Steve Jobs worked on a lot of products in his life- not only the many that we know about but probably several times that in products that didn't end up coming t

Steve Jobs worked on a lot of products in his life- not only the many that we know about but probably several times that in products that didn't end up coming to market. But there is one product that is the most central to Steve's Life. In fact, it is his masterwork. He started when he was young and is still working on it today-- and that product is Apple itself. Steve says Tim Cook is the right person to succeed him, and I believe that Steve would never say this if he didn't believe it. He, more than anyone else in the world, wants to see Apple continue to be what he wanted it to be. Also, Tim Cook is gay (sorry but for me, that counts as an asset in the taste department). He's a creative guy (you have to be) and he's a uncompromising. You can't work as hard as he does and achieve what he has behind the scenes without a kind of ruthlessness that sets a very high bar. Tim's experience as COO is exactly what makes him the best man to fill Steve's shoes, if ruthless focus on design is what Apple needs. After all, Steve isn't a designer. Steve doesn't even, by all accounts, have a lot of natural taste. He's acquired the taste over many years. What Steve has always had, and what Tim seems to have, is an uncompromisingly high bar. Jonathan Ive is probably going to be well compensated for staying at Apple over the long term, and the skilled software designers and hardware and software engineers and those who lead them as well are critical. But the "vision" thing is not a mystical ability, and it isn't an innate talent, or if it is, both Tim and Steve have it. In fact, I think this is why Tim was the preferred choice by Steve, over people like Ron Johnson and Jonathan Ive. I think Steve saw this in Tim's nature, and not in Jonathans. This makes sense, because I think a designer has to be more flexible and more open minded and more willing to take risks. A designer has to produce some crap in the process of producing brilliance because you can't know in advance that it is crap. To be able to ruthlessly weed out the crap, you have to have a different perspective. So, Steve made the decision, and I think it makes perfect sense, but even if it didn't, who better than Steve to know who the right person is?