3 ms·

Apple's elephant in the room is Steve Jobs. He's undoubtedly one of the greatest, if not the greatest business leader of the twentieth century, and a lot of App

by mixmax 17y ago

Apple's elephant in the room is Steve Jobs. He's undoubtedly one of the greatest, if not the greatest business leader of the twentieth century, and a lot of Apple's fortunes can directly be ascribed to him being at the helm of the company. It's uncertain what will happen when he passes the torch along, voluntarily or otherwise. There are ongoing concerns about his health, he has had a liver transplant, he's had cancer and as Wikipedia states: On January 14, 2009, in an internal Apple memo, Jobs wrote that in the previous week he had "learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought" and announced a six-month leave of absence until the end of June 2009 to allow him to better focus on his health. [1] As the Sculley period shows Apple without Steve Jobs might not do as well. He's truly one in a million, and a lot of the company's fortune has his signature on it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Health_concerns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Health_concerns

gizmo 17y ago
Agreed on all points. I suspect the problem is that characters such as Gates and Jobs, who are focused visionaries don't leave much room in the highest ranks for people like themselves. To put in another way, put two Steve Jobs' in one room, and only one will leave. So the people who excel in companies like Microsoft and Apple can't be the same kind of uncompromising visionaries like Jobs and Steve, they are almost by definition the best #2 guys in the industry. I expect that Apple will slowly turn into Ballmer-era Microsoft. Profits will climb for a while, but the new leader won't likely have the guts to attack new markets and develop revolutionary products. For if the executive did want to do those things, he would have started his own company 20 years ago.
- jorgecastillo 17y ago
  I am not really an Apple hater or fan and the only thing I would miss if Apple went down would be Mac OS X. I know Darwin is open source but what makes Mac OS X awesome is the GUI + Darwin.
xtho 17y ago
Do you think that Apple would have survived without the "Sculley period"?

by mixmax 17y ago

gizmo 17y ago

Agreed on all points. I suspect the problem is that characters such as Gates and Jobs, who are focused visionaries don't leave much room in the highest ranks for people like themselves. To put in another way, put two Steve Jobs' in one room, and only one will leave. So the people who excel in companies like Microsoft and Apple can't be the same kind of uncompromising visionaries like Jobs and Steve, they are almost by definition the best #2 guys in the industry. I expect that Apple will slowly turn into Ballmer-era Microsoft. Profits will climb for a while, but the new leader won't likely have the guts to attack new markets and develop revolutionary products. For if the executive did want to do those things, he would have started his own company 20 years ago.

jorgecastillo 17y ago
I am not really an Apple hater or fan and the only thing I would miss if Apple went down would be Mac OS X. I know Darwin is open source but what makes Mac OS X awesome is the GUI + Darwin.

xtho 17y ago

Do you think that Apple would have survived without the "Sculley period"?