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Die? what do you mean? HE - GASP - could actually die?

1. Man, you can really write.
2. You're right -- compared to the geek stiffs in the video -- Ive has a Jobsian quality.
3. Can an industrial designer lead a computer/consumer electronics/music distribution company? Well, what were Jobs' qualifications when starting out with Woz to create Apple?

"Apple without Steve Jobs produces Performas." LOL!

Better:

"No offense, Phil, but the RDF hasn't rubbed off."

Poor Phil.

"He pulled it off successfully twice." Jobs nearly killed the company off the first time around. Gifted though he may be in some regards his actual business skills are still in doubt about running the company.

Your article suggests that one ought sell Apple short so as to capitalize upon the drop when he departs the scene. Apple continues to move nearer to irrelevancy. In the mainstream no one really cares what Apple does.

Have you considered writing an article on the opportunities that would open up for Apple in a post Jobs scenario? There are many things which might be done which Jobs would never even consider. Perhaps the focus should be on the corporation rather than the personality. If nothing else a successor might start with a rational advertising campaign.

I'm a huge fan of Mr. Ive. I get the feeling he's the last of the Jedi or .....maybe there is another.

When I read the headline to this story without reading anything else I started to think.......the first name that came to mind was Jonathon Ive.

He (Ive) just seems to have the Apple concept down pat. I'm not sure he has the charismatic quality of Jobs but they can get a talking head for him.

He will be cremated and then interred.

You're right -- the article's title is in bad taste. This ploy to increase hits takes away from the contect of the article.

Sorry Steve Jack, but isn't this REALLY obvious?

Or is it just me?

I was waiting around to find some uptight response like Craig's. Thanks, Craig for keeping the wait short!

IMHO the article's title clearly states the content of the piece and is explained within. Rule one of headline writing would be to grab a reader's attention. It worked. Lighten up, Craig.

Everyone dies at some point, Craig. Physically, at least. It's okay to talk about it - even though this article is clearly not examining the funeral arrangements.

On topic: I think Mr. Ive has what it would take to transition. No other company and CEO are so intertwined. If Apple makes it past the post-Steve era, they'll be around for hundreds of years!

I think the success of Jobs is less about his personality and charisma than about the fact that what motivates him -- even to this day -- is less about profits and marketshare than it is about new, cutting-edge technology. Sure, as the chief steward of Apple as a corporation, he wants the company to be profitable and he wants its market share to grow as well -- of course. But that is not his chief motivation. If it were, then he could just as easily have Apple sell coffee mugs and t-shirts. For Jobs -- much more than for Gates -- it's about the technology.

What rings Jobs' bell is to introduce to the industry new and innovative technology. He still gets excited over this -- and this excitement is woven into the very fabric of Apple's corporate culture throughout the ranks. This is what most distinguishes him from all other computer company CEO's. And if his successor at Apple does not have this same mantra and focus, and if instead it's more about the balance sheet alone, then no matter how charismatic he might otherwise be, Apple could just as easily succumb to be another assembler, like Dell.

Jonathan Ive as the successor to Steve Jobs? I'm unconvinced. Ive is a superb designer, and unquestionably one of Apple's assets. But does that also make him CEO material? I'm not sure. There's a nasty phenomenon in industry whereby talented people get promoted out of their realm of expertise (i.e. top technicians get made managers so they can get management pay levels). The result is a double cost to the company: they aren't doing the job that they're good at, and the job they are doing, they do badly. If that happened to Ive, Apple would suffer.

Steve Jobs is a visionary and an autocrat. By all accounts, he's not a great manager, and not all the decisions he's taken are good. MacOS X contains plenty of questionable elements that were imposed on it by Jobs against the advice of his experts. But his combination of charisma and commitment has undoubtedly helped Apple more than the plodding moneymen who ran the company before him.

Jobs isn't irreplaceable, but if he's replaced by one of the current industry-standard CEOs - who seem to be mostly either corporate looters or box-shifters whose only concern is the share price - then Apple's doom does indeed look likely. What is clear is that Apple can only survive at this stage on innovation and vision; whoever replaces Jobs will have to have, if not _his_ vision, at least _a_ vision.

