Every time I say this, some people start getting all shirty and saying: “Yes it is! Steve matters!”
After my Don’t Panic post yesterday, there were similar comments, like this one: “Yeah, actually Steve Jobs health is our business. He made Apple, he revived Apple and he brought Apple to it’s current massive success. Steve Jobs IS Apple. Without him the company has a far smaller chance of survival.”
I completely disagree with this line of thinking, and here’s why:
If Apple is nothing without Steve, we might as well all pack up and go home right now. Not because Steve may or may not be seriously ill, but because Steve is not immortal. One day he’ll die, just like all the rest of us.
Some folk seem to think he hasn’t thought of that.
Steve – or ANYONE in a similar position – would know that the ongoing survival of the company depends on having a strategy in place for the charismatic CEO’s exit, *no matter what the manner of that exit is*.
So if Steve’s ill, be assured that he does not need reminding of the fact by the press, that he has been planning his exit from Apple for some time, and that Apple itself – Apple the company comprising many thousands of talented individuals – most certainly WILL have a future afterwards.
You and I both know that if and when Steve does leave, the shares will fall and the newspapers will predict the End of the World for Apple.
But. As long as Apple keeps putting out high quality computer hardware and software, created in secret by extremely clever people, there will be people like us waiting to buy it all.
I just don’t accept that an organization like Apple would allow itself to become so dependent on one individual. Can you imagine Steve allowing that, if the individual everyone was talking about was someone else? Of course not. He’d fire that person, just to make the point.
Steve knows, and everyone knows, that Steve cannot be in charge forever, in the same way that no single person can be in charge forever. It’s obvious that Steve and the rest of the senior management team will have been working on strategies to deal with this for some time.
Now I realize that simply by posting this I am breaking my own rule: “Don’t write about Steve’s health”. Just by writing these words, I’m becoming the very thing that I can’t abide.
That said, I dislike the argument “No Steve == No More Apple” so much that I’m prepared to break my own rules a little. I’m not saying things won’t be different, of course they will. No Steve means a Different Apple, that’s all.
Now I’m going to shut up about Steve Jobs’ health, as I hope everyone else will.
40 responses to “Opinion: Why Steve Jobs’ Health Is None Of Our Business”
Wait a minute here. I don’t know what people are getting all “shirty” on you (I don’t even know what that means), but I went back and read that article, you implicit statement that there were similar statements to what you quoted above isn’t accurate. If you are going to complain about exaggeration, don’t do it yourself. In fact I only say ONE comment that said that, unless you are referring also to my comment:
“Steve’s health is our business if he can no longer perform properly as CEO, and giving the keynotes was one of his greatest contributions. I agree that if he has health issues that do not impact his ability, then it is none of our business.”
Which is a far cry from what you said above. My statement would be equally true for ANY CEO, this is called accountability for a public company. I said nothing about there being no Apple without Jobs.
So what you have done is taken one comment, implied there were several, and made a whole story about all the while beating your chest about how you are above speculating about Steve’s health. Slow news day or something?
ONE person made such a comment. Unless you care to tell me how my statement is any where remotely similar.
Apple’s whole way of handling this was bad. They set themselves up for very ill will among their user base who have increasingly felt like the company couldn’t care less about them. The same customers who they supposedly can reach through all those retail stores. Yes maybe if they want to be just another product, I think Apple has gotten full of itself and is presuming that its success its solely because its products are so “insanely great.” It isn’t. It is the Mac culture and community that is a huge part that is an intangible asset, and this announcement basically told the fans to go screw themselves IMHO.
Good post. Funny how nobody is panicking that Jonny Ive might get hit by a bus, or die in a plane crash; he’s as much to thank for the iPod, iMac etc as Jobs is.
First.
Hear, Hear!
Totally agree. I hate it when we have to cover Steve Jobs’ health news. Think of what Jobs must be feeling like when all people can talk about is him dying. Good post. Tweeted.
Thank you, voice of reason. It is truly nobody’s business except Jobs’. Of course, I wish him the best, no matter what his health is or isn’t doing. Rumormongers: please take a number and stand in line; a Genius will be with you momentarily.
Giles, you old enough to remember when the man who bottled Pepsi-Cola came to run Apple? How did the company fare in his tenure? Was it just another west coast tech outfit, or did it continue to impress? For those of us that were investors in Apple because we believed in what our company’s leadership was telling us, there is now a sense of betrayal. Apple’s disregard for their shareholders interest is manifest in the continued careless and poorly timed releases of information. It borders on outright arrogance and defiance – some corporate culture! Investors are obviously not considered to be partners.
