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Apple's going to be fine. Steve's most extraordinary work isn't the Mac, the iPhone or the iPad. It's rebuilding Apple in his image. It was creating organizatio

Apple's going to be fine. Steve's most extraordinary work isn't the Mac, the iPhone or the iPad. It's rebuilding Apple in his image. It was creating organizational culture and habits that mimic his weird brain, like their aggressive software prototyping to prove that things work well and feel good. Fuck, I'll miss him, though. I'll miss the way he got up there each and every time like he was selling you your own personal Jesus in a box. Not out of hucksterism, but because he really was that excited to share what he and his people had been working on. Excited to do things better. Excited to solve problems in a way that was far more tasteful, more satisfying, than anything anyone had bothered to try before. Maybe he'll still do announcements as his health allows – but maybe that would send a weird message. He's a man who was lucky enough to find out exactly what he did best – and to seize upon it with every cell in his body. I'm a better person for his example. The resurrection of Apple was one of the most enjoyable things I followed in my childhood. No matter how you feel about his approach, this is a guy who loves his work with an intensity that couldn't be faked and won't be soon matched.

TomOfTTB 15y ago
For the record this doesn't necessarily mean he will stop giving presentations. Gates continued to do his Comdex speech after stepping down as CEO (and remaining as Chairman)
- danilocampos 15y ago
  The last WWDC kind of makes me skeptical on this. He let his lieutenants do almost all of the segments he'd normally take on himself. He needs to send a message that Apple's got this – they can do it on their own. Still, as long as he can stand and talk, I have a hard time believing he'd miss a product launch.
  - biot 15y ago
    I'd wager that he won't be presenting the next one, but he will come out at the last minute and present the "one more thing".
- marcf 15y ago
  Not to be morbid here, but it is likely questionable whether Steve Jobs will be alive for many more presentations.
ellyagg 15y ago
Apple's going to be fine. One half of Apple is execution. I believe that Jobs has infused the company with a culture based on his favored principles, and it's reasonable to think this culture is sticky. The other half of Apple is big strategic decisions. Do the iPod. Do the iPhone. Do the iPad. I don't know anyone else with a track record like that. I don't know that it's trainable. Until the next smash product line that's not from his lips to Apple's ears, I don't know that Apple is going to be fine.
- danilocampos 15y ago
  > The other half of Apple is big strategic decisions. Do the iPod. Do the iPhone. Do the iPad. It's interesting, though, because to hear Apple's brass tell it, the crucial decisions haven't been "do this" so much as they have been "don't do this, don't do that." Apple is huge on focus, and they credit that focus with their success more than anything else. Focus seems to be baked into their culture as much as anything else at this point. A mark of a good leader is being able to build a team that can function even when that leader is absent. So far, Steve Jobs has, for all his eccentricities, succeeded in every other measure of leadership – to an exceptional degree. I'd be pretty shocked if his talents couldn't include the final part of the equation.
  - mikeleeorg 15y ago
    I think you've hit on one of the key leadership traits of Jobs right there - the ability to say, "don't do this, don't do that." Especially when there are entire industries that may be urging him to do something against his vision.
    - wisty 15y ago
      That's trainable. What's not trainable is knowing what to say "no" and "yes" to. Steve developed this instinct over a long time. He made a lot more blunders when he was younger, and learned from them.
      - mikeleeorg 15y ago
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
bane 15y ago
Not out of hucksterism, but because he really was that excited to share what he and his people had been working on. I always viewed his pitches as amazing one-man performances, and buying whatever he was selling was just part of the cost of admission. Plus you ended up with a cool take home gift out of the exchange. It never felt cheap, but often worked in areas that others would just turn into hopeless kitsch, yet somehow he kept it tasteful, meaningful and relevant. An absolute virtuoso of the sales performance.
dholowiski 15y ago
Apple is not going to be fine and to think otherwise is deluding yourself. Apple has about a year worth of Steve awesomeness built up before it starts to show cracks, before the Steve clones start to leave Apple for Facebook, Google or The Next Big Thing. However you summed it up well. Fuck I'll miss him. Seriously.
psychotik 15y ago
The key to Apple and Tim Cook doing well is not asking "What would Steve do?", IMO. Trying to 'be' Steve or emulate him is not going to help. If the company and Tim Cook can continue to build a new unique character, which maintaining the foundation built by Steve, they will be fine.
krishna2 15y ago
I think the biggest thing is that everyone in Apple has a question they can ask themselves, "What would Steve Jobs do?". And if they can honestly answer the question and take decisions based on that, Apple with its lead and its teams and its products will stay ahead for a while to come.
- super_mario 15y ago
  Yeah, just like asking "What would Jesus do?" works for a lot of other people, right?
- bengl3rt 15y ago
  I've seen a car with the license place "WWSJD" pull into their Cupertino headquarters before. I hope there's more people like that there.
  - CamperBob 15y ago
    I'd like to think SJ would fire anyone who drove up in a car with that license plate, on the grounds that he's running a computer manufacturer and not a personality cult. But I'd probably be wrong.
teyc 15y ago
> this is a guy who loves his work with an intensity that couldn't be faked and won't be soon matched. This is one of the reasons I don't believe Apple will achieve the same heights without Steve. For instance, a Picasso and its reproduction may look the same, but the original has a story behind it. One is almost entering into a relationship with a piece of art. This is why we'd put up with any idiosyncracies that Apples have for so long. Apple without a story becomes Apple Corp. Sony fell by the wayside in the same manner, when the founder left, the company simply did things the old way rather than asking why.
gry 15y ago
Apple's going to be fine. Jobs brought back Apple from the brink in 1996. Depending on who you talk to, they were months or weeks away from bankruptcy. Fifteen years later, its flirted with being the most valuable company in the world. Cook is the only choice. He's so good at not being Tim Cook, Apple is the focus. Barring Steve having failing health, this is a masterful transition.
Iv 15y ago
Apple will continue to make quality products but I doubt it will keep the ability to market them as well. They lose their vision, and in this rare instance, this word actually means something. It meant they could release a totally new product and have an immediate business success. They just lost that. The iPhone 5 will be fine, the iPad 3 will be fine. The next "big thing" will fail. I won't lie : I am relieved that this happen. In Job's "vision" there was a lot of things I didn't like in terms of lockdown, of control of consuming habits, in its relationship with developers seen as allies when living in Cueprtino but has spawns of hell when independent. So long Steve, and thanks for the fish. As a human I wholeheartedly hope you will overcome your medical problems, as a developer I sincerely hope that this means the darker parts of your visions become further from reality.
extension 15y ago
Things will be fine for a while, maybe a few years. But then someone important at Apple, who everyone likes, will come up with an idea.. that sucks. They will tell other important likeable people about their idea and those other people will say they like the idea, because that's what important likeable people do. Some people will know that the idea sucks, but they won't say so because if they did then nobody would like them. Why should they stick their neck out just to shoot down an idea? For the sake of the company? Pfft, no way. After all, it's not their company. They love working there, but it's not like they built the company from scratch in their garage or something. If they don't get along with people at work, what's the point? And besides, Apple is so successful that it can absorb a sucky idea or two. Or three. Right? Saying no is a big part of what makes Apple great and Steve was the guy who could say it. I don't know how he did it. I mean, eventually he could do it because he was Steve Jobs but I don't know how he did it in the first place. Who can do it now? Who would want to? It's irrational.
- foobarbazoo 15y ago
  Great post! Even the top-level commenter doesn't seem to grasp that early, rapid prototyping only works when someone is around to say "no." Since his return, that's been Steve Jobs -- full stop. Who can replace that? AFAICT, no one at Apple can do what he does^H^H^H^Hdid. Sure, they can continue to do what he asked them to do, but the CEO job is basically unfilled. No one in their right mind thinks Tim Cook is a replacement for Steve Jobs. Maybe Apple survives with lower level people saying yes or no. Personally, IMO, the golden age is over. It was great while it lasted.

