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On Succeeding Steve Jobs

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Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#41

Post by joebadmo »

jonnathanson wrote: post #24

Cook was palatable to both Wall Street and Apple employees while SJ was on medical leave. IMO, he's passed the test already. Everyone was willing to accept him then, back when there was serious doubt about whether Jobs would return after his leave. So there's no reason why they wouldn't be willing to accept him in a genuine succession event.

Seems to me that the post doesn't fully address the most important fact: "He cannot be replaced..." Gruber takes the paragraph to points about what Jobs' absence will do to the stock, and then takes the rest of the post to talk about the sourcing of the story and who might eventually replace him, but those strike me as ancillary issues at best.

Jobs can't really be replaced, can he? Certainly Apple will continue to make heaps of money for the forseeable future, but without Jobs, the company will lose its essential nature. How can it not?

Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#43

Post by hluska »

Sorry to be this thread's grammar troll, but I would be very happy if OP (and the person who wrote this article) would edit the title to read:

On Seceding Steve Jobs

Succeeding means something totally different than seceding!

That bit of ugliness aside, I agree with the basic premise of this article. It would be tremendously risky for the board to bring in an outsider, and when you consider the structure of Apple's management, Tim Cook is the only reasonable choice to secede Jobs. However, Mr. Cook will have his work cut out for him as Jobs has an iconic stature, both within his company, on Wall Street and throughout the technology community.

However, on a strictly personal note, I feel sorry for whoever does eventually replace Mr. Jobs. There will inevitably be a few years when every time the new CEO makes an error, someone (either within the company, on Wall Street or within the media) will say, "If Steve Jobs were around this would never have happened."

In that regard, getting Steve Wozniak to firmly and publicly support the new CEO will be a major factor in his/her success.

Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#45

Post by wrs »

hluska wrote: post #43

Sorry to be this thread's grammar troll, but I would be very happy if OP (and the person who wrote this article) would edit the title to read: On Seceding Steve Jobs Succeeding means something totally different than seceding! That bit of ugliness aside, I agree with the basic premise of this article. It would be tremendously risky for the board to bring in an outsider, and when you consider the structure of Apple's m…

Sorry, no. Those verbs are indeed totally different, and you have them backwards.

Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#47

Post by podperson »

Steko wrote: post #33
barredo wrote: post #3

Easily the best post in Daring Fireball in months. Reminds me of 'The Tablet' ( http://daringfireball.net/2009/12/the_tablet ) and others to just how different Gruber is from other tech writers, even apple-related-tech writers like Andy Ihnatko, Jason Snell, etc. He throughly thinks about the topic with tremendous insight and unique points of view. This post is an interesting view on the world of tech, finance and jo…

It's a solid post but this is batting practice by Gruber. Anyone following Apple would bet the farm on Gruber's shortlist and the only serious candidate I'd entertain besides Cook would be Ive. Notably, Gruber missed a chance to link back to the Apple University effort which is another huge giveaway that a successor will almost certainly come from within. Glancing over the archive, imho Gruber's best posts in the las…

Gruber's dismissal of Ive as a candidate is pretty solidly based. I don't think Ive has even appeared in a speaking role in a keynote. I just don't think it's his kind of gig (and why should it be?)

Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#48

Post by evo_9 »

Jonathan Ive - He's creative and brilliant similar to Jobs. Apple needs an unconventional leader - Tim Cook is too convetional to lead and inspire from the top.

Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#49

Post by podperson »

igorgue wrote: post #12
kenjackson wrote: post #9

Who on that list would want to succeed Steve Jobs? I agree, for once, with Gruber that Apple's best bet is to change as little as possible. Don't fix what ain't broken. And conversely, there's virtually no upside for any high profile CEO to take this job. You'll get none of the credit for keeping the company on a roll, and take all the blame if it begins to turn downwards. With that said, Apple w/o Steve Jobs and MS…

IMHO there is a big difference between Apple and Microsoft, Bill Gates was surrounded by suits, Steve Jobs is surrounded by Engineers and Designers... I like all the guys that surround Jobs, Philip Schiller, Scott Forstall, Jonathan Ivy even Bob Mansfield are a good candidates, there is no reason why Apple should look elsewhere for CEO candidates.

Minor quibble: Gates was surrounded by suits and lawyers. The Microsoft empire was built on having a better understanding of IP law and licensing than pretty much anyone else at the time.

One of Jobs's much underrated talents was (and presumably still is) supply chain negotiation -- Apple's first billion came from a combination of brilliant negotiation (getting floppy drive mechanisms at an incredible price) and engineering (Woz created a brilliantly simple and inexpensive floppy drive controller for less than a tenth of the cost of competing equivalents).

Re: On Succeeding Steve Jobs

#50

Post by mlinsey »

I agree with Gruber's analysis, but one part that worries me is the idea of having each SVP accountable for product decisions for their own area. I think that so much of Apple's advantages stem from hardware and software that are designed with each other in mind, that it would be much better to have a single person be SVP Product Design under Cook, so that there was always someone responsible for the entire cohesive user experience. Unfortunately, choosing such a person for this role among the three product SVP's that Gruber names is itself a very difficult political problem, and any choice could result in other talent leaving.
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