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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' absenc

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?

mortenjorck 15y ago
If Jobs has really, truly done it right this time, he won't need to be replaced. Cook, Forstall, Ive, and Schiller are obviously people he trusts with his life's work. Time will tell how good his choice of stewards was, but given that he learned the hard way nearly three decades ago, I'd say the odds are in his favor.
- joebadmo 15y ago
  I mean, yeah, I get that that's the hope, but I'm not sure I buy the idea that a collection of individuals even as talented and capable as those can really replace someone with as singular a vision and fierce a personality as Jobs. I'm sure they'll be able to run the company, but I just don't see Apple maintaining its place as market-inventing thought-leader, or at least not to the same degree.
  - protomyth 15y ago
    Listen to Cook or Ive when they talk in public, they have the vision.
- Steko 15y ago
  Jobs can be replaced, he's not some magical being, he's a person making decisions and he isn't doing it all by himself. He probably won't be replaced (at least not completely by one person) but -- and this again ties back to the Apple University effort -- it will be even more impressive if the crux of what makes Jobs/Apple great is successfully imprinted on dozens or hundreds of Apple execs and engineers.
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    Jobs actually is sort of magical, at least at Apple. One thing Jobs has that will be hard to replicate is that fact that he's Steve Jobs. His decision is final and adored. Forstall or Cook won't try an end run to try to make something happen and hope that with enough corporate backing they can put Jobs's back against the wall. Won't happen. With any other CEO it could. It's not just the decisions that Jobs makes that are important, but the fact that a decision coming from Jobs means something to every employee at Apple. Ive+Forstall are within a couple of orders of magnitude from Jobs (the only people who are even in the neighborhood of reverence). But the fact that they're two people, with two egos will probably mean that the two together as the visionary aspects of the company won't be as unified as a single Jobs.
    - econgeeker 15y ago
      You're correct, but I think this also is why it needs to be Cook. Essentially, Apple is a one product company. That product is "the mac". The "mac" comes in the form of a combination of software and hardware. OS X on Macintoshes is the past, iOS on iDevices is the future. All of that is Forstall (if I'm understanding things right.) And even then, the hardware is merely the box for the software. They make a very great box. But Forstall is the "new jobs" in that regard. Ive can demand that it have fewer buttons, and Schiller can demand that marketing be on message, and Forstall has to listen to them, and if he doesn't then Cook should have their backs. Cook is thus well placed to be the "vision guy" (and yes, I think that is a legitimate description and that he'd be just as good as jobs at it) whose got his finger on the daily operations but also is looking 5, 10 & 15 years into the future. Apple University is the glue that holds these four guys together and keeps them on the same page. Plus, of course, The Writings of The Chairman from Jobs over the years. In fact, I would bet good money that there literally is a book within Apple, that probably only has a dozen or fewer copies, written by Jobs about the Apple Way and presenting his vision for the Apple Way. In a way, his living will to the future. I think this book is Apple's equivalent to Cokes "secret formula", only Apple doesn't trumpet that they have a secret formula, they keep even the existence of it secret.
      - 15y ago
megablast 15y ago
Jobs can't be replaced, what more needs to be said about it? Apple will continue, and we need to look at what happens when he does leave.
- jrscot 15y ago
  Jobs probably won't be replaced
todayiamme 15y ago
To borrow a few concepts from Built To Last. Jobs is a time teller. He can look up at the heavens, see the positioning of the stars in the industry and tell you exactly what the time is and for what. It's extremely rare for such time tellers to exist, and it's doubtful anyone exactly like Jobs will ever come along. However, for any great company to stand the test of time it needs to answer the question who tells the time after the time-teller is gone? That's why a company built to last is like a clock. It is a part of the ethos and the system for it to tell the time, and that's the bit that makes all of the difference. So, if he has spent the last decade making a clock, then Apple will survive him and the loss of Tim Cook, Ive, Schiller and almost anyone you think is crucial to Apple's success, because the ability to predict and act on those predictions would have been built into the structure of Apple itself. I hope that made sense.

