“Who will run Apple after its visionary CEO and product guru Steve Jobs leaves? The question has been hanging over the company since last summer when Jobs appeared onstage at a conference looking terribly ill,” Daniel Lyons reports for Newsweek. “Jobs, 53, underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer four years ago, and now says he’s suffering from a ‘hormone imbalance.’ He appears determined not to groom a successor, saying last week in an open letter that he intends to remain in charge, and if at some point he can’t do his job, he’ll make that known, thank you very much. He grumbled that he has ‘given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years,’ and ended by declaring, ‘So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.'”
Lyons reports, “The real issue here, and the one that Apple has failed to address in any meaningful way, is the question of succession.”
MacDailyNews Note: – At Apple’s annual shareholders’ meeting on Tuesday, March 04, 2008, Bloomberg News’ Connie Guglielmo reported that, “Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, who returned a decade ago to lead the computer company he helped found, said he sees many potential successors among Apple’s current executives. ‘We’ve got great talent, and I think the board would have really great choices,’ Jobs, 53, said today at [the] shareholder meeting at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. Possible successors include operations chief Timothy Cook and Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer, he said.'”
Lyons continues, “Compare Jobs’s recent recklessness to the way Microsoft managed the delicate hand-over of the company from Bill Gates to Steve Ballmer.”
MacDailyNews Take: “Recklessness?” Really? Come on. And how does Lyons expect his readers to compare a CEO who has clearly told shareholders that his company has many fine potential successors and that he’ll remain on the job for the foreseeable future to a derivative company’s transition from a delusional thief to a bumbling idiot?
Lyons continues, “Jobs, in contrast, seems determined to hang on at Apple no matter what. See, in the world of Steve, it’s all about Steve. When he does go, he will be remembered as a tremendous genius—but also as a petulant narcissist with a grandiose sense of his importance and a sadly limited view of the world around him. Ironically, it is Gates, his archnemesis, who will likely go down in history as the classy one: the one who knew how to exit gracefully, the one who is devoting the later years of his life, and all of his billions, to helping the world’s poorest people—and not clinging to his CEO job while he insults reporters and plays petty cat-and-mouse games with Apple shareholders and fanboys.”
Full article – Think Before You Click™ – here.
Lyons is certainly not one who should be speculating about people who seem to be “terribly ill.” He and Michael S. Malone ought to get a room. In Bellevue.
At this rate, Jobs will outlast Newsweek by several decades.
And spreading ill-gotten gains in a desperate bid to buy your way into heaven is in no way graceful or classy; it’s just plain sad.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Erik H.” for the heads up.]
I won’t click.
Lyons is an arrogant a$$hole, with an unlimited view of himself.
What a schmuck. I won’t click either.
For a Prick – No Click.
No think, no click.
If Steve Jobs is a petulant narcissist, that what does that make Fake Steve Jobs?
Wow I suddenly feel awkward and uncomfortable.
“it is Gates, his archnemesis, who will likely go down in history as the classy one: the one who knew how to exit gracefully, the one who is devoting the later years of his life, and all of his billions, to helping the world’s poorest people…”
Oh, PLEASE DON”T GET ME STARTED!!! Gates is assuaging his guilt, much like Carnegie did a hundred years ago. I am happy for any that are helped in some way by Gates’ ill-gotten gains, but to gloss over the fact that he lied and cheated his was into those billions is egregious. Even today, Gate’s Foundation behalves questionably. As always, Gates continues to use his wealth as leverage to get people to do what HE wants. That is all well and good, but it is NOT charitable. Lyons is either blind or stupid. Either way, it is obvious that he bears a grudge against Jobs, and will write any piece of nonsense in his attempt to smear him.
MDN you got it wrong. Lyons writes for Newsweak.
Also, “bumbling idiot” fails to describe the malice we know Ballmer is capable of.
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Its a shame that Levy was replaced by this guy by Newsweek. What were they thinking?
Pure comedy!!! I can only think of Bill Gates classy “Seinfeld Commercials”. That is how I will remember Gates. Oh yeah, and the head of a monopoly that produced some of the worst software on earth. Danny Boy is pure comic genius! Keep up the GREAT work!
Unless Lyons follows Steve Jobs around all day and knows exactly what he does, this is all Apple Hater masturbation.
Does Lyons even know how little credibility he has?
Lest we forget, Lyons used to pretend to be Steve Jobs. How pathetic is that?
If Jobs was such a narcissist he would keep doing Macworld expos because nothing gave him publicity like a Macworld keynote.
Apple doesn’t have a clear succession plan? Maybe that’s because Jobs has no intention of resigning anytime soon, just like his letter said. Guys like Lyons are acting as if Jobs is going to retire or die tomorrow.
I guess when you get outed as “Fake Steve Jobs” you get bitter.
I Wish I were a fanboy, but I’m too objective to be one, so I clicked. He had a lot of valid points:
“Last summer, Jobs called a New York Times columnist a “slime bucket” for having the audacity to inquire about his health.”
Wow, Steve sure is a real class act!
“Who is the heir apparent? No one knows. And that’s a problem.”
Absolutely. Merely stating there are “many potential successors” is not being straightforward.
Say what you will about MS, Gates, Ballmer, but the transition was indeed smooth, and Gates should be credited for that.
Time also had an article on Steve Jobs and his possible successors. They handled it much more even handed and pointed out that while what Apple would be without Jobs is unknown, there are many qualified successors.
Perhaps Apple has its succession plan in place, but doesn’t want to spread FUD by letting it become public. “OMG — Apple has a succession plan! Jobs must really be dying!” and the stock drops 25%.
Hey, what’s Microsoft’s succession plan? With Ballmer’s temper he could keel over from a heart attack any day…not to mention having to travel in Seattle traffic…
I bet many Microsoft shareholders wish they had a petulant narcissist as CEO.
Grats to clicked for being objective.
“…a petulant narcissist with a grandiose sense of his importance and a sadly limited view of the world around him.”
Lyons always says these words to himself before he starts the day every morning and before he goes to sleep at night, just to give his self confidence a boost.
How does Lyons get away with calling Steve Jobs those names anyway? The things he said are a bit beyond the pale even for a political figure who are fair game but rarely get such invective directed against them.
Steve Jobs is not a political or “public” figure in the same sense. If I was he, I would be looking at charges against Lyons.
Of course what this scheming “writer” is attempting to do is spread FUD in the exact hope of getting Jobs out of Apple. It would not be a surprise to learn that Lyons is regularly getting “compensation” from Apple’s competitors to sow this kind of tripe. These other companies cannot beat Apple in a real fight on the field of business, so they hope to foment dissension and unrest in the ranks — basically cause betrayal from within when the enemy cannot win from without.
That makes Lyons either a pawn of these outside companies, a mean-spirited jealous spite, or more likely a Dvorak-wannabe hit whore who is the biggest “petulant narcissist” of all by his own behavior.
Hey clicked, do us all a favor, please go get your self a baseline phisical w/ extensive bloodwork, tell about you sexual partners for the last 10 years, tell us about your use or nonuse of drugs/alcohol. please include your name, address, employer and insurance company and I will be happy to inform all of them as well as post it in the internet since privacy is that big of a deal to you.
Steve Lyons need to go back to doing Fake Steve, that was actually worth reading.
lol!
I’m not the (celebrity) CEO of mutli-billion dollar multi-national corporation that has billions of dollars of people’s money invested in it. I’m sure you’d be happy if I croak today, but no one will even notice. But if something happens to SJ and Apple is left without a leader, I think that would cause a little more consternation than my passing.