Steve Jobs Named ‘CEO of the Decade’

Ed Sutherland ()

steve_jobs_rock&roll

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was named “CEO of the Decade” by Fortune Magazine. The magazine calls the 2000s “the decade of Steve.”

Despite surviving a very public death watch, being tossed out of his own company in the 1980s and what Fortune calls “his own often unpleasant demeanor,” Jobs “has transformed American business.”

Apple’s come-back under Jobs spans 2000, when the company was worth $5 billion through today’s $170 billion valuation, edging out even the mega-bucks of Internet giant Google. In August, Apple reported having $31.1 billion in cash, a record for a technology company. Over that period, the Cupertino, Calif. company has become involved in music, videos and cell phones.

Unlike previous corporate titans who reshaped emerging industries – Henry Ford and the automobile, PanAm’s Juan Trippe and global airline travel and Conrad Hilton with hotels, “Jobs turned topsy turvy already existing” industries, according to Fortune.

The magazine noted Apple has received around $400 million in free publicity, thanks to the company’s well-known penchant for secrecy and Jobs’ demand for near total control – down to approving ad copy and the words he and other company executives say to the public.

In the wake of Jobs’ return this summer, much speculation centered on who might succeed the iconic Apple executive. An Apple sans Steve will likely remain vibrant, due to what the magazine calls an effort to select people who are “trained to think like Steve.”

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[Via Fortune Magazine and AppleInsider]

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About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • CaryMG

    Does this need be said?

    He deserves it.

    Here’s TO ya, Steve.
    Keep the hits comin’ ….

  • Bill S. Preston

    “In August, Apple reported having $31.1 billion in cash, a record for a technology company.”

    This is incorrect. Microsoft had $40 billion in cash in 2002 and presumably it increased from there.

    http://money.cnn.com/2002/04/12/pf/agenda_msft/

    “The Microsoft juggernaut continues to generate another $1 billion a month, putting the total cash today well above $40 billion.

    This is a mind-bogglingly large pile of dough. No other nonfinancial firm has more liquid money at its disposal, and only a handful of banks do. It’s more cash than Ford, ExxonMobil and Wal-Mart have combined, and nearly four times as much as Intel, the tech company with the next largest cash balance. It is enough to buy the entire airline industry — twice. Or all the gold in Fort Knox, four times over. It is enough to buy 23 space shuttles or every major professional baseball, basketball, football and hockey team in America. It is an enviable stash. Who wouldn’t love to have a bank account like that?

    All that cash gives Microsoft a financial solidity and flexibility that most corporate managers would kill for. For investors in the post-Enron era, it also offers assurances that the company’s business is very much for real”

  • Delusion

    @Bill

    You really deserve this… /facepalm