To angusm, you make many good points. I agree that Jobs has made a number of bad decisions over the years -- though on balance he has nonetheless led (and indeed pushed) Apple forward. But I think people place too much emphasis on Jobs' charisma in this respect. I think it's more about his passion for actually MAKING something. After all, between the scenarios of (1) Apple as innovative technology company with small market share and (2) Apple as an ordinary computer company with small market share, which do you think would be better for Apple, its stockholders, and the industry overall?

Good management skills are crucial -- absolutely. But equally crucial for Apple is that Jobs' successor actually care about the technology. If it's all the same to Apple's new CEO that the company could make coffee mugs and t-shirts, then -- good management skills notwithstanding -- Apple will not survive. So BOTH are required.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Noah Wylie. He did a hell of a job(s) in Pirates of Silicon Valley. And didn't he appear at the beggining of one of the keynotes with out anyone really noticing the difference?

This is something I've pondered about from time to time and I'm sure it's been discussed inside Apple ... probably under a hush though.

I have to admit that I've never considered Ive as a successor, but he does seem to have the same sort of fire and determination that Jobs has (based on the limited exposure we've enjoyed).

While we say that he's not CEO material, this is still being said of Jobs himself. Sometimes the best CEO isn't baptized traditionally.

I think that there would be a lot of tension if Ive rose above the likes of Phil and Avie, who both seem like logical choices on paper (if Apple decided to choose internally), but Ive would probably better connect with the "mac faithful".

Just like the president, you can always build a support team to handle the details.

Read the book "Good to Great".

No company in the last 50 years that has brought someone on board as a savior has ever ended up being overly successful. In fact most fail. Instead, all the above average successful companies that have made CEO changes have promoted from within, the CEO was not groomed to be so, and the CEO were people with great passion for not only their field but for their company.

Ive seems to me to fit in here in some ways. I can't say wether I think he'd be a good CEO or not because I have never met him and would simply be going off what I've seen on TV and Quicktime clips, and that's really not enough content to draw such a conclusion.

The bottom line, no matter who replaces Jobs, the personal must be equally charismatic and driven to lead not only the company but the industry. I just don't see that being the case. Certainly the next CEO may be successful, but to follow up Jobs with another Jobsian CEO seems like a galactic longshot.

Here's hoping.

Replace him with a program that says "You are an idiot, make it better" to underlings during meetings.

Whoever ends up being the next CEO is going to be constantly compared to Jobs, and thus will never stack up.

What happens when any of us die? Life goes on. Yes, the article title is a bit scary butperhaps, Steve Jack could take over the position when Steve Jobs is gone, at least the monograms could all remain!

Dust In The Wind
Pickled Meat In A Can
Frozen Meat In A Can

and other variations
but please not
Pickled Meat In A Jar
like Lenin

Always two there are. A Master and an apprentice.

i've thought of this "problem" many times before... steve is really the entire "pc" industry's "vision" ... so his passing would effect more than just Apple. My feeling is he's basically mid point in his career. Barring a Bus or Jet accident... him leaving in 40+ more years will be considered a "full life" of great achievement. Granted if his Jet blows a gasket flying to Paris, he will become a legend, and probably have a longer mark on history than if he lives until 90. People have said, he's really an Artist and the PC is his Canvas. It's easy to see the effects he's had the world over by bringing easy to use computing to the masses, so even if he did leave tomorrow, he's done more than 20 million normal men do in a life time. Anyway... I wonder if he'll read this article and all these messages... If so, Hi Steve, stay with us for as long as possible! you're making life on this planet quite a bit more fun. GR

Mercedes benz is still doing very well, even though the both founders died when they are very old.

I agree with greenscreen, the Colonel is dead but we still have the chicken!

Even though Steve runs Apple part time (he has been spending half his time at Pixar for a long time now), and there are thousands of brilliant people at the company that do the real work, perception is everything.

