How do you think Steve Jobs' resignation will affect Apple?

Now that Steve Jobs is stepping down from day-to-day operations, how will Apple be affected?

I guess if I’m kicking off the discussion, I should offer my own opinion. I think that Apple is a big enough company now, and there are enough people involved in decision making, that it won’t have a huge affect for at least a year.

I think their product plan is pretty solid a lot farther than one year out. Tim Cook, Jony Ive, Phil Schiller and the rest of the executive team have done a great job running things through the medical leaves, so I think they have who they need in place. Plus, according to what I’ve read, Steve’s staying on at Chairman, so he may not be quite as out the door as it originally seemed.

I’m torn here. All I’ve ever heard is that Jobs is a micromanager and that Apple is very much a part of him. It really takes years and years to get a good culture established that can continue to grow and promote successful people from within.

I predict the stellar growth of the last few years will end, but that the company will continue to glide along like any behemoth.

Yes, he’s staying on the board, just stepping out of day-to-day operations. I agree with everything you said.

He’s still got a few hands in the mix, so I don’t know if anything’s going to change that much.

My worry is that he was such a micromanager, that there really aren’t enough take-charge people around to step up.

Granted, his first medical leave was a few years ago, but it still takes a few years (when things run smoothly) to bring a need breed up through the ranks.

Or am I wrong? Jobs was very much a micromanager, correct? Oh man, am I confusing again?

I’m encouraged by the fact that Jobs will remain as CEO. I have confidence that Apple can continue to function and turn out good products with the executive team it now has in place; what I’m unsure about (okay, worried as hell about) is Apple’s continued ability to innovate and create excellent new products once Jobs is completely out of the picture.

Jobs is a genius and a visionary without peer. What he does, how he thinks, and his ability to recognize opportunities, bring them to fruition and capitalize upon them, can’t be taught. You either have that within you or you don’t, and to date no one has had it like Jobs.

I fear that within three to five years after Jobs is no longer associated with Apple, it will be just another high-tech company churning out products - albeit high-quality products - based upon current demand just like everybody else. Hopefully that time won’t come for many years yet.

I think he’s probably spent the past few years getting his guys in important positions and making sure Cook was the right guy to be CEO that the transition will be perfectly smooth and the company will keep chugging along. Hopefully, he still has a long time left in him to stay on as chairman and keep his ideas flowing out.

I assume he wouldn’t be stepping down if he didn’t have the team he wanted in place, and I imagine he has a great deal of say in his successor-- Even if he’s not officially the one making that decision, whoever is making it is going to pay a lot of attention to his advice. So it’s probably not going to change all that much.

The optimist in me sees Apple post Steve Jobs as being like Disney post Walt. He is such a strong visionary and personality that for decades to come the workers at Apple will be invoking “what would Steve do?” They will maintain this culture, and his vision, far into the future.

I think the resignation was obviously not one that Steve Jobs wanted to make. He had to do it because of his health. So it’s kind of ominous that he may not be around for long. I’m a big fan of Apple, as well as an investor in the company. There will be some shock to the stock price because Apple=Jobs in a lot of people’s minds. That’s why they suspended trading of the stock. In time the stock price will recover. But will it continue to climb? And will the company still be viewed as an innovative marketplace leader? That will depend a lot on the next year or two of product releases. I think (perhaps it’s just hope) that the company will do fine. It’s just too bad that Tim Cook could not have been better positioned in the general public’s minds as Jobs’ successor. However, maybe that was an impossible task. Perhaps no one can replace someone like Jobs who has been elevated to deity status by Apple fans. When a company and its mystique are so strongly identified with one person, that’s a hard transition to make when that person is gone. Sort of like what will happen when Warren Buffet goes to that big stock market in the sky.

I want to also say: THANK YOU, STEVE JOBS! Hope that you’ll be with us for a lot longer.

You’re quite right. He has always been a micromanager.

I’ll start worrying when Apple hires back Gil Amelio.

He, uh… won’t. I think you mean chairman. :smiley:

Heh. Freudian slip I guess. :slight_smile:

I think they’ll do fine. They’ve got a lot of momentum, and Cook already has experience at the helm. I think a lot of the problems back in the 1990s were caused more by the presence of Gil Amelio than the absence of Jobs. They seem to have their act together pretty darned well at the moment.

First off, I wonder how long he is for the world. I wish him no ill, but this strikes me as the beginning of the end. The people who replace him will always be saying to themselves WWSD? And they will not do what Steve would have done, because he is sui generis. Look how Apple ran off the rails when he wasn’t there and the company was run as though it were Coca Cola. I agree with Starving Artist. Things will go well for a year, two years, three years and then it will settle down to being just another hi-tech company.

Probably been in place for years.

I have to think the reason he’s stepping down is for serious health issues. Doesn’t he have pancreatic cancer? That’s some bad shit.

The “what would Walt do”? culture post-Walt almost destroyed Disney. Who will be Apple’s Eisner?

Where’s Woz nowadays? (Not that I think he could replace Jobs, I’m just curious.)
Maybe the can bring in Lasseter. :stuck_out_tongue:

Did he type up instructions for operating the Reality Distortion Field Generator?