“The sudden decision by the company’s chief executive to take a medical leave for the third time in less than a decade raises anxieties about the leadership of the company he helped found more than three decades ago,” Helft and Miller report. “It also puts the spotlight again on several senior executives who have been helping Mr. Jobs run the company, in particular Timothy D. Cook, the chief operating officer, who will take over day-to-day operations during Mr. Jobs’s leave.”
“Mr. Jobs is leaving Mr. Cook in charge, just as he did during a five-month leave in 2009,” Helft and Miller report. “His performance during that time provides a heavy dose of reassurance for nervous investors. Mr. Cook, who joined Apple nearly 13 years ago and is otherwise responsible for the company’s worldwide sales and operations, steered the company successfully the last time around.”
Helft and Miller report, “A handful of other executives, whose roles are complementary to that of Mr. Cook’s, are also expected to see their profiles rise in Mr. Jobs’s absence. They include Jonathan Ive, a London-born designer who is Apple’s senior vice president for industrial design and close to Mr. Jobs. ‘He’s arguably the most important person there outside of Steve,’ said Shaw Wu, an analyst at Kaufman Brothers. ‘He’s responsible for the look and feel of the products, the way they interact with users.’ Philip W. Schiller, the company’s marketing chief, is also expected to play a vital role… And Scott Forstall, senior vice president for iPhone software, is also believed to have an increasingly influential role as software becomes the distinguishing factor on phones and tablets.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
Long Live Steve Jobs!!!!!!
Cook, Ive, Schiller, Forstall, Serlet, Mansfield, Oppenheimer, and the rest of Team Apple are the best.
I know they are up to the task of running the world’s best tech company.
@Eakster,
Indeed!!!
There is no doubt Tim Cook is an incredible executive, but last night I came across an article that kind of shocked me a little bit.
http://venturebeat.com/2011/01/08/mark-zuckerberg-steve-jobs-heir/
I’m sure Tim Cook would do a great job executing Apple’s current road map for the next 2-5 years, but he is definitely not the visionary entrepreneur that Steve Jobs is.
For Apple to continue being an extraordinary technology company in the long term, I think they need someone at the head who is an entrepreneur at heart, and is not doing it for the money. Just like Steve Jobs. He does it because he loves it.
What do you guys think? Where in the world do you find someone who can continue leading Apple to greatness? I would hate to see Apple plateau in a few years and end up like MS. (I really don’t want to compare Tim Cook to Ballmer, Ballmer is a retard. But, Tim Cook is definitely not the visionary leader.)
I’ve not be able to find out much information about who Cook really is.
Just superficial press release stuff.
Here is Tim Cook giving the commencement speech at Auburn University last year.
He seems like a great guy. But, to be honest, it also confirmed to me that he’s a great right hand man for Steve Jobs, but not the best replacement to be #1 permanently.
@Vatdoro
Before seeing this video Tim Cook seemed like just a suitable back-office guy who could “make the trains run on time.” After seeing this speech he strikes me as quite articulate and someone who has been infected by Steve Job’s brand of passion. I think it’s too early to tell if Tim Cook is lacking in vision. When people think about Pixar (another Steve Jobs achievement) people don’t think Steve Jobs they think John_Lasseter. Maybe Tim Cook has the same leadership ability. If this speech is any indication there may be more to Tim Cook then we have been witness to yet.
@ Vatdoro
RE: Mark Zuckerberg
When I heard about the meeting with Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs a while back the first thing that came to mind was Apple wants to buy Facebook. The second thing that came to mind is Apple wants Mark Zuckerberg. The next thing was why? And then the final thought was, to replace Steve. I think there is something to this possibility. The guys definitely has the vision and tenacity to lead a company like Apple. I could see Tim Cook filling the role of elder statesman if Jobs can’t fill that role himself.
Apple will be fine!!!
But don’t you forget that nobody is indispensable !
@Vatdoro,
Mark Zuckerberg?!?!? You must be shrooming.
@iAgree,
What I read at the time of that meeting was that Zuckerberg called it and it was a general advice kinda meeting – how to take Facebook to the next level.
Tim Cook has been #2 for a long time, in biz world terms, and has been appropriately deferential to #1, otherwise he would probably not have survived in Steve’s world. We will only really know it Tim is the man when he assumes the CEO mantle. Hopefully, that will be sooner rather than later. I will certainly lessen the blow to have that chair filled, when Jobs is no longer among us.
