That seems fair, but I wonder whether in the long run the cult of personality surrounding him is good for Apple. His ultimate achievement as a CEO would be if he can translate his efforts into continuity.
As has been argued around the business web, Jobs' absence/incapacity for better part of a year - while Apple continued to develop dramatically better than the rest of the industry - may have been helpful as a demonstration of what the organization can do on its own.
Maybe, but one year you might not need the kind of complete change of direction that he managed to pull off earlier and which made the company what it is today.
While Apple could probably be very successful with their current direction for quite some time, if the market changes under them the lack of Jobs might become more apparent.
Sure, that requires Jobs. However, Apple has a pretty clear direction that Jobs established and If all that Apple does from now on is to keep the direction calibrated and keep the pace that he set then Apple will do very very well in the long run.
Another data point is Jobs' absence from 1985 to 1997. The stock rose incredibly for 2 years ($2 to $14), then flat for 6 years, then fell for 4 years (to $3.4).
It's utterly ridiculous to extrapolate from this, because so many other factors influence stock price and business performance - but it's more or less what you would expect of an organization supporting a brilliant leader, and is a tantalizingly similar data point with respect to Jobs presence.
This has surely been discussed endlessly elsewhere, but I think it's impossible for an autocrat to cultivate an autocratic successor - why would Jobs put up with another autocrat (and why would the autocratic successor put up with him?) I think this is a slightly different angle from the "cult of personality" aspect.
Hopefully the last example of his leaving is an aberration due to the circumstances. On top of that we have some lessons learned from the executives brought in post-Steve. e.g. the people who run a company should have some kind of understanding of the vertical.
Looking at this recent absence, it looks like Apple and Steve has done the kind of continuity planning we'd all like to see.
Isn't the question really, that if Steve's gone, will there be another breakout hit, like the iPod / iPhone, or will you just see more evolutionary products, like Microsoft does?
Good point. Apple's demonstrating that can continue to operate at a high level, but innovation like the iPod/Phone usually relies on one or two people in an entire organization.
