What is Apple Without Steve Jobs?

necro81 writes "David Pauly at Bloomberg has written a piece that asks 'Does Apple Inc. Have a Future Without Steve Jobs?' He writes in the context of Jobs' latest success in launching the iPhone, set against the backdrop of stock backdating troubles. In Pauly's worst-case-scenario, the SEC prosecutes Apple, and the board is forced to oust Jobs.Even without resorting to such scenarios, it's an interesting question to ask the fanboys and detractors out there: could Apple succeed and continue to innovative without Jobs at the helm?"

Investor confidence

[kongjie]

I guess there's a few questions in there. The article suggests that investors' confidence is based on Jobs. So if he goes, so will they.

For me the more interesting question is how much of Apple's success can be ascribed to Jobs' leadership style. Perhaps that should be in quotes because he is rumored to be an asshole [typepad.com] to work for. Did his uncompromising behavior and standards create the iPod? Would it have been less of a hit if his vision didn't push it in the right direction? Or did it require a perfectionist?

Clearly he won't settle for less than best in him employees--but viewing from the outside, it's hard to say if that helped or hindered Apple's success.

Jonathan Ive

[Andy_R]

Jobs is certainly a more charismatic figurehead than Gates or Ballmer, but plenty of companies do just fine without a reality distortion field, so why shouldn't Apple? I believe the key man behind Apple's current run of success may well be Jonathan 'Jony' Ive, not Steve Jobs.

Re:We already know the answer

[Zaurus]

Even more convincing, Pixar with Steve didn't do so bad.

Don't Change Course

[prozac79]

They would survive without Jobs since they now have some momentum in certain areas such as digital music and consumer electronics. As long as they make incremental, evolutionary improvements to their already-existing popular products, they will do fine. Now that they have a name with things like the iPod, they just need to make sure that it remains perceived as "cooler" than the other devices which means making small changes (bigger screens, touchscreens, higher capacity, smaller size, etc.). They might get in trouble if Jobs was replaced by someone who wanted to take the company in a "completely new direction". Just look at HP as an example of what new directions can do to a good company. Or look at what almost happened to Apple when they let Steve go before.

Personality cults aside, Jobs is replaceable

[postbigbang]

He's good, he's smart, he's richer than Cresus. He's the master of drama and slick stuff that works. He did very little himself, however, except running a tight ship.

Apple is not a marketleader, save in one very popular segment. Don't mistake that for being IBM-- they're less than 1/10th the size. He knows how to talk to Hollywood, because he IS HOLLYWOOD-- that's where Pixar and Disney get their $$ from.

Apple ought to break up into three companies: entertainment systems, computer systems, and software. Each would work nicely on their own, and be able to then attack their respective marketplaces less encumbered by the other. If they actually opened up things (no, don't look at the iPhone stupidity), they'd get the best of both worlds, as their BSD 'pedigree' is a bit of a sham.

Jobs ought to retire while we still like him, after choosing someone without a pony tail (sorry, Jonathon).

Disney would buy Apple

[plusser]

If Steve Jobs left Apple now, it is conceivable that the first thing that would happen is that he would become CEO of Disney. If Steve Jobs became CEO of Disney, the first thing he would do is buy Apple Inc - business as usual. Why - quite simple. Sony makes films and also makes consumer electronics. There are considerable benefits in doing both, so by buying Apple Disney get in on the market. It is something called Vertical Integration - an old business model that coming back into fashion.

Re:Ummm,

[cavehobbit]

MAN!

I guess the Apple fanboys are out in force early.

Considering that the couple of folks that tried to clone the AppleII way back when were mercilessly hunted down and killed, (legalistically speaking), by Apple, and the short time Apple tried to license out their OS to clone makers was such a miserable failure due to their overly restrictive terms and high fees, I think my opinion is an honest one, not a troll.

Contrast to IBM and M$, who let the IBM PC clones freak flags fly, welcoming any and all third party developers and apps.

The attempt to quash my opinion by modding it down just validates it.

Re:Apple needs a superstar CEO

[The One and Only]

Apple had another CEO like that once. His name was John Sculley. Visionary, charismatic superstar...Sculley was even seated between Hillary Clinton and Alan Greenspan at Clinton's first State of the Union, for God's sakes! Long story made short, he burned out and made some mistakes, and Apple fell into the disaster that was the mid-to-late 90's. Jobs has been CEO longer than Sculley was, and he never made that mistake. (One crucial difference: like Jobs, Sculley had visionary ideas. One of them was the Newton. Unlike Jobs, however, Sculley was no perfectionist, and the Newton shipped prematurely. Sculley was also nowhere near the control freak Jobs is, and engineering fell out of his influence and under Gassee's.)

Re:they'll find a way

[winkydink]

No CEO would take the job under those terms. In fact, that's how Steve moved from iCEO to CEO... nobody wanted the CEO spot with Jobs in the picture.

Same without Jobs? Probably not...

