quit. But now I've changed my mind — when it isn't fun any more, I'll fire people until it's fun again." Following this abrupt event, he was moved to vice chairman, a title with little power, and Markkula, the man who had hired Scott, replaced him. Scott left Apple officially on July 10, 1981, stating in his resignation letter:
Later career From 1983 to 1988, Scott led
Starstruck, a private firm that attempted to create a sea-based
satellite-launching rocket. He also began supporting non-profit organizations, such as the
Seattle Opera and the
California Institute of Technology in their efforts to apply personal computers to their needs.
Gemstone expert Scott later became an expert on colored
gemstones, having written a book on them and assembled a collection that has been exhibited at the
Bowers Museum in
Santa Ana, California. He also sponsored Rruff, a project creating a complete set of high-quality spectral data from well-characterized minerals. The mineral rruffite (IMA 2009-077) was named for the Rruff project and the mineral
scottyite (IMA 2012-027) for Michael Scott. == Sources==