Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by jswinden

The greediest man in the world.

I bet they kept in as Chairman of the Board just to keep the stock from tanking, which it might have done if he resigned completely. I don't think it takes much to read between the lines and see he is losing his battle with cancer, otherwise he would not have given up the CEO position. The man is too damn greedy and power hungry to let go of anything unless he had no choice.

Why do you say he is greedy? I think it's more an extreme case of "do what you love and the money will follow."

Why do you see him as power hungry? I see him as having a kind of technological artistic vision at the level of genius, and being so intensely focussed on that vision that he has neither time nor patience for anything that does not help him reach that vision. But from what I've read, if you can understand his objective, he gives you all the power you can use to pursue it with him.

Of course he doesn't let go unless he has to. But it has nothing to do with greed or power - it has to do with being driven to achieve his vision. If he were a writer, he'd have to write. If he were a muscian, he'd have to make music. If he were a painter, he'd have to paint. But he's a Steve Jobs, so he has to Apple.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Harmon

Why do you say he is greedy? I think it's more an extreme case of "do what you love and the money will follow."

Why do you see him as power hungry? I see him as having a kind of technological artistic vision at the level of genius, and being so intensely focussed on that vision that he has neither time nor patience for anything that does not help him reach that vision. But from what I've read, if you can understand his objective, he gives you all the power you can use to pursue it with him.

Of course he doesn't let go unless he has to. But it has nothing to do with greed or power - it has to do with being driven to achieve his vision. If he were a writer, he'd have to write. If he were a muscian, he'd have to make music. If he were a painter, he'd have to paint. But he's a Steve Jobs, so he has to Apple.

His salary for the last many years is $1 per year. Is that Greedy? He only succeeds if the company succeeds. Perhaps a model for all companies.

Only Apple? Do people forget he had similar success with Pixar?

Dale

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by elemenoP

Personally, I think Steve Jobs is a daring innovator who often went with his gut rather than what focus groups or other people were telling him. I just can't see Apple being the same without him.

eP

I think you might be wrong about Apple not being the same. Reason being that I think that Jobs has successfully incubated a particular business culture at Apple which will define that company for a long long time.

My guess is that Jobs has laid out a blueprint for Apple's continued success extending at least a decade into the future. All systems tend toward entropy, of course, but 68 billion in cash reserves will sustain a lot of entropy.

[jocampo]

Originally Posted by Harmon

I think you might be wrong about Apple not being the same. Reason being that I think that Jobs has successfully incubated a particular business culture at Apple which will define that company for a long long time.

My guess is that Jobs has laid out a blueprint for Apple's continued success extending at least a decade into the future. All systems tend toward entropy, of course, but 68 billion in cash reserves will sustain a lot of entropy.

Apple will be ok for a year or two, but besides being the CEO, he was a micro manager who was approving, rejecting, or pushing some of the Projects that we know now as iPad, iPod, etc.

The current CEO probably will have the skills, but the innovation ideas or the charisma, cannot or won't be replaced.

The impact, if one, will be noticed in one or two years, assuming he's really ill or not coming back.

[MrsJoseph]

I just can't imagine a Mac conference without Steve there in his black turtlenecks. Wow. He gets on my nerves a lot but I have to admit I was always excited about Apple's announcements when he's in charge. Without him? Not so much.

[din155]

Originally Posted by Harmon

I think you might be wrong about Apple not being the same. Reason being that I think that Jobs has successfully incubated a particular business culture at Apple which will define that company for a long long time.

My guess is that Jobs has laid out a blueprint for Apple's continued success extending at least a decade into the future. All systems tend toward entropy, of course, but 68 billion in cash reserves will sustain a lot of entropy.

Best of luck to Steve Jobs with whatever he plans to do now. Hope his health improves and lives long enough to see what becomes of Apple after him.

You can ignore the next paragraphs as it is purely Rant

However, I have observed that Apple has become more aggressive (in a wrong way in my opinion) after Jobs left the post due to his illness in January. Since then Apple has been suing other companies for all sorts of reasons. I used to admire Apple (due to Jobs) for changing the mobile computing arena completely. They dazzled the world with their product and one of the best marketing strategies but now they are in news for trying to stop other companies from launching competing products with false allegations. I hope it’s a passing phase and they start focusing again on developing better products and stop this madness.

[curtw]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But he did steal my money by helping to increase the prices of eBooks.

It may make you (and I) unhappy in the near-term to pay higher eBook prices, but you do realize that in the long run, what this accomplished was to prevent Amazon from establishing a monopoly through their ability to continue to sell books at a loss until the competition vanished, right?

