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Apple Directors Informally Exploring CEO Succession Possibilities
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YES!
But not for another 10 years or so. Steve needs to complete the transformation from Senator Palpatine to Darth Sidious.
Anybody get the feeling that the WSJ is running this article today just before Apple posts record quarterly profits to try to keep Apple's stock price from going up? I for one think that Apple stock is undervalued, but I don't have the spare cash to be picking up a bunch of it. I get the feeling that if the value stays artificially low compared to price to earnings ratio (especially when factoring in the cash-on-hand) that Apple may one day be taking the company private.
The stock price is a poor reflection of Apple's success.
The stock price is a poor reflection of Apple's success.
HaHa! I'm a believer that he will be running the company for several more years.
I won't be saddened by the departure of Big Brother.... you know, the dude in the 1984 Apple Macintosh Commercial...
....wait, I mean Steve Jobs.
....wait, I mean Steve Jobs.
How would that story keep the stock from going up? It's GOOD NEWS that the board is working on some kind of succession plan...
One wrong move and Apple is dead! In the end it better be Cook to helm the big position. Bringing some outside mofo would kill Apple, IMHO. Stupid a-- board. They are going to shoot themselves in the foot. And as much as all these sorry a** tech company's talk trash about Apple, they could never give us the fit and finish of Apple's swag. NEVER.
Look at the dumb Atrix by Moto. You hook the phone up to the laptop part and one would think you could raise hell on it like a regular laptop. NO!Try going to your favorite site like Quakelive. PAH LEASE!You don't gain capabilities, just a larger screen and better battery life because the laptop part has a large battery in it.
Moreover,look at Sony and their psp. It came out in 2005 and that SOB still doesn't have a credible browser. WTF! And Sony only doubled the amount of ram to 32 megs. LOL! Pathetic!!!!!!!!!!!!
Look at the dumb Atrix by Moto. You hook the phone up to the laptop part and one would think you could raise hell on it like a regular laptop. NO!Try going to your favorite site like Quakelive. PAH LEASE!You don't gain capabilities, just a larger screen and better battery life because the laptop part has a large battery in it.
Moreover,look at Sony and their psp. It came out in 2005 and that SOB still doesn't have a credible browser. WTF! And Sony only doubled the amount of ram to 32 megs. LOL! Pathetic!!!!!!!!!!!!
It wouldn't surprise me if Jobs steps down next year as CEO and hand the stick over to Cook. I think Jobs would then fulfill an advisory role for a couple of years, like Bill Gates did at MS. Jobs would then be able to continue to drive innovation, and let Cook do the heavy lifting, like he's currently already doing as acting CEO.
I'm not sure having a "manager" as CEO would be a good decision. Apple needs to continue to innovate and this includes taking seemingly hazardous decisions against probabilities and calculations of potential rentability.
Managers tend to avoid risky decisions - Apple's success accounts for a fair part on Steve Jobs believing his own visions and opinions. A "normal" manager can do some housekeeping and evolve the existing product lines to some point, but when it comes to the "next big thing" necessary to stay at the front of the pack he will probably chicken out rather than try anything even remotely risky...
Cook is not simply a personnel manager. He's managing supplier and carrier relationships and many other things. He's doing Steve's job now and doing it well. People have to remember Apple is a culture, not a man.
Honestly I think Cook is doing a better job that Jobs. He is going back trying to repair the bridges Jobs burned. He understand short term gains can lead to long term damage because the bridges were burned.
CEO job is to be a manager. an innovater can not manage and would drive the company into the ground because they suck at managing people and putting people with the right skills in the right job.
A good manager knows which people are good in which spot. CEO is a manager.
Steve Jobs is Apple and Apple is Steve Jobs. We can wish it otherwise, but wishing won't make it so.
Time will tell if the post-Steve Apple can thrive. But only those who underestimate Jobs believe the transition will be simple.
The "post-Jobs" era will most likely arrive before the "post-PC" era.
The board is wise to be considering the process and options now.
While i do believe apple will continue to thrive for some time... Eventually, inevitably, someone will have to replace mr. jobs... And that will be a very interesting time for apple, indeed. It will make or break the company...
the board has been discussing succession plans for 12 years. hardly a secret, though jobs is not there during those discussions. his "hogwash" response represents his healthy skepticism toward skeptics of apple's success.
+1
I've always said that the key to replacing Jobs is to find someone who is very opinionated, but isn't a manager, programmer or designer ... and thus not only doesn't know what's impossible, but also thinks like a normal self-centered consumer ... then surround him/her with geniuses.
Most importantly, give that chosen person ABSOLUTE POWER over the end product's look and feel decisions.
It's when things are designed by a committee that they don't work out as well.
But that logic is why iPhone did not launch with MMS, copy paste, multitasking and notifications.
Some ways Apple has out grown Jobs. It is way to big to be steered alone. Jobs was good at finding the right people for the job but by the same token he needs to learned when to step back and let those people do their job.
CEO job is to direct the ship. It is not their job to be driving it, being the engineering, cook ect. It is to direct the ship and let more skill people do everything else.
Uh, Steve Jobs' salary from Apple is $1 per year. He doesn't need any money.
He makes $30+ million in Disney dividends doing nothing. He even had Disney alter their director compensation rules so he wouldn't get paid as a non-executive Disney director.
But it has to be a person with really good taste... and a seemingly extremely low tolerance for lack of excellence...
Ives!!!!!!!!!
Only Jonathan Ives has similar gravitas to be able to keep things going after Jobs. He's young, he's British and he's been behind the design of most Apple products of late; as opposed to Job's just saying 'yes, no, make it thinner'.
Cook is about as dynamic as Howie Mandel ... it needs a Simon Cowell type figure to keep on running the show!
Only Jonathan Ives has similar gravitas to be able to keep things going after Jobs. He's young, he's British and he's been behind the design of most Apple products of late; as opposed to Job's just saying 'yes, no, make it thinner'.
Cook is about as dynamic as Howie Mandel ... it needs a Simon Cowell type figure to keep on running the show!