“Apple will decline in the post Steve Jobs era,” George Colony blogs for Forrester.
“Sociologist Max Weber created a typology of organizations in his 1947 book The Theory of Social and Economic Organization,” Colony writes. “Charismatic organizations are headed by people with the ‘gift of grace’ (charisma from the Greek). ‘He is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities.’ Followers and disciples have absolute trust in the leader, fed by that leader’s access to nearly magical powers. ‘Charismatic authority repudiates the past, and is in this sense a specifically revolutionary force.'”
“Sound familiar?” Colony asks. “When Steve Jobs departed, he took three things with him: 1) singular charismatic leadership that bound the company together and elicited extraordinary performance from its people; 2) the ability to take big risks, and 3) an unparalleled ability to envision and design products. Apple’s momentum will carry it for 24-48 months. But without the arrival of a new charismatic leader it will move from being a great company to being a good company, with a commensurate step down in revenue growth and product innovation. Like Sony (post Morita), Polaroid (post Land), Apple circa 1985 (post Jobs), and Disney (in the 20 years post Walt Disney), Apple will coast, and then decelerate.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: iCal’ed. We’ll check back in 48 months to see if the decline has begun or not.
What’s happening now is still all SJ. In 48 months the decline will follow, enough time for the complacency and comfort to set in.
What an incredible philosopher!
Has this gay ever watched the world and its history? Then, he should know that, of course, everything comes and goes since ever! No enterprise, no country, no religion lasts forever. What goes up, must come down, period. All is just a matter of time.
All the articles like this have such a polarised opinion of things. Apple can either grow massively, or they’re doomed. Yeah, Apple may not be as strong without Steve Jobs, but that might just mean that their stellar growth will be slowed somewhat whilst still being stellar.
It’s the idea that without Steve Jobs Apple is just like any other company. It gives little to know credit to Tim Cook and everyone else there. They were highly talented before, more than people at other companies. They don’t become useless, and the other companies don’t become better just because Steve Jobs isn’t around.
The important thing is that the universal failure of other companies to compete doesn’t disappear as a result of changes at Apple.
I don’t give a shit. Jobs is dead, the stock has benefited, and I’m in it for the money and could not care less about Apple. Prosper, decline, go sideways … whatever. Just going to ride out the current pipeline and milk this dog for everything I can. Next better deal comes around, I abandon this leper in the snap of a finger.
A prophecy that will inevitably come true. But it may not be for 20 years.
Steve Jobs was a great man walking among us mere mortals. Yes, Apple will not be what it would have been were Steve alive. However, there are absolutely locking down several really big markets with television yet to come. They have one of the very best manufacturing executives there is at the helm.
I think it will take a lot longer than 48 months for things to settle down. Even then Apple will be growing for another ten years.
Look at Microsoft. They have not been able to create a decent product for at least ten years; if ever. They continue to be huge. They have pretty much quite growing. That does not mean Apple will quit growing. I would take Cook over Ballmer any day of the week. In fact Tim Cook is almost perfect to manage Apple in the immediately post Jobs era.
What Microsoft had was the industry standard. Everyone used it because they needed a standard version. They fell into that roll because of their early relationship with IBM.
Apple is becoming the standard in many areas. Unlike Microsoft they deserve to dominate those area because they have the best, user focused, environments, they have the best physical products and they can make them more inexpensively than the competition. I expect them to take over there markets even more securely and to hold onto them for a very long time.
What we have lost is a company that takes pride in creating new ways to do things which are extremely disruptive of entire industries. Steve Jobs did a high school prank where he used a sign to tell the entire school to F___ Off. He never stopped. Steve did not care about being safe, or rich. He cared about changing the world for the better. He was willing to risk it all to do so. Look at his Stanford Commencement Speech. In a nutshell, he says we are all going to be dead soon. While you are alive, go for it. Be passionate about what you do. Go to the core and figure out, if not why you are alive, what you live for, and do it every day. That is why Apple was different. I miss him very much.