TomOfTTB 15y ago

For the record this doesn't necessarily mean he will stop giving presentations. Gates continued to do his Comdex speech after stepping down as CEO (and remaining as Chairman)

danilocampos 15y ago
The last WWDC kind of makes me skeptical on this. He let his lieutenants do almost all of the segments he'd normally take on himself. He needs to send a message that Apple's got this – they can do it on their own. Still, as long as he can stand and talk, I have a hard time believing he'd miss a product launch.
- biot 15y ago
  I'd wager that he won't be presenting the next one, but he will come out at the last minute and present the "one more thing".
marcf 15y ago
Not to be morbid here, but it is likely questionable whether Steve Jobs will be alive for many more presentations.

ellyagg 15y ago

Apple's going to be fine. One half of Apple is execution. I believe that Jobs has infused the company with a culture based on his favored principles, and it's reasonable to think this culture is sticky. The other half of Apple is big strategic decisions. Do the iPod. Do the iPhone. Do the iPad. I don't know anyone else with a track record like that. I don't know that it's trainable. Until the next smash product line that's not from his lips to Apple's ears, I don't know that Apple is going to be fine.

danilocampos 15y ago
> The other half of Apple is big strategic decisions. Do the iPod. Do the iPhone. Do the iPad. It's interesting, though, because to hear Apple's brass tell it, the crucial decisions haven't been "do this" so much as they have been "don't do this, don't do that." Apple is huge on focus, and they credit that focus with their success more than anything else. Focus seems to be baked into their culture as much as anything else at this point. A mark of a good leader is being able to build a team that can function even when that leader is absent. So far, Steve Jobs has, for all his eccentricities, succeeded in every other measure of leadership – to an exceptional degree. I'd be pretty shocked if his talents couldn't include the final part of the equation.
- mikeleeorg 15y ago
  I think you've hit on one of the key leadership traits of Jobs right there - the ability to say, "don't do this, don't do that." Especially when there are entire industries that may be urging him to do something against his vision.
  - wisty 15y ago
    That's trainable. What's not trainable is knowing what to say "no" and "yes" to. Steve developed this instinct over a long time. He made a lot more blunders when he was younger, and learned from them.
    - mikeleeorg 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

bane 15y ago

Not out of hucksterism, but because he really was that excited to share what he and his people had been working on. I always viewed his pitches as amazing one-man performances, and buying whatever he was selling was just part of the cost of admission. Plus you ended up with a cool take home gift out of the exchange. It never felt cheap, but often worked in areas that others would just turn into hopeless kitsch, yet somehow he kept it tasteful, meaningful and relevant. An absolute virtuoso of the sales performance.