Word. More people need to show some respect and move onto more pertinent matters to their lives than being gossip hounds. It’s the nice, right thing to do. =)
I agree with you completely. Apple has is the greatest in planning ahead and foreseeing the future. I don’t think we will have any problem when he is no longer active at apple. We will miss him but the company will remain strong. Not only this but it is not steve jobs who makes apple computers great, it is the people and the people can keep it going. They have gained so much momentum and they can’t lose it now.
‘No Steve’ simply equals a different Apple, that’s true. But the thousands of talented individuals are at Apple largely because of Steve in many cases: he’s a unique leader with precisely the right amounts of charisma, charm, shrewdness, psychology, knowledge, persistence and the ability to guess what will be popular and in what way… replacing him will be EXTREMELY hard. His health is of extreme interest to me, for those reasons. A different Apple will come after Steve Jobs, and it will benefit from learning from Steve all these years, but it will never be what it is today. These, friends, are the glory years of Apple. Enjoy it while it’s around!
Apple without Steve Jobs?
We have seen that; and only one man could save Apple: Steve Jobs.
“But. As long as Apple keeps putting out high quality computer hardware and software, created in secret by extremely clever people, there will be people like us waiting to buy it all.”
This is not a valid argument at all. Just apply it to all other companies (Microsoft is an excellent candidate).
But we have only one Apple.
Cleverness and quality is not enough, vision, taste and leadership is essential to get the results Apple has.
So, Steve Jobs is extremely important for Apple. And couldn’t be missed at all.
I hope I can enjoy buying Apple products for the next 10 or 15 years, as I have done the last four years (after NeXT became Apple).
J.
No such luck.
Just as Steve is mortal, so is Apple. If Steve’s health prevents a smooth transition of the company, Apple may go the way of GM or IBM. Those companies are still around but only as pale shadows of their former empires. Therefore, Steve’s health is every Apple stockholder’s business.
I’m an avid Apple user, but not a stockholder. While I wish Steve well, Apple is not much of a concern to me. Some other tech genius will build something new and better after Apple’s star fades.
KFC tastes just as good without the Colonel. Wendy’s still makes burgers like Dave.
Apple will carry on without Steve. And his health is none of our business.
Apple is UNIX. Apple is also design. Not Steve Jobs. Apple will continue to be successful as operating systems get more complex and Windows keeps unravelling. And adoption will continue to increase so long as design is made one of several priorities.
America doesn’t need its Founding Fathers to continue being America.
In response to those commenting on the hiring of John Sculley, I’d just like to note the word “hiring” in this sentence. I’m sure that the succession plan at Apple does not involve the hiring of a new CEO. They learned from that mistake. They need a leader who has been brought up in the culture of the company. That is what will allow their vision and success to continue. Bringing in someone from the outside would likely halt the momentum that the company has been building over the last decade. I’d like to see Jobs take the route that Bill Gates recently took with Microsoft: appoint a new CEO, remain on as Chairman of the Board and a senior advisor of some sort, and eventually step out of day-to-day operations. We can already see that he’s cutting back on his public presence which will likely make that transition even easier. Even during the media events and keynotes that he’s given recently, he has been, basically, a glorified MC.
What Steve Jobs did for Apple when he returned in ’97 was to build a new vision and roadmap for the company (iMac & Mac OS X -> iPod & iTunes -> iTunes Store -> iPhone & App Store). Now, after 11 years, that roadmap is nearing its end, but the car is just beginning to accelerate. He has built the company back up to the greatness that it once had, though admittedly not the same market share, and given it the assets it needs to remain relevant, prosperous, and flexible for decades to come. Even if he left today (for whatever reason, like, he decided to move to the Australian desert, for example), Apple would still remain as successful as it has been and will continue to grow despite analysts’ worries. (I mean, there’s a reason a-n-a-l are the first for letters of the word…)
And, don’t even try to tell me he didn’t have this all planned out back then. This is a guy who is meticulous in his planning and hates even thinking about talking about something until he knows it’s ready.
Thanks for hosting, and for including our post.
Everyone comes and goes, but he is a hero to many. So this kind of thing is absolutely inevitable.
I dont think its any of my business either. I mean, if hes sick, leave him alone and let him deal with it.
Yeah for real. Seriously, it’s none of OUR business. It’s his health, and if it’s bad, don’t make it worse.
Everyone comes and goes, but he is a hero to many. So this kind of thing is absolutely inevitable.
Agreed!