For leading a triumphant surge to the top of the tech world, developing game-changing computers and devices and unleashing a stellar return for investors, Steve Jobs has been named MarketWatch’s CEO of the Decade.
“Steve Jobs is known as both mercurial and visionary, part rock-star CEO and part master salesman, a meticulous micromanager who can drive his employees to distraction — and one of the most important figures in American industry in the past half-century,” Russ Britt reports for MarketWatch..
“Jobs’s tenure as the chief executive at Apple Inc. during the past 10 years is well-documented. After pulling his own company back from the brink of bankruptcy before the decade started, he almost single-handedly went on to save the recording industry with the iPod and iTunes,” Britt reports. “He revolutionized handheld devices and touch-screen technology with the iPhone. And he may well usher in a post-PC era of computing with his latest gadget, the iPad. ‘The resurrection of Apple is just the most astounding story that’s probably happened in business in at least a decade — you might be able to go further and say it’s a half-century,’ says Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies, a technology-industry think tank. ‘It’s on par with Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell in terms of its total impact.'”
Britt reports, “Jobs’s legacy stretches back several decades and includes the development of a few more groundbreaking innovations from his first go-round at Apple in the 1970s and ’80s: the Apple II, the Mac and elaborate computer graphics, to name a few. Along with being likened to Edison and Bell, comparisons with such captains of industry as Walt Disney — of whose namesake company Jobs would later become the biggest individual shareholder — spring to mind for many. And he has driven Apple to the top of the heap in technology. The company ranks No. 1 in the sector in market cap at $285 billion.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Jobs stands so far above others, there was obviously only one choice to be made. Congratulations, Mr. Jobs!
No argument from me.
Cheers Steve! You did it the old fashioned way, you earned it.
Good going.
Congratulations Steve Jobs and Crew.
I read this earlier, Market Watch reporter wrote it as if he had to eat crow. He inserted underhanded jabs and all the usual negative clichés he could find against Jobs (health, secrecy, backdating scandal, antennagate, etc.) whenever he could and tried to pass it as even handed journalism. Connie Guglielmo and the other vultures would be proud.
I’m glad Mr. Jobs and the rest of Apple have denied them any official response. Then again, MW is part of WSJ whatever that may mean here.
They should encase St. Jobs in carbonite and give him the award for the business leader of the century.
Here are a few quotes from that garbage piece where he quoted from all the usual Apple hating leeches:
“He has marketed himself and the value of Apple extraordinarily well over the last 15 years,” says Jeffrey Young, co-author of the unauthorized biography “iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business.”
…
In technology circles, Jobs’s mood swings are the stuff of legend and, in fact, led to his initial ouster from the company in 1985, according to Endpoint’s Kay.
“When he’s in his Mr. Hyde role, he’s just insane,” Kay says. “Dr. Jekyll is the guy who’s making it all happen.”
Adds Enderle: “He is not somebody [who] any one of us would want watching our kids, but, in terms of running the company, he’s excellent.”
Seriously!!!!
Duck if you drive by Microsoft in Redmond Monkey Boy will be going Ape Sh*t and tossing chairs and sofas all day long.
Even Gates may toss a chair or two today.
Congratulations to Steve Job and all at Apple!
Well, he’s one hell of a visionary and has made me very happy being an AAPL long, but I wouldn’t go so far as to confer sainthood on SJ. He can be one tough cookie when he wants to. Business-wise though, it is great that he has the strength of his convictions and the vision to execute them, unlike the lemming Monkey Boy of Microsoft (Steve Ballmer).
May he be their CEO forever:)
Well-made, secure, intuitive, powerful, revolutionary products. By producing these, Steve Jobs is denting the universe. He stands a universe apart from all other leaders. Compromise is useful, but not on tenets that are so wonderful.
If Steve brings the iPhone to T-Mobile then he can have my vote for CEO of the century.
Strange, Marketwatch and Roger Kay usually hate on Steve and Apple.
My God, they quoted Rob Enderle? Rob Enderle is an assclown.
Speaking of not wanting to watch our kids.
I told Enderle to take his hands out of his pockets whenever he’s speaking to me, or anyone I know.
Congrats to my Hero “Steve J”
well earned, Jobs.
what is even more outstanding is that Jobs hasn’t been working overtime to line his pockets with obscene pay. His wealth is entirely equity in the company he created. His dedication to excellence rather than personal wealth prioritization is an impressive example that investors should seriously consider.
I’m afraid they are a year early…
Or a few years late, depending on how you look at it
That Enderle quote borders on slander. What the hell is he implying?
Look, it doesn’t matter that Jobs has stood on the shoulders of giants, or had a lot of help along the way. It’s his drive that founded Apple (I’m not taking anything away from Woz’s technical brilliance.); it was Steve’s drive that pushed the GUI computer into mass production, it was his drive that founded NeXT after a humiliating separation from Apple, his drive that saved Apple from the brink of extinction, his drive that re-invented the smartphone, all-in-one desktop, etc & etc. Gathering and pushing the talent to achieve these feats causes friction. If Jobs wasn’t a hard nose prick at times Apple would be a footnote in computer history and we all would be using MS-DOS v.2010. I can’t think of worse nightmare. I would bet that even those got reamed by Jobs are still proud to have been a part of Apple’s accomplishments.