[RockdaMan]

I just read that there was an iOS autocorrect error, and Steves message was really intended to say "I reign as CEO of Apple".

While Steve rightly receives a lot of acclaim for his artistry -- he's also probably one of the greatest businessmen in the industry today too. He's the largest shareholder at Disney, Pixar was sold for a lot of $, and Apples stock was $9 ten years ago -- and now it's at $372.

The business community warned him not to open retail stores, and now they can't build them fast enough. The business community thought his collision with the cell phone carriers would be Apples graveyard, and now they can't build enough phones to satisfy demand. The tablet industry...the music industry...

As someone who spent a few hours tinkering under the hood of his car in the hot sun this morning, I'd love for him to spend another 30 years working on the automotive industry.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

I just read that there was an iOS autocorrect error, and Steves message was really intended to say "I reign as CEO of Apple".

That's funny! Damn auto-correct!

While Steve rightly receives a lot of acclaim for his artistry -- he's also probably one of the greatest businessmen in the industry today too. He's the largest shareholder at Disney, Pixar was sold for a lot of $, and Apples stock was $9 ten years ago -- and now it's at $372.

The business community warned him not to open retail stores, and now they can't build them fast enough. The business community thought his collision with the cell phone carriers would be Apples graveyard, and now they can't build enough phones to satisfy demand. The tablet industry...the music industry...

As someone who spent a few hours tinkering under the hood of his car in the hot sun this morning, I'd love for him to spend another 30 years working on the automotive industry.

I would love for Jobs to work in the Auto industry...I just wouldn't be able to afford an Apple car.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by curtw

It may make you (and I) unhappy in the near-term to pay higher eBook prices, but you do realize that in the long run, what this accomplished was to prevent Amazon from establishing a monopoly through their ability to continue to sell books at a loss until the competition vanished, right?

I did like the way Fictionwise ran their business. Steve Jobs helped take that away.

I don't wish cancer on anyone. I don't wish ill health to Jobs.

But hiding your heads in the sand about what Jobs & Apple did to eBooks is not going to change what happened.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I did like the way Fictionwise ran their business. Steve Jobs helped take that away.

I don't wish cancer on anyone. I don't wish ill health to Jobs.

But hiding your heads in the sand about what Jobs & Apple did to eBooks is not going to change what happened.

Well, I hope that others are kinder to you when ill health hits than you are to others. You are complaining about a hobby. A leisure activity. And you're starting to sound like Jeff Bezos.

[RockdaMan]

"So Vic, we have an urgent issue, one that I need addressed right away. I've already assigned someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow" said Steve.

"I've been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I'm not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn't have the right yellow gradient. It's just wrong...

Anyone else would have driven people away with that kind of obsessiveness...

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by jocampo

Apple will be ok for a year or two, but besides being the CEO, he was a micro manager who was approving, rejecting, or pushing some of the Projects that we know now as iPad, iPod, etc.

The current CEO probably will have the skills, but the innovation ideas or the charisma, cannot or won't be replaced.

The impact, if one, will be noticed in one or two years, assuming he's really ill or not coming back.

I don't agree that Jobs was a micro manager. I've worked around micro managers, although thankfully I only actually worked for one a couple of weeks which seemed like a year.

With Jobs, it's more like the old joke:

The employee brings in a piece of work, & the manager asks "is that the best you can do?"

So the employee slinks out and reworks the docuent, then brings it back.

Same question. More slinking.

Until finally, the employee explodes "yes, dammit, that's the best I can do!"

Whereupon the manager says "great!" and signs the document.

But truthfully, Jobs is not a manager at all. He's an executive. Managers are people who get employees to do what everyone knows needs doing. Executives are people who get employees to do things nobody knew could be done. Good managers are not necessarily good executives, and vice-versa.

The question, as I see it, is whether Jobs has created a culture at Apple which will survive him. I'll bet he has. I've listened to him being interviewed, and it seems clear to me that he is the kind of person who thinks about that sort of thing. If he has applied himself to the culture as well as he has to the products, Apple will do just fine.

[Marseille]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Well, I hope that others are kinder to you when ill health hits than you are to others. You are complaining about a hobby. A leisure activity. And you're starting to sound like Jeff Bezos.

This isn't a funeral thread. It isn't even a "Steve Jobs has cancer" thread. The notion that it is somehow impolite to criticize the actions of someone who happens to have cancer in their retirement thread (a common place to discuss legacy) perplexes me.

[RockdaMan]

When Steven P. Jobs returned to Apple 1997, he returned to a slew of ill-conceived product lines. Some were excessive, and some were downright silly, but many were ultimately killed off for their poor alignment with consumer needs and wants.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...he-company.ars

Anyone remember this?