Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you've oversold the similarities between Jobs and Gates and undersold the fact that Tim Cook is doing basically the same job at Apple that he did during most of 2004-2011 when a number of hit products were developed and launched. I also think you're underselling the Watch et al and forgetting about lots of underwhelming products that Jobs introduced. Is Apple Music a failure compared to Ping or MobileMe ... o…
>undersold the fact that Tim Cook is doing basically the same job at Apple that he did during most of 2004-2011 when a number of hit products were developed and launched. Oh, no question Tim Cook is doing the same job: operations, supply chain. And being good at that is nothing to sneeze at. But it doesn't look like that job was "visionary," R&D, or product development. The question is: who's doing that at Apple now?
I think the answer is more complicated than "Jony does what Steve used to do". I think the answer Apple wants to be true is that "what Steve did" was always way more than "just Steve doing stuff" and a lot of it was and is baked into the culture and institution (of Apple) itself. How accurate that is I can't say but there are a lot of companies I would bet against before Apple.