@mjrmd
Apple absolutely needs to start the public process of having a strong leader assume more responsibilities at Apple as soon as is humanly possible since Steve’s future seems a lot less in his control then he has been accustomed to. Filling Steve’s shoes will be a lot harder if that transition is sudden and compounded by Steve not being able to fill the role of an advisor. I would love to see Steve back and in perfect health but he’s not immortal (unfortunately) and Apple, it’s fans and investors (basically those of us who have been supporters of Steve’s vision) will have to learn to live without him and that can be a sudden and wrenching transition or it can be less so.
As long as Apple replaces Steve with someone who understands the products – someone from the deep bench NYT describes in this article – then I think Apple will be fine. But if something stupid happens, like they replace Steve with the CEO of Pepsico, then I would expect Apple to crash and burn, as it almost did in the ’90’s.
Put any one of those guys in the driver seat, and give him the control that Steve currently has, and Apple will be fine.
Thinking optimistically to begin with, Apple has an executive team of bright enthusiastic Apple people.
Most of them have been with Steve for a good number of years.
They have his 5 and probably 10 year vision of the future, including product ideas. They hopefully also have some of their own ideas about the future.
Most importantly they know how Steve thinks. They collectively know about design
and and they know about about marketing, packaging , supply management and company and fiscal management from the inside.
They will be a great team.
While those of us who are real Apple fans take a particular interest in Steve, my guess is that the rest of the world buys Apple products not because they know much about corporate leadership, but because they like Apple products and Apple has a reputation for delivering good and useful innovative products.
Do you know anyone who intends to buy a new BMW-who first stops to check the composition of the corporate team? Me neither.
Apple has never been a me too company. We knew that.
Given Apple’s track record of mostly beautifully designed products that work and change paradigms, that people like and recognize- now the whole world knows.
Even Steve occasionally didn’t make the best decisions. Apple learns from it’s mistakes and successes.
No one delivers perfection all the time but you can expect a future of great paradigm shifting beautifully designed products for years to come.
Go Apple!
Get well Steve!
“sudden decision”
What are they talking about? Do the Times authors really believe that Steve Jobs surprised the board on Sunday, bullied them into agreeing, and made an announcement on Monday?
I think what they actually meant was “sudden announcement,” although even that is an odd turn of phrase. How can an announcement be anything but “sudden” unless it isn’t the first announcement?
Basically, they wanted to find a way to make it sound shocking, and so wrote something inaccurate. That about sums up the current state of news reporting today, doesn’t it?
THIS: I think they need someone at the head who is an entrepreneur at heart, and is not doing it for the money.
= Oxymoron
Entrepreneurs have no virtue greater than filling their pockets from yours.
Theres a great bunch still at Apple that can still steer the company successfully even without Jobs.
Get Well Steve !!!!!!!
@Macrelated: Excelent, I agree with you. I can not be more worry about apple future, not because investor or customers, but because apple is one of the few innovators companies out there, and thanks to apple, other follow and therefore consumers (even not apple customers) get benefits of that.
Now, if apple become something else, we will be screw, we will back to before ipod or iphone times, where companies said that wasn’t possible to build such a business model, etc.
But, even everybody here claim the greatness of SJ, I think we are underestimated him at the same time. it is obvious that SJ knew about ipod, iphone and ipad many years ahead it success, so unless SJ himself thought he was immortal, he should anticipated his departure of the company.
So the question is: Did SJ prepare apple for that moment?
it is possible that SJ final legacy wasn’t any product, but the company itself, could SJ pull a final trick, create a culture, a way of thinking, a way to see the world, a way to transmit that to any one that wants to be immerse in that “way to think”, so at the perfect timing, anyone could fit in his shoes???
I mean, sounds crazy right, how could SJ make somebody or anybody like him, but, aren’t we filled with impossible, crazy products at the beginning and booms later.
I dont think so it is impossible, and I do not think that apple will die with Jobs, I have to give credit to SJ, not only for the products that has been created during his time, but also for the team he put together, and I think that team can handle apple, because once you understand the SJ way, you can create anything with success, and if not successful at once, for sure at second.
I agree with Eakster
although if jobs were to retire or die tim cook seems pretty qualified
If a computer smart visionary guy named Steve runs Apple now, the best person to choose for his replacement is a computer smart visionary guy named Steve.
Obvious choice for the next Apple CEO – Steve Ballmer.
Let that sink in….. future looks bright.
I say when Steve’s really goes (hoping not for a long time) the permanent CEO replacement would be Ive. He has charisma, vision and understands design. Cook seems to be a great #2 guy, but doesn’t seem to have the vision and doesn’t have the charisma. Not the “sales” guy.
Come on, guys. Steve also met Eric T. Mole in a cafe last fall. I sincerely hope this was not about the succession at Apple.
PS: I just envisioned Eric at the WWDC giving the keynote and wearing a pink cowboy hat. I’m off cleaning my keyboard.