Talk:Gil Amelio

Respectable cash flow?

Despite the criticisms, Amelio was responsible for putting Apple back into having a respectable cash flow

Bah. Gil's entire contribution to the cause was to issue a huge number of fairly high-interest bonds, thereby placing Apple in debt. It hobbled the company in a time of decreased sales, and surely would have killed it had Jobs not came back. It took a couple of years, but Gil's debt-vehicles were finally killed off in circa-03.

Gil didn't have one single good idea. No, really. I defy anyone to name a single effort that he started that had any hope of turning things around. He happily accepted all the BS that came out of engineering about Copland, and completely ignored the utter chaos that was the engineering departments. It wasn't until he brought in Ellen that anything changed. Jobs might have thought she was a bozo, but she did more for that company than Gil ever did.

Maury 02:53, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

NeXT

Amelio later admitted he overpaid for NeXT.

While Amelio may have felt that $400mil was too much, there are many who wouldn't think so at all, looking at Apple's state of affairs now. Getting NeXTStep and Steve Jobs to come and turn around Apple was worth far more than $400mil to the company. I changed this to reflect that Gil's idea that he overpaid was Gil's idea, not fact. Lostchicken 07:52, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree - it was money very well spent indeed. Without it, Apple would not exist today, but of course we can only see that with the benefit of hindsight. Graham 22:57, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

It wasn't just Gil's opinion that Apple overpaid. That was the universal opinion at the time. The purchase at that price for an unfinished product simply flabbergasted everyone at Apple. Furthermore, it did not bring "Steve Jobs to come and turn around Apple." It only brought him in as an adviser who reported directly to Amelio. Don't forget that Jobs' loyalty was very much in question since once the Next deal was done, his first response was to sell all of his Apple stock except for one share.

I totally disagree with the opinion that "without Next, Apple would not exist today, but of course we can only see that with the benefit of hindsight." Years of internal work had to be done to make that OS viable. Arguably, a completely new OS could have been developed for those man hours.TL36 (talk) 20:19, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Where is he now?

Can someone contribute info about where he is now?

There is info about his educational background here: http://www.nndb.com/people/138/000026060/

According to http://www.answers.com/topic/gil-amelio "After leaving Apple, Amelio embarked on a second career as a venture capitalist."

His resignation letter when leaving Apple is here: http://www.resignation.com/8.html

<moved 2 paragraphs to article> Chadlupkes 21:08, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

if he is conservative enough to become an advisor to Vanguard PAC, he must have stuck out like a sore thumb at Apple. I would speculate that part of his conflict at Apple would have been related to this kind of culture clash.

Middle initial?

What's his middle initial? The article shows F, but this article shows A. --Saforrest 17:29, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

price of NeXT

", Amelio started discussions with Steve Jobs' NeXT, and bought the company on February 4, 1997 for $429 million." the article on Steve_Jobs says the price was $402 million which is right?

"and has since been granted SEC approval"

What does this phrase mean? Approval for what?

Some context: "Acquicor completed the acquisition of Jazz Semiconductor in Newport Beach, CA in early 2007 and has since been granted SEC approval."

This can't be approval to acquire, if the acquisition is already complete. It can't be approval for an IPO; Acquicor already IPOed in 2006. See Acquicor Technology.

So... huh? -- TJRC (talk) 20:31, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Removed that sentence since it made no sense out of context. It was an unusual deal involving a special-purpose acquisition company which is now (finally, five years later!) described in the article on Jazz Semiconductor. Acquicor was a shell corporation with no product nor revenues, just three rich celebrities. W Nowicki (talk) 21:28, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Links?

The links for citation #1 are incorrect. one is a link to a political video, the other is to a related page on amelio that does not contain the information it is "supposed" to. 67.70.94.222 (talk) 12:07, 31 January 2008 (UTC) drw

This seems to be no rumor spread by Jobs to bring Amelio into disrepute. He just seems to have freely summarized what Fortune Magazine reports:

Amelio told us: "Apple is a boat. There's a hole in the boat, and it's taking on water. But there's also a treasure on board. And the problem is, everyone on board is rowing in different directions, so the boat is just standing still. My job is to get everyone rowing in the same direction so we can save the treasure." After he turned away, I looked at the person next to me and asked, "But what about the hole?" --A Silicon Valley CEO recalling Amelio's description of his task at Apple during a cocktail party in spring, 1996.

According to SteveJobsInc the source for this is Schlender, B. (1998, November 9) The Three Faces Of Steve. Fortune Magazine. However there is no mention of it in the text.

cbsnews tells us, this quote is from Larry Ellison, an old pal of Steve Jobs...--hklinke (talk) 12:03, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm adding Ellison's quote to the article, since all current sources lead directly to Steve Jobs, who can be considered a biased source in this case.--Gorpik (talk) 10:33, 23 August 2012 (UTC)