Who Would You Add to Apple’s Board?
9:03 pm, August 4th, 2009, Pete Mortensen
Google CEO Eric Schmidt
Apple’s board of directors is a bit light these days. In addition to recently resigned/forced out/exiled Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who is the eye of a hurricane about the notorious Google Voice/App Store rejection/AT&T imbroglio, the company has an internal seat it has kept vacant since the resignation/dismissal/ejection of former Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson in the wake of the backdating/did Steve or didn’t he/stock options fiasco.
In other words, Apple could add as many as two board members to its strange leadership team, which currently stands as Jobs, Al Gore, Genentech Chairman Arthur Levinson, Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell and the CEOs of both Avon and J. Crew. The ghost of Andy Warhol, despite rumors, does not actually sit on the board.
So who should join this squad? Fake Steve’s had his say, and it’s high time we had ours as well. As BusinessWeek’s Arik Hesseldahl points out, temporary CEO/COO-extraordinaire Tim Cook seems like an obvious addition, especially given his position on Nike’s board, and his value to the company is at this point proven and prominent. He seems like a gimme, particularly if Apple wants him to become the real CEO at some point.
From an external perspective, however, things get much more interesting. At this point, Apple’s board is very light on tech folks. Besides Steve, only Campbell is directly involved in computers, and he’s only on the consumer and small and medium business markets constituted by Quicken and QuickBooks. That said, Apple is running out of friends in technology — virtually everyone is in competition with them in some form or another, which is partially what led to the awkward situation with Schmidt.
Tenuous as their relationship has been in the past (particularly over use of the term iPhone), I would love to see John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, on the board. He’s an incredibly bright guy, a brilliant manager, and he really gets tech and telecommunications without being an Apple competitor in any meaningful sense. Additionally, he has a reputation for remarkable ethics, both personally and across his organization — Cisco was one of the only organizations in Silicon Valley that didn’t have stock backdating issues a few years back. He also gets business customers in a big way.
Chambers is my pick. What say you?
Posted by Pete Mortensen in Apple | Comment on this article
Not that he doesn’t have enough on his plate, but it’d be interesting to see John Lasseter of PIXAR on the board. Jobs owned PIXAR previously, before spinning it off, and Jobs serves on Disney’s board, so it’d be a sort of “Circle of Life” thing. Plus, Lasseter is a novel blend of creative and technical…though that probably means he’d lock horns with Jobs from time to time.
Still, a fun idea, but considering Lasseter’s knee deep in Disney Feature Animation *and* Disney Imagineering, highly unlikely that this would ever happen.
Chris W., on August 4th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Me, I hope…
Max, on August 4th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Shai Agassi gets my vote
Mike Foster, on August 4th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Jonathan Ive
Ian W, on August 5th, 2009 at 12:29 am
This guy
http://www.paulgraham.com/
king, on August 5th, 2009 at 1:06 am
I’d add Cory Doctorow. He used to be a Mac fan, but their drift from open source, open standards and open architectures sent him to Ubuntu. Maybe it’s time to start the pendulum swinging back the other way.
Dave Clements, on August 5th, 2009 at 1:07 am
Just to screw with Google some more, I think they should pick Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo.
Mark Kawakami, on August 5th, 2009 at 3:31 am
Ive no idea
duncan, on August 5th, 2009 at 3:58 am
I would be honored, but I would have to decline, since I have too much on my plate as it is and I have no business experience of that type. Otherwise, it’s none of my business. I’m not qualified to participate in the selection process.
Harvey, on August 5th, 2009 at 4:33 am
Why Sarah Palin, of course!
Common Sense, on August 5th, 2009 at 8:13 am
I heard rumors that bill gates was desperate for a spot……
but i would pick Jony Ive
Jordan Brown, on August 5th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
I forget. Is Sarah Palin a cartoon character or a person?
Harvey, on August 6th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Cory Doctorow is a dick.
Darcy McGee, on August 6th, 2009 at 8:02 am
I’m planning on getting an 8GB Iphone next week, I know i’m going to add a bunch of apps to it but i’m wondering how much memory they will take up. anyone know?
________________
unlock iphone 3g
Moileft, on October 27th, 2009 at 12:47 am
I went on to my at&t account about a few weeks ago and it said that i could get and 8gb iphone 3g but i went back on today and it only showed the 16gb iphone 3gs and iphone 3gs. Why is that?
________________
unlock iphone 3gs 3.0
Moileft, on November 6th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
I recently purchased two songs via the iTunes Store for iPhone using my regular account; however, I cannot sync the phone to download the songs. How can I retrieve my purchases ?
________________
unlock iphone 3g
Moileft, on November 8th, 2009 at 11:31 pm