I truly, sincerely hope you're right. I've always seen Jobs as a visionary leader, but I'm uncertain he's been similarly effective at grooming a leadership team

I truly, sincerely hope you're right. I've always seen Jobs as a visionary leader, but I'm uncertain he's been similarly effective at grooming a leadership team (or individual) with the same vision. Cult of personality and all that. Part of Apple's success, IMHO, has been Jobs' ability to cut through bureaucracy, egos, corporate politics and industry politics to execute on a pristine vision. Perhaps it's my lack of faith in middle managers, but unless there is a clear mandate from leadership, details & priorities can morph down the chain of command. Visionary products can be diluted by others making what seem like perfectly sound trade-offs. It's the minimization of that dilution, setting of crystal-clear priorities, and making the hard trade-off decisions that has made Jobs such an effective leader at Apple. That, and his ability to look several steps ahead of an industry - and arguably to create new industries - that has given rise to so many of Apple's disruptive innovations. Without him, I have a bad feeling Apple will become better at creating sustaining innovations than disruptive ones. Of course, I don't work there and perhaps there are many others who can make such tough decisions and dream up industry-changing visions. I sincerely hope so. For the growth of the company, I sincerely hope so.