Even if it was announced he was cutting back his Apple commitment to two days a week to spend more time at Pixar, the world press (and especially the Mercury News) would go berserk with sky-is-falling articles... Even preparatory spin control would be hazardous. What to do?

Perhaps they are working on the Emergency CEO Hologram. "Please state the nature of the corporate emergency! You're sh*t! F*ck!"

If Steve succumbs to that great hard drive in the sky, he will be replaced by Walt Disney.

Here is the thing, which you appleficianados always miss. It does not matter that the products, or the head of the company, or the commercials, make YOU feel good. The vast unwashed of pc users and those who are not yet using computers are the people who have to be appealed to. Apple has to improve its market share in the US and take advantage of the HUGE yet to be developed markets overseas. If it does not either the products are not as good as you think, or, more likely, the way apple advertises sucks. I have always thought that Jobs is much more interested in being a player, hanging out with Yao Ming and Minime, winning awards for ads and case design, and enjoying the above mentioned perks, than he is in running a business that competes. He has created a cult that supports his lifestyle nicely, while demanding little of him. Things would be different without Steve, and they might be a lot better. It might be worth trying (again) before Apple becomes insignificant.

I think that this article takes on a lot of points, some obvious and some needed to be thought about.

Now we all know that Steve cannot die, but just incase this can happen here is my take on it.

I disagree with Greenscreen and Dawn, and for the fact of you compairing chicken to computers, well thats just a really stupid statement.

Chicken, sorry Steve, is food. Kill it, cook it, and eat it. If it was that easy in computers, dont you think that Jobs and McNeal would of had Gates for dinner?

If and when it does happen and all of Steve's lives are cashed in like a "get out Jail Free" card, someone(s) will never be able to fill those sneakers.

Without Steve there is no innovation. He's pushing the entire industry. He's one of the few (maybe the only one) who's got the 'vision thing'.

The tech industry better come up with a life conservation plan for him or they're fried. Geez, M$ couldn't update any of their products once they cannot try to copy his ideas anymore and the PC industry would simply stop working alltogether. Tablet PCs ?!?!? Puh-leeze!

But I'm pretty sure TheSteve has all bases covered for the future. His Steveness reinvented himself when Pixar bought Apple (!). He learned from his old mistakes and is firmly on his way to achieve perfection for himself as for Apple.

When I look at what he's done since then and where Apple is heading I feel quite confident that this guy thinks of EVERYTHING now and he's got his apprentice somewhere in the wings.

I've been following the way of the Mac for ages and have never before had a more intense feeling that the real Mac revolution is just about to start kicking the entire industry up and down the stairs.

When Steve Jobs dies...

... first of all, let's hope that's a *long* time in the future. Second, Steve is the best thing that has happened to the computer industry since the microprocessor was invented.

I imagine that what happens depends on when/how steve leaves apple, how long he stays in charge at 1 Infinite Loop, and what market position Apple is in at the time.

If he kicked off today, that would pretty much be it for Apple. If he retires 20 years from now with Apple in a dominant market position, someone else could probably keep it going.

There's a reasonable chance Steve will outlive me, even though I am much younger than he is. (I don't exercise, I suffer form severe depression, and I over eat.) I hope he does outlive me - I would be really sad if something happened to him.

Residue on the bus, suggestive of removed colored butterfly stickers, will lead investigators to Washington State, where an "obnoxious bald man" will be found amongst Cheetos crumbs and an abundance of shorted AAPL confirmation slips. A 3-ring binder entitled "Best Viruses to Promote Product Upgrades" is found on the coffee table, stained heavily by an undetermined white fluid. Also a copy of "The Idiots Guide to Borrowing Intellectual Property". Usama Bin Laden and Sadam Hussien are subsequently found in the bedroom, but further investigation into the bus incident is halted, as the courts cite, "We must 'protect' the 95%"

For 2003 and in the near forseeable future, Apple would be in a tough spot.

