“Steve Jobs had a theory about what makes some technology businesses succeed while others fail,” Adam Satariano and Peter Burrows report for Bloomberg. “‘Lots of companies have tons of great engineers and smart people,’ Jobs told Businessweek in 2004. ‘But ultimately, there needs to be some gravitational force that pulls it all together. Otherwise, you can get great pieces of technology all floating around the universe.'”
Satariano and Burrows report, “Tim Cook, Apple Inc.’s chief operating officer, will have to fill that role now that he’s taking the reins from Jobs. During his 13 years at Apple, the 50-year-old Cook has mastered an expanding list of operational roles, including manufacturing, distribution, sales and customer service. The thing he has not shown is whether he’s a product visionary.”
“While Cook was Jobs’s choice for successor, he hasn’t demonstrated whether he can rally the company’s about 50,000 employees as effectively as Jobs, who steered Apple into industries as varied as mobile phones, music downloads and retailing,” Satariano and Burrows report. “‘One of the costs of having a heroic leader is that problems get kicked upstairs,’ said David Bradford, professor emeritus at Stanford University, who has studied management changes. ‘When father knows best, that’s a great way to run a business.'”
Read more in the full article here.