mortenjorck 15y ago

If Jobs has really, truly done it right this time, he won't need to be replaced. Cook, Forstall, Ive, and Schiller are obviously people he trusts with his life's work. Time will tell how good his choice of stewards was, but given that he learned the hard way nearly three decades ago, I'd say the odds are in his favor.

joebadmo 15y ago
I mean, yeah, I get that that's the hope, but I'm not sure I buy the idea that a collection of individuals even as talented and capable as those can really replace someone with as singular a vision and fierce a personality as Jobs. I'm sure they'll be able to run the company, but I just don't see Apple maintaining its place as market-inventing thought-leader, or at least not to the same degree.
- protomyth 15y ago
  Listen to Cook or Ive when they talk in public, they have the vision.
Steko 15y ago
Jobs can be replaced, he's not some magical being, he's a person making decisions and he isn't doing it all by himself. He probably won't be replaced (at least not completely by one person) but -- and this again ties back to the Apple University effort -- it will be even more impressive if the crux of what makes Jobs/Apple great is successfully imprinted on dozens or hundreds of Apple execs and engineers.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  Jobs actually is sort of magical, at least at Apple. One thing Jobs has that will be hard to replicate is that fact that he's Steve Jobs. His decision is final and adored. Forstall or Cook won't try an end run to try to make something happen and hope that with enough corporate backing they can put Jobs's back against the wall. Won't happen. With any other CEO it could. It's not just the decisions that Jobs makes that are important, but the fact that a decision coming from Jobs means something to every employee at Apple. Ive+Forstall are within a couple of orders of magnitude from Jobs (the only people who are even in the neighborhood of reverence). But the fact that they're two people, with two egos will probably mean that the two together as the visionary aspects of the company won't be as unified as a single Jobs.
  - econgeeker 15y ago
    You're correct, but I think this also is why it needs to be Cook. Essentially, Apple is a one product company. That product is "the mac". The "mac" comes in the form of a combination of software and hardware. OS X on Macintoshes is the past, iOS on iDevices is the future. All of that is Forstall (if I'm understanding things right.) And even then, the hardware is merely the box for the software. They make a very great box. But Forstall is the "new jobs" in that regard. Ive can demand that it have fewer buttons, and Schiller can demand that marketing be on message, and Forstall has to listen to them, and if he doesn't then Cook should have their backs. Cook is thus well placed to be the "vision guy" (and yes, I think that is a legitimate description and that he'd be just as good as jobs at it) whose got his finger on the daily operations but also is looking 5, 10 & 15 years into the future. Apple University is the glue that holds these four guys together and keeps them on the same page. Plus, of course, The Writings of The Chairman from Jobs over the years. In fact, I would bet good money that there literally is a book within Apple, that probably only has a dozen or fewer copies, written by Jobs about the Apple Way and presenting his vision for the Apple Way. In a way, his living will to the future. I think this book is Apple's equivalent to Cokes "secret formula", only Apple doesn't trumpet that they have a secret formula, they keep even the existence of it secret.
    - 15y ago

megablast 15y ago

Jobs can't be replaced, what more needs to be said about it? Apple will continue, and we need to look at what happens when he does leave.

jrscot 15y ago
Jobs probably won't be replaced

todayiamme 15y ago

To borrow a few concepts from Built To Last. Jobs is a time teller. He can look up at the heavens, see the positioning of the stars in the industry and tell you exactly what the time is and for what. It's extremely rare for such time tellers to exist, and it's doubtful anyone exactly like Jobs will ever come along. However, for any great company to stand the test of time it needs to answer the question who tells the time after the time-teller is gone? That's why a company built to last is like a clock. It is a part of the ethos and the system for it to tell the time, and that's the bit that makes all of the difference. So, if he has spent the last decade making a clock, then Apple will survive him and the loss of Tim Cook, Ive, Schiller and almost anyone you think is crucial to Apple's success, because the ability to predict and act on those predictions would have been built into the structure of Apple itself. I hope that made sense.