Steve Jobs is effective because he's savvy in all the skills required to run such an iconic company.

He's been a hacker, a geek, a salesman, and arty enough to get respect from the engineers, marketing and design - you know how hard that is? By being a hacker and a geek, a salesman and a design freak - only he has the respect of all three branches of Apple and outside, the most important group, Mac buyers.

And unlike some other Apple CEO's that were one or maybe two of the above groups, only he is revered by all four groups and thus the respect.

And Pixar's success only adds to his aura. While he's always been creative at Apple, the outside world defined him as a pioneer in personal computers but pretty much stopped at that - now along with being a "tech" geek, he has won respect from the entertainment industry and its creators.

you can't replace a once-in-a-lifetime guy. Look at it this way, Bill Gates does not have all that's necesssary to run Apple (regardless of how hated he might to Apple engineers). He's a geek's geek but he has zero design sense.

Woz could step in for a year to calm the waters but your candidate list of engineers who are marketers who are chrismatic and who has the respect of mac buyers - out of 6 billion people on Earth - pretty short freaking list.

Does anyone remember an interview Steve Jobs gave prior to the release of the original iMac where he joked about including five golden tickets in randomly selected iMac boxes? Each person who discovered one of those tickets would get a 5 year supply of Macs (I guess that meant a new one each year, or something like that), plus a tour of the factory.

I could see Steve doing that.

I can't believe that nobody's mentioned Avie Tevanian. Who cares about personal reality distortion fields, what matters is a CEO that is passionate (personally passionate -- eloquence is not required) about the product, and who better than the person most responsible for the current OS design? It's his baby, let him shepherd it. As for Jonathan Ive, I have yet to see his passion or understanding go more than case-deep. What nearly drove Apple into the ground was not the lack of Steve Jobs (though we are obviously way better off with him) ... it was Gil Amelio's totally misreading of the Apple culture and his attempts to apply a cookie-cutter to the Apple business. Read Amelio's memoir it is absolutely hilarious the way he looks at the creative independence of Apple's business units and marvels at how any computer company could operate like this, and proceeds, totally blind, to discard all of the innovation value inherent in this kind of culture. My CEO ratings: Jobs1: 3. Sculley: 2. Spindler: 0. Amelio: -5. Jobs2: +5. As long as we don't get another Amelio, Apple will be just fine.

one of the mental errors within the macintosh community is that "amelio" was somehow a bad manager or bad for apple. that is all, way WRONG... i've seen those comments year after year - so MANY people are missing what actually happened. Amelio was brought in to clean up before JOBS could return. SPINDLER is where the problem(s) started, and to a lesser degree Sculley. All Amelio did was CLEAN up the company for JOBS to RETURN. Hardly anyone knows, but JOBS CALLED AMELIO, shortly after he joined the board at Apple... Steve wanted to stop over for a "visit" when Amelio was still head of National Semiconductor. Steve wanted Amelio to shepard his return to "Apple"... Remember this is BEFORE he was CEO of Apple... Months later, Spindler is out, Amelio in... THEN it was time to CLEAN HOUSE. I was there, Amelio did a lot of repair, even though to the outside public it looked liked he was hurting Apple. Not so! It was steve in the background all along, Amelio was just doing the dirty work. - SO... please refrain from bad mouthing Gil... he was the fall guy, plain and simple. Thanks for your attention.

re: ^

no.

To say that personality and charisma doesn't matter is to say that Apple is Dell. NO! Apple is not a mass market product. Doesn't appeal to tight wads or people who can't afford the high touch items that Apple sells. It's never going to be a mass producer. If that were the case, Apple wouldn't be Apple anymore.

I say, Jonathan Ive has the vision thing down pat. Now, he just needs a little experience which he is getting plenty of. Long live his Steveness (move over Steve, Ive is here now ; )

My, what a lot of posts.

Beddy byes calls, so I've had to skim read them; sorry if someone has said this already.

Ive's the next Jobs?

NO-'KIN-WAY.

And I say that as a Brit.

