“Let’s all pray for Steve Jobs,” Eric Savitz writes for Forbes. “Struggling against cancer since 2004, the Apple co-founder, chairman and now former CEO has built an astonishing career, and an astoundingly successful company.”
“He created Apple (with the Woz), was pushed out, and came back to save the company when it was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy,” Savitz reminds. “With Steve’s guidance, Apple has become one of the world’s great companies, changing every industry it touched. Music. Mobile phones. Movies. Software. Hardware. Software publishing. Advertising. Apple now has a market cap north of $300 billion; just days ago the stock briefly surpassed Exxon Mobil as the world’s most valuable public company.”
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Savitz writes, “Steve is one of a kind, our generation’s Thomas Edison and Henry Ford rolled into one. He has changed the world in too many ways to recount here. And with his decision to step away from the company’s day-to-day operations, investors will once again face the question about how the company will fare without him leading the charge.”
“All that said, the Street should get over the initial shock in a hurry,” Savitz writes. “Apple is going to be fine… Think Apple is done changing the world? Think different.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
Bravo !!
Steve Jobs has achieved in making and bringing out products for the betterment of mankind.
the best MDN take possible!
Let me point out for the zillionth time that Apple at no time was ‘teetering on the verge of bankruptcy’, except in the minds of cruel TechTard journalists and the ignorami. I’ve never found ANY indication this was remotely the case. To all those who still insist this myth is true, the burden of proof is on YOU. Have fun finding it via actual facts. You won’t. The myth was never more than FUD. Why such FUD becomes accepted as fact indicates the usual ability of humans to believe almost anything to be absolute fact. (0_o)
And yes, it is a waste of time attempting to teach determined ignorami. But there are usually thoughtful people who appreciate reading factual information. 😎
I’ve always thought that Apple was teetering on being bought out around that time. I don’t remember reading about bankruptcy exactly.
Was Sun going to buy them or something?
Regardless, a heck of a turnaround!
Yes and the $150 million in stock bought by Microsoft then was simply a (cheap) vote of confidence, not major funding Apple sorely needed. MS was more than pad back for this act. Not that Apple could have continued under Gil Amelio. Steve Jobs & Apple have always had a mutual destiny. It truly is a grand mythology & story with a relatively happy ending, and new beginning. Apple will be here and doing fantastic long into the future.
You’re among friends here DC, so no harm/foul, but before you get out in front of a wider audience with that claim…
Quote & source:
Apple’s mercurial master Steve Jobs made a series of revelations during his appearance at the Wall Street Journal’s D:All Things Digital conference in California this week, including the fact that the company was a mere 90 days from bankruptcy in 1997 when the board asked him to retake the reins.
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/213747,jobs-book-of-revelations-apple-was-only-months-from-the-abyss-in-1996.aspx
That is Steven’s typical dramatization. Yes, Apple was in bad financial situation, however, but the quantity of months later which the company was supposed to be bankrupt is pure speculation.
Apple was even able to buy Next for about $400 million in cash, in returned to profit, albeit to tiny, in just few quarters. This dispels another myth that Microsoft “saved” Apple. By summer 2007, when MS made their $150 million investment, Apple was already making profit for like two quarters.
So while MS’ money helped Apple, it was nothing like saving. It was more about binding new long-term partnership.
While your loyalty is admirable. Your conclusion that a $400m cash purchase proves that Apple was not 90 days from insolvency shows that your knowledge of corporate finance is limited.
That said, you are correct when you say that the $150m MS investment was largely symbolic.
I did not say that $400 million cash purchase was the only indicator, so my knowledge of corporate finance is not limited. What limited is speculation about how many months Apple was before bankruptcy.
I remember in the late 90s seeing an article in a mainstream business magazine suggesting that Sun should buy Apple. Then shortly after that I saw an article saying that if Sun bought Apple, they would triple in size (?, revenue, sales, whatever.)
Having worked at both Apple and Sun (at the time rumors of Sun’s acquiring Apple were flying), it would never have happened.
The two companies’ cultures and customer bases were so incompatible that merging made no sense at all.
Got some pundits a lot of column inches, though.
MDN, you’re killing me with the video. That fact that I, or so many of us, have such an emotional response to a CEO resignation is proof that he is certainly so much more than just another businessman. He certainly has put a ding in the universe and my world. May he continue to do that for many more long years.
What other CEO can or could create such an emotional response, connection and appreciation? Maybe Walt Disney? Akio Morita?
Yeah i cant even watch that today….. it’s … too… dusty in here….
What a truly awesome clip, MDN. I’m only a baby in the world of Mac OS, having made the initial move from Windows in 2002. I made the full transition about 5 years ago and have never looked back.
I felt a real surge of emotion as I watched the clip. Apple has indeed been thinking differently and have led many of us to think differently as well.
May Mr. Jobs find health and a bright future.
That is, in my opinion, the most inspiring commercial of all time. That vision is the heart of Apple, and it as true today as it was decades ago. As long as Apple maintains that vision, SJ is still driving the company.
Keep changing the world, Apple! You are crazy enough to believe that you can, and sane enough to plan and implement an ambitious path forward.
when are Apple / Chiat going to recut than damned video to feature St Steven of Jobs?
After the knee jerk reaction of people who just care about their stocks, the rest of us know better. Steve is not dead or comatose. He’ll be around for awhile to help guide Apple and keep their vision clear in the coming years ahead.
with R&D prototypes to finished product cycle lasting often as long as 5 or more years, I wonder what is in the pipeline.
I bet that iOS Apple TV with Apps in the cloud and the low cost iPhone 4S cloud phone will destroy the PC & android marketshares.
I appreciate that there are extraordinary men and women and… extraordinary moments when history leaps forward on the backs of these individuals… that what can be imagined can be achieved… that you must dare to dream… but that there’s no substitute for perseverance and hard work and teamwork because no one gets there alone and that, while we commemorate the greatness of these events and the individuals who achieve them, we cannot forget the sacrifice of those who make these achievements and leaps possible. Apple LOST this integrity when Steve Jobs past. Apple is now iNcompetent without Steve Jobs. In time the company will be on the brink of bankruptcy because its got iNcompetent fools running the show