[w3woody]

The one thing Steve Jobs has been is ruthless in getting well-thought out design and integrated software projects working across multiple product teams, so that the final user experience is a unified one across most of Apple's products.

Compare this to Sony's reported "silo" approach to developing hardware, software and services, music and video--where many times individual managers within Sony actively squabble over the right approach to take, each fueled more by the individual needs of each division within Sony rather than the needs of the overall company. Such a "silo" mentality is inevitable at any large company unless someone at the top actively forces people to work together for the benefit of the entire company rather than for the individual gains of a particular division.

I don't know if there is a technologically savvy enough uber-geek asshole out there which could replace Steve Jobs if he were to leave Apple--which means Apple would eventually fall back on the habits it had under Spindler and Amelio, where every division internally competed without any sort of unified direction, beyond the imperitive that the sell something.

Re:Investor confidence

[kongjie]

Let me be clearer. Jobs has a reputation for driving his employees hard and not accepting anything less than perfection. This puts him possibly in the realm of someone who is an "asshole" to work for. This is just rumored but since I don't work for Apple and Jobs, that's all I have to go on.

The question is if his way of managing people makes a better product or not. Can product excellence be achieved without inspiring terror in your employees?

Use Gordon Ramsey as a parallel, in the restaurant business--which has many, many assholes, by the way--and ask if the quality of his cuisine and employees is helped or hindered by his habit of terrorizing underperformers. There are definitely great restaurants that are not run by assholes, but is that the exception?

Willy Wonka

[Pengo]

It is actually exciting to live in a time where we have a CEO like Jobs. He's the only example of a true living Willy Wonka in my lifetime.

I can't think of one more individual like Steve that inspires me to not only pull out my wallet and hand over thousands of dollars, but do it with a smile.

Re: Good Post!

[turkeyfish]

Good post.

My sense is that in some ways as the overall telecommunications market converges over IP, Apple is facing many of the same stresses with regard to openness as Apple is now. It will eventually have to face up to the diversity of an already oversaturated market and the trend to more open standards necessary for interoperability in a multinetworked environment. I think this is why the iPhone fiasco seems to have created a disturbance in the force for many inhabitants/captives of the Apple universe. It creates a realization that simply being "cool" and PR savy doesn't necessarily equate to strategic longterm viability and market influence in a universe of coliding universes. The iPhone fiasco only drew attention to the strategic weakness of proprietary platforms such as Apple's. If its gravitational pull is small a proprietary platform has little chance to hold its elements in orbit.

In this sense Cisco with its enormus size is much more stragically and centrally placed. Its size provides the gravitational pull in the marketplace and the fact that given its position is essentially pure networking and hence, TCP/IP at its core. Hence, it is platform agnostic and able to coexist with multiple platforms that it draws into its orbit. Having TCP/IP at its core creates a more general form of an "open platform" than is available to Apple.

My sense is that overtime, "smaller" players, such as Apple, will only become buisness elements embedded in much larger corporate entities either merged or in strategic alliances. Apple doesn't extert enough influence in telecommunications to alter the direction of the overall market over the longer term. The iPhone "launch" shows the Apple's weakness and just how constrained and squeeze it is in attempting to enter the larger telecommuncations market. I do wish them luck as a consumer, we need as many choices as possible. However, also as a consumer, I must also recognize that with convergence comes the essential need to scale up in order to address market diversity and interoperability. Otherwise, I will simply be hostage to $500 phones (that do not even include the fees to access the network).

A more interesting question is whether ATT, which now owns Cingular and upon which Apple's phone will live or die, will use its constraint on Apple to ultimately swallow it whole or just place it firmly in orbit, as ATT girds to battle other corporate titans, who seek global control in a converging telecommunications/multimedia universe. In that sense who replaces Jobs might be a moot question, as the next CEO might be simply a VP in a much larger enterprise. My own sense is that this won't happen over the next few years, as the air must clear to determine how much damage has been done to Apple's financials over the stock options problems.

Is Steve Jobs the Willy Wonka of Computers?

[xploraiswakco]

Has Steve Jobs become the Willy Wonka of the Computer Industry?

Yes I'm refering to the childrens story/movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", but think about it... sure Willy Wonka was a very private individual, but there are quite a few parallels that can be made between Steve/Apple and Willy/Wonka's Chocolate Factory

They both started off famously...

Steve was forced out, and the competition started to catch up supposedly (I think probably, but thats a matter of opinion) by stealing ideas from Apple
vs.
Wonka's chocolate ideas were stolen by the competition so he closed the factory

When Steve was brought back he brought back his new company NEXT with him, to which much of OS X can apparently be accredited
vs.
Wanka Reopened his factory with the help of "Oompa Loompas" he brought back with him from where he dissappeared while his factory was closed

and now we get to the storied question, who will replace Steve Jobs (Willy Wonka) after he is gone?

or better yet, is Steve/Apple going to do a lottery to find a successor? (-- ok this is a joke question, but it helps to point out the issue ;)