Steve Jobs had an interesting and highly successful career, no doubt. He single-handedly created one of the richest companies in the world, and he has the reputation of being a creative genius the likes of which we have never seen before.
But how much of that almost universal adoration was based on science, design, and obsession with excellence, and how much as pure marketing?
One only has to look at the stock of Apple when Jobs ran it the first time, after he left, and when he took the reins back. The presence or absence of Jobs is tightly linked to the stock performance of Apple. In world of corporate anonymity, Jobs stood out. Much like Richard Branson, Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump, you can't imagine the company without its eponymous leader. The danger, of course, is that the company is so closely linked to one person, when that person leaves (for whatever reason), the company loses the wind from its sails.
So which was Jobs, brilliant engineer, obsessed techie, design maven, or just a skillful pitchman?
Probably a little of each, but I'd submit it was mainly the fact that with every success, the 'coolness' factor of Jobs went up a notch. And how the geeky fans loved that! Here's a group of people who would hardly notice if cool knocked them on the ground, suddenly not only cool, but 'early cool'. Working for Apple, or being a very early adopter (hence the long lines at one or the other of a product launch) gave instant cache to aforementioned geek. So, Jobs sat on top of the coolest pitchmen around. One only has to watch videos of his product launches to understand how adored he was.
Admittedly, a mop of hair (when Jobs was young) and a lack of a college degree doesn't automatically make one a successful icon of the geek community. You do at some point have to actually make a product, or come up with something tangible in order to gain a following, even a cult following that Apple was for many years.
So, can Apple survive without its star pitchman? Yes, of course it can. I'll bet you don't know who the CEO of Acer computers is, or who runs ExxonMobile. They survive without all of the glitz and glamor that Jobs attracted. In fact, the anonymous management is the norm, not the exception.
There is a philosophy at Apple shared by every great corporation; hire the best, most talented people around, keep them happy and productive, and get them to feel ownership of the company. If they work for someone else, hire them away. If they're in college, recruit them. If their designs wow their customers, that's obviously good. Make sure they are driven to be the best. Pick those who place work before family and life's other pleasures. Harsh, perhaps, but the world doesn't change by a guy who works 9-5, and goes home to spaghetti and meatballs. The world is changed by those who work themselves hard, driven to succeed; no, really, driven to win at almost any cost. You may die at 56, but you have made a difference.
So ultimately, it's the product that succeeds or fails. If Apple continues to pump out incrementally better products each cycle, they'll do fine. If they keep the best in design and engineering, it will serve them well. If they have a big flop, that's OK (see the Lisa computer). Just don't repeat too often.
The long-term mega-success of the company depends on one thing, in my opinion, and something I think is in jeopardy with the loss of Jobs; the ability to see around the next curve in the road. The game-changing ideas, the invention of whole new product categories. Improving products is one thing, make up something that most people didn't even think was possible, in quite another.
