Why is Steve Jobs regarded by so many as a genius?
As CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs was like a French chef: he strove to create great products and had great dramatic flair for presentation. On the product side, he was a pioneer in embracing the techniques of top-class industrial design for the company's hardware and usability for its software. Key elements like graphical interfaces, desktop publishing and networking (both wired and wireless) were not created at Apple, but Apple was the first to deploy them. Products had to be not just great but insanely great. An extraordinary number of top-class people worked at Apple in the early days to make that possible.
As important was his ability to wow audiences with Apple's new products. No one who saw it has forgotten the company's 1984 Super Bowl ad that announced the Macintosh. His personal demonstration of the new machine to a theatre full of shareholders was another classic: at a time when computers were silent, glorified typewriters, on stage when he turned on the Mac, it spoke: "It sure is great to get out of that bag." Later introductions of the iPhone and the iPad were just as sensational.
Other CEOs can sell products and/or companies; Jobs could make people believers. In 1981, fellow long-time Apple colleague Bud Tribble dubbed this charismatic effect the "reality distortion field".
Is his departure a problem for the Apple brand?
There is a school of thought that holds that it's dangerous for a public company to tie its public image too tightly to a single "rock star" CEO because of the immediate loss of confidence should anything happen to that CEO. Yet, there are benefits, too. Jobs's magnetic effect on the media has certainly brought Apple greater publicity than it could have bought, just as everyone always wants to know what Warren Buffett and Bill Gates think, but it doesn't hurt either Twitter or BlackBerry that their CEOs are relatively unknown.
Microsoft is a good example here: Bill Gates departed apparently seamlessly from day-to-day involvement at Microsoft in 2008, seven years after relinquishing the CEO job to Steve Ballmer. The gradual nature of that transition undeniably helped smooth the way. The immediate drop in Apple's share price does not mean that the company is in trouble. It's now seven years since Jobs's first cancer diagnosis; it was surely prepared for his departure. Any concern must be longer term, around whether the company will be able to continue its technology leadership and consumer focus.
Who is his successor, Tim Cook?
Tim Cook's CV shows a long history in the computer business with 12 years at IBM. He joined Apple in 1998 and became chief operating officer in 2007. He has been acting CEO during all of Jobs's medical absences since 2004. Cook is widely credited with excellence in managing operations, manufacturing and logistics. While that may not sound exciting, it is the bedrock upon which new visions can be built.
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