“How does a company recover from the loss of an iconic leader like Steve Jobs at Apple Inc.?” Bill Rigby writes for Reuters. “Sometimes, it doesn’t.”
MacDailyNews Take: None of the examples Rigby is about to use were leaders like Steve Jobs. Neither were any of the companies like Apple Inc.
“Sony Corp. has never regained the dominance in consumer electronics it built under co-founder Akio Morita,” Rigby writes. “Microsoft Corp’s stock price hasn’t budged in the decade since Bill Gates stepped down as CEO.”
MacDailyNews Take: If you think Apple will go the way of Sony we have a bridge in Brooklyn you’ll just love. Apple become like Microsoft? What’s Cupertino going to do, poorly copy themselves to death?
Rigby writes, “The jury is still out on Jeff Immelt’s stewardship of General Electric after taking over from legendary boss Jack Welch.”
MacDailyNews Take: None of the companies cited by Rigby are run like startups, as is Apple. None of the examples in Rigby’s piece are good examples of possible directions Apple Inc. will take in the future. Apple’s best days are lie ahead.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Webmasters Apprentice” for the heads up.]
WS is totally pissed they didn’t get the volatility they were banking on.
MDN. I think the point being made here is that these companies were run incredibly well under one CEO, but fell apart after new leadership took over.
It matters not how the company is structured or what slogan the newcomer coopted to placate the general public. These are examples of companies who *were* on top until a changing of the guard; companies whose direction changed with a new person at the helm.
Declaring Apple will be fine is just as silly as proclaiming its imminent demise. Time will tell. MDN takes won’t.
In this case, the way Apple will be run for the next two years will not be very different from how it was run for the last two years. Tim Cook has been the day-to-day (acting) CEO, with Steve Jobs providing strategic and conceptual guidance. And now… Tim Cook is the CEO, with Steve Jobs providing strategic and conceptual guidance (as Chairman).
And this is another case of a “journalist” acting like Steve Jobs is “lost” when he is still right there.
Absolutely correct. We’ve seen the best days. Those that will follow after the next couple of updates to Apple’s iconic devices will look a lot like the days of every other tech company.
As to MDN’s take – given this site’s worshipful history of Steve Jobs, together with nearly all the followers here, I’m surprised they have suddenly taken the position that Apple Inc. is something more than Steve Jobs.
Who has been running Apple for the past 8 moths? Only time will tell, but I think that, just like anything that has been created correctly with a solid foundation will inevitably be here for a very long time. As a matter of fact, I think Jobs presence had become more of a liability for Apple then not. That is why he decided to do what he did. It’s all part of the plan. The plan that you only see when Apple decides you can see.
Does Cook play hockey?
Steve didn’t put a sales guy in charge, Apple will be fine.
Amen to that. Steve Ballmer is a joke as a visionary tech “leader.”. Disney suffered greatly after Walt died but in those days I don’t think they thought about what qualities made the original CEO or leader work so effectively. I don’t think it’s as true today, certainly not at Apple. Tim, Phil, Scott, Jonathan, et al, at Apple are all too aware of their mission and their fearless leaders Steve’s great qualities that made the Apple mix work so well. If anything I think the possibility exists that they will go to far greater heights using the great lessons SJ provided. Think ahead where the puck will be and delight/give the customer something he/she didn’t realize they wanted. And ecosystem, ecosystem, ecosystem.
And SJ of course is not done yet. I can’t wait to see the Cupertino joy yet still ahead.
Actually, Steve Jobs himself is the world’s BEST “sales guy.” 🙂
Structural set up of a company does matter and Apple is set up with all the brilliant pieces in place.
Yea, and sorry to say, but none of those guys were really leaders. Jack Welch, is probably the worst senior manager I can think of. He is lauded because he caught the wind of GE finance and all of the money made selling loans, derivatives, etc. Once that bubble burst, you can see where GE is, and it’s not pretty. He ran the company by the numbers, drumming out 10% of the workforce every year by forcing managers to rank people in the bottom tier. I’m guessing, but I’ll bet at Apple there’s no such numbers game. If you hire world class talent, have solid mangers and a challenging work environment, you will not have to forcibly chase out 10% of your workforce every year.
I work in a company where senior managers parade around and proclaim themselves leaders. The only thing they worry about is incentive pay and this years earnings. They follow a CEO who only listens to those people he considers worthy, and to be worthy you have to suck up 24X7 or your not a “team player”. You lose all credibility in this company if you make the right decisions for the long term and champion short term pain to get there.
At Apple, Jobs truly does love the company. I’m quite sure he has set it up to continue to do amazing things long after he leaves, because that is what Apple does.
GE under Imelt has also moved away from a company creating products customers will want to buy to a “crony capitalist” par excellence, ever more dependent on government subsidies (GE Wind), government bailouts (GE Capital) and government regulation (trading in carbon credits).
YUP, and good ol Jack Welch put them on that track. They hired a bunch of MBA quick buck artists.
Great read is “Car guys vs bean counters”. Talks about the MBA’s driving the passion out of the business. I don’t think Microsoft or GE every had passionate people.
Good to see journalistic stupidity is alive and well. Just don’t know how we would survive without Rigby’s phenomenal insights.
(I must be grumpy today)
Not one of them heard “we love you” from their customer base either did they?
Everyone forgets that this is the second time Steve has been CEO of Apple. Everyone at Apple is aware of the past and will do their damnedest to see it doesn’t repeat it’s self.
He left a lot of people out and really seemed to pick companies that have fallen since certain CEOs left the helms (with the exception of Walmart)
How about pointing out companies that not only survived after their ‘iconic’ founder/CEO left but grew bigger after they left?
Disney – Sure creatively they went into decline, but Roy Disney was a solid businessman who completed Disney World and cemented the company’s future in the public mind.
Ford – Henry Ford turned over Ford to his son Edsel in 1918 but retained final decision making up until his death in 1947. Surely Ford’s best days were not ‘behind them’ at that point, in fact they are going through another resurgence in the market.
Boeing – I’ve actually met people who do not even know there was a man named “William Boeing” and yet anyone who is a fan of the company and read about the famous ‘Red Barn’ knows the man was a genius of business and had an amazing gift for finding the best engineering talent. Boeing as a company had its best products and largest profits long after William Boeing had left the company he founded.
There are plenty of other examples out there if you look.
What will keep Apple successful and growing is not Steve Jobs, he simply laid the foundation for success. What will keep Apple growing and changing the world is the passion of the people designing and building the products at Apple.
I’m sorry but human ingenuity is not limited to one man at any company.
The world will keep turning and Apple will likely keep changing the game.
Well said. The foundation is laid and the wisdom is disciplined in to the entire group at Apple. Always doubters with new leadership.
+1
Rigby writes. “Microsoft Corp’s stock price hasn’t budged in the decade since Bill Gates stepped down as CEO.” Uh, Microsoft’s share price was halved from its high by the time Ballmer took the reins.
As to the “iconic CEOs are tough acts to follow” theme, this is nothing new. Joshua, who succeeded Moses, was no Moses. We get it.
Begone, troll….your PC is lonely.
History shows that analysts are invariably wrong when they try to predict how Apple will perform.
Just how many times does an analyst need to be shown that Apple doesn’t work in the same way another companies ?