dholowiski 15y ago

Apple is not going to be fine and to think otherwise is deluding yourself. Apple has about a year worth of Steve awesomeness built up before it starts to show cracks, before the Steve clones start to leave Apple for Facebook, Google or The Next Big Thing. However you summed it up well. Fuck I'll miss him. Seriously.

psychotik 15y ago

The key to Apple and Tim Cook doing well is not asking "What would Steve do?", IMO. Trying to 'be' Steve or emulate him is not going to help. If the company and Tim Cook can continue to build a new unique character, which maintaining the foundation built by Steve, they will be fine.

krishna2 15y ago

I think the biggest thing is that everyone in Apple has a question they can ask themselves, "What would Steve Jobs do?". And if they can honestly answer the question and take decisions based on that, Apple with its lead and its teams and its products will stay ahead for a while to come.

super_mario 15y ago
Yeah, just like asking "What would Jesus do?" works for a lot of other people, right?
bengl3rt 15y ago
I've seen a car with the license place "WWSJD" pull into their Cupertino headquarters before. I hope there's more people like that there.
- CamperBob 15y ago
  I'd like to think SJ would fire anyone who drove up in a car with that license plate, on the grounds that he's running a computer manufacturer and not a personality cult. But I'd probably be wrong.

teyc 15y ago

> this is a guy who loves his work with an intensity that couldn't be faked and won't be soon matched. This is one of the reasons I don't believe Apple will achieve the same heights without Steve. For instance, a Picasso and its reproduction may look the same, but the original has a story behind it. One is almost entering into a relationship with a piece of art. This is why we'd put up with any idiosyncracies that Apples have for so long. Apple without a story becomes Apple Corp. Sony fell by the wayside in the same manner, when the founder left, the company simply did things the old way rather than asking why.

gry 15y ago

Apple's going to be fine. Jobs brought back Apple from the brink in 1996. Depending on who you talk to, they were months or weeks away from bankruptcy. Fifteen years later, its flirted with being the most valuable company in the world. Cook is the only choice. He's so good at not being Tim Cook, Apple is the focus. Barring Steve having failing health, this is a masterful transition.

Iv 15y ago

Apple will continue to make quality products but I doubt it will keep the ability to market them as well. They lose their vision, and in this rare instance, this word actually means something. It meant they could release a totally new product and have an immediate business success. They just lost that. The iPhone 5 will be fine, the iPad 3 will be fine. The next "big thing" will fail. I won't lie : I am relieved that this happen. In Job's "vision" there was a lot of things I didn't like in terms of lockdown, of control of consuming habits, in its relationship with developers seen as allies when living in Cueprtino but has spawns of hell when independent. So long Steve, and thanks for the fish. As a human I wholeheartedly hope you will overcome your medical problems, as a developer I sincerely hope that this means the darker parts of your visions become further from reality.

extension 15y ago

Things will be fine for a while, maybe a few years. But then someone important at Apple, who everyone likes, will come up with an idea.. that sucks. They will tell other important likeable people about their idea and those other people will say they like the idea, because that's what important likeable people do. Some people will know that the idea sucks, but they won't say so because if they did then nobody would like them. Why should they stick their neck out just to shoot down an idea? For the sake of the company? Pfft, no way. After all, it's not their company. They love working there, but it's not like they built the company from scratch in their garage or something. If they don't get along with people at work, what's the point? And besides, Apple is so successful that it can absorb a sucky idea or two. Or three. Right? Saying no is a big part of what makes Apple great and Steve was the guy who could say it. I don't know how he did it. I mean, eventually he could do it because he was Steve Jobs but I don't know how he did it in the first place. Who can do it now? Who would want to? It's irrational.

foobarbazoo 15y ago
Great post! Even the top-level commenter doesn't seem to grasp that early, rapid prototyping only works when someone is around to say "no." Since his return, that's been Steve Jobs -- full stop. Who can replace that? AFAICT, no one at Apple can do what he does^H^H^H^Hdid. Sure, they can continue to do what he asked them to do, but the CEO job is basically unfilled. No one in their right mind thinks Tim Cook is a replacement for Steve Jobs. Maybe Apple survives with lower level people saying yes or no. Personally, IMO, the golden age is over. It was great while it lasted.