Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

Life after Steve Jobs is a sad thought for most of us who use products thought up, developed and deployed under his leadership. Whether it's the original Macintosh, the first iMac or the iPhone Apple under the leadership of Jobs was an amazing run of products and services which we all benefited.

However, here's the problem. Jobs was the only one on Apple's senior team who didn't finish college. As has been well reported, he was a college drop out after six months. He then was a "bum" who sponged off of the good graces of others for 18 more. When you look at the other executive bios they all have the formal training you'd expect for senior management at a Fortune 500. So now a bunch of "egg heads" are running Apple just like at IBM, just like at HP,...

Steve Jobs brought an “intuitiveness” to the table of the executive suite. While others could say his ideas were great, or not so hot, it was Steve who was the visionary — who could look and demand something better be created than a PDA merged with a cell phone. Steve was the one who wanted to get on the Intel platform and yet make the Mac not look or behave anything like a PC. Steve was the one who didn't have the formal training like all the others, so the way he looked at the world around him was, well, different. And it is that difference that Apple now lacks.

Sure Apple is far ahead of their competitors on several fronts, but without a visionary on the executive team that lead is sure to diminish. Steve Jobs' genius was in the ability to see things he liked (like a graphical user interface or portable music player) and then make them, way, way better than anyone expected. This means Apple entered the iPod market later than anyone, but their coupling of a player with a music store — huge. Add to that iTunes, so YOU easily controlled how songs were burned on a CD or how they were arranged in your "pocket" — magical.

Apple's first order of business should be to search the landscape for another visionary. It doesn't have to be a Steve Jobs clone, but someone that views the world in a different way than all the formally trained executive staff at Infinity Loop. Someone who can say, "Why is it done this way?" and then be able to dream up something much, much better. To paraphrase a proverb, "Without a vision, the company will parish..." (Prov: 29:18). 

1 Comment

1. Rex Grossman ~ October 18, 2011 10:22
   Who's to say that Ives isn't the inventor of all things Mac, and that Steve just gave guidance? Scott Forstall is the brains behind iOS now, and he's doing a great job. Was this Steve's idea or many others? What about music. Jobs and company were well behind MP-3 players, and it was another executive that discovered the micro-drive and how it could be a game changer for Apple. This wasn't Jobs doing. In fact, Jobs wanted the Cube computer. No noise, but no expansion, thus a consumer device at a big-time pro price. The Cube is the example of Jobs not understanding markets, not having the formal training necessary. All this to say, from all appearances, Jobs learned from his staff, where he had strengths and where he had better leave well enough alone. We know Jobs took the credit for many things, but the questions will remain as to how much was his doing, vs his genius staffers?... We can only make guesses at this point in time. In four-years from now, we'll know if Jobs was needed to drive markets and be the leader of the pack, or if he just added a bit of showmanship to the companies product launches...

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