It's hard to say definitively. I think it's mostly about installing well-groomed successors. Degrees, of course, have almost nothing to do with this; companies

It's hard to say definitively. I think it's mostly about installing well-groomed successors. Degrees, of course, have almost nothing to do with this; companies need a consistent philosophy to produce consistent results, and a CEO you hire off the street isn't going to do much unless your company is in full automation mode by that time. Apple definitely did the right thing to style Tim Cook as a Jobs protege. I'm not really worried that Apple is just going to lose its material edge overnight, but I think some may perceive things that way, and for Apple, it's all about perception. Something like McDonalds, Wal-Mart et al was established as a cookie cutter, repeatable thing. People go there because they want consistency; they know what to expect. Their patrons aren't looking to have their minds blown or to become excited about their interactions; the most successful companies in the world are much maligned externally because they're seen as dry and exploitative, but most people still patronize them. It's not cool to like them, but they do very well precisely because of that predictability, that blandness. Apple, however, lives and dies by its reputation as a visionary, an entity that is constantly breaking new ground. This is because owning a Mac is as much about the cult of Mac as it is about the actual benefits of the product. Apple isn't a cookie-cutter franchise; it needs to bring controversy and produce products that are radically different from the rest of the industry to maintain credibility. If that credibility as a visionary is lost, much of Apple's userbase comes into jeopardy, because believe it or not, it's still less effort for most people to use Windows. That will never change until OS X approaches 50% of the market. For companies like this, the keystones of their cultural identity are the most important business assets to protect. Unfortunately, Apple chose to heavily exploit "the genius of Steve Jobs" angle while he was around (perhaps because it's much more difficult to propagate a narrative about the vision of a design committee than the vision of one amazing man), and now they're paying a price for it. Apple may recover, and they have some usable momentum, but it's definitely going to take some oomph out of their sails because Apple's dominance is not based on the superiority of its products, but the culture and attitude around them. I think Cook is well-qualified for the CEO position, but imo the way to put this Jobs stuff to rest is to present Cook as a regularly ordained successor, tutored by Jobs, and to have him assume some very Jobsian habits that would make this externally visible (for instance, give Cook the same veneration and mystery that Jobs received while presenting at Apple conferences, make him the human focal point and the apparent origin of all innovations). To the people closest to Steve Jobs, this may seem a grotesque mockery, but if your whole company is based on the dog and pony show, you have to keep up appearances.