Jobs has done what's he's done because (in addition to all his other qualities) he's extremely articulate (and persuasive) in a networky/presentationy way and also exTEEEEEEEEEmely ruthless when he has to be (or sometimes just for fun!). Now I may not have din-dins with Ive and tuck him in at night, but I still think I've seen enough to suggest that this really isn't him; far too self-effacing and reticent.

Some phenomenally talented people are far, far better (and happier) as henchmen. To me, that's Ive.

I mean - does he even care about economics/marketting/etc. etc.?

I doubt it. And that is to his credit, clearly.

I really couldn't see him as CEO of a company like Apple.

However, may I direct you to my own CV...

Brother Mugga

PS: What? Can't a man dream?

It really doesn't matter, except to Steve and his friends and family.

Steve hasn't written a line of code in years, and it is obvious that his attention is elsewhere. How else to explain the dearth of effective advertising, and the dog that osX is? Steve has us all on the edge of our seats, and I predict we will stay there for the next ten years as he dribbles out "breakthroughs".

I teach in two private schools, and both are on the verge of upgrading their systems, each with a half dozen units. Both are using vintage macs now. The first has decided to flip to pc's via dell @$800 each with monitor. The second is leaning that way but will probably have a couple parents build them. Neither seriously considered upgrading to macs because of price, because there was no perceived advantage to the Mac platform, and because every single person involved in the dozen workstations uses MS at home. Five years ago I bet half the people involved would have been mac users at home, as it is a counter culture free thinking California group overall. Mac's market share may be holding steady, according to the statistics, but in reality, I think it is slipping badly.

Johnny for president !

If Steve dies soon, it will be a disaster.. may the Great Lord forbid! But, if it happens, who knows who should be the next person to make sure Apple keeps going. Jonathan Ive is absolutely stunning but I have no idea how much he knows about the intricate functions of Apple's computers. having said that, maybe it maaters not... a al Ronald Reagan.. in which case you need leader who puts a stunning team together. Is that J.I? I have no idea... but he is stunnig at what he does and maybe he can assume the mantle... none of use knows. Let us pray that Steve goes on for a very long time, knowing not what is to come...

Have no fear, Dave is here. You'll be seeing a lot more of me in a few years, and trust me, I've got this entire situation under control.

When Steve dies, Al Gore will take over. The best part about this is this means that Apple has only one transition to worry about--Jobs to Gore. Since Gore is already lifeless, he himself cannot die. And if he did, he could be replaced with a wood carving and no one would noice.

I nominate David Pogue and Guy Kawasaki. Both have the necessary clout and respect of the Mac community. Both are full of innovative ideas (anybody else read Pogue's novel, "Hard Drive"?). Kawasaki was in charge of the EvangeList for years. Both exhibit lots of charisma.

Apple does *not* need a businessman in the CEO position. It doesn't need someone to worry about the stock value, and it doesn't need someone who tries to cut costs.

The CEO position, for Apple, is the idea man. The keynote headliner. The driving force behind Apple's strive for perfection.

Let Fred Anderson worry about the stock value. Let Ive decide how the machine looks. Let Tevanian keep working on the software, and let Schiller take charge of the marketing. The CEO needs only to guide the group in a similar vision.

I think Pogue and Kawasaki are excellent candidates.

-Jake

From BR:
" Your article suggests that one ought sell Apple short so as to capitalize upon the drop when he departs the scene. Apple continues to move nearer to irrelevancy. In the mainstream no one really cares what Apple does."

You are so obviously a PC troll it's sad. EVERYBODY cares what Apple does in the mainstream, usually because Apple does it right. Why do you think that so many Apple ideas have been stolen (excuse me: BORROWED) from your crowd? What Apple didn't invent, they implemented correctly. This is something Microsoft still has to work on.

Apple isn't known as the beta tester for the PC industry for nothing.

"What happens when Steve Jobs dies?"

Well, he will either be buried or cremated....... silly question......

Only my opinion but John Sculley was by far the greatest CEO that Apple have ever had. The time that Sculley was in charge saw Apple at it's most innovative period.

During this time we saw, the Newton a product at least three years ahead of the market and for the first time we saw cheap consumer Macintosh's in the shape of the LC.

Steve Jobs is charesmatic but charisma does not make a great CEO, I don't think people seem to realise but it's us the users that make Apple great, we are passionate about the product Steve knows how to use that passion to his advantage for one reason, he shares it with us. But if Steve Job's is such a great CEO why has it taken us three years since his return to have anything that starts to live with a PC in speeed terms, poor management decisions have caused this delay.

A really great CEO would make the brave decision to break Apple in to two companies (software & hardware), release the x86 port of OSX (which they have) and take advantage of a time when Microsoft is at it's most vulnerable. Job's can't do it because he's too emotionally attached.

So what will happen to Apple after Steve Job's... Hmm we'll probably have no more fantastic Expo keynotes and the bank balance will be a lot better because Apple won't be paying the largest CEO salary of any US corporation.

Sean,

Holy ****, you know nothing about what makes Apple tick!

1. I fail to see how Apple's poor management decisions have anything to do with Motorola's inability to boost clock speed at a reasonable rate. I think the move to IBM for processors over the past few years was a fantastic management decision. For those that don't know, every G3 since the original iMac has been built by IBM. When was the last time you heard about lagging G3 performance? IBM has kept up easily, held back only by the fact that Apple won't ship a G3 with a higher clock rate than it's slowest G4.

2. Break Apple in two? One of the biggest things Apple has going for it is the "we make the whole widget" theme. If Apple controls everything, it comes out working better. Why do you think Apple was the first out the door with Plug-n-Play? It's very, very easy for Apple to ensure that everything is compatible.

3. Release an x86 port? True, this is simple from an OS perspective. However, I think it is one of the worst moves Apple could ever make, for two reasons:

a. The x86 is a tired design. Intel and their piles of cash have managed to keep it alive this long, and that may continue, but programming for the x86 is difficult and involves lots of tricks and special approaches to problems. The PowerPC is an extremely clean design. It's easy to write PowerPC code, and the architecture as it stands will support years of innovation without resorting to funky Intel-style optimizations to boost the speed. For instance, did you know that the Pentium 4 has an extra 128 data registers, hidden from the programmer, which it uses to make up for the fact that the x86 instruction set only has 8 data registers?

b. Every OS X application would also need to be ported. Many apps (PhotoShop comes to mind) are optimized for the PowerPC's vector processing engine, and would lose all of their speed if translated to x86. The lack of compatibility between the old PPC apps and the new x86 apps would draw a line in the sand for all Mac users: jump, or fade away. Many would refuse to jump, and the platform would die off.

*continued next post*

What you have to remember is that Apple is successful as a niche company. There are a relatively small number of us in the world with higher standards for usability, stability, and appearance of our computers, and we choose to use the Mac because it's better in those aspects. We also pay a fair margin more for the right to do so. Likewise, there are a relatively small number of people in the world with high standards for the way their car drives. These people spend the extra cash to meet their needs by purchasing a BMW, Ferrari, or (insert favorite car make).

As always, the manufacturers outside the niche (GM in the car metaphor, Dell outside the metaphor) constantly copy the innovations inside the niche. Ferrari and BMW have had paddle shifting for years; now you can get it in a Grand Prix. Apple came out with built-in wireless Ethernet in laptops first; now Dell has it. A BMW M3 can help you get the perfect launch; we have yet to see this from GM. Apple has a 17" laptop; Dell has yet to follow suit.

If Apple converts itself to just another PC competitor, they will die a quick death amidst too much competition. Apple must continue to fill a niche in order to survive. Nothing wrong with trying to increase the size of the niche; this needs to be done not by making the niche more like the competition, but instead by showing the masses just how nice things are inside the niche. This requires a company with charisma; it requires a CEO with charisma.

By the way, Apple has over four billion dollars in cash assets. That's a pretty darn good bank balance, if you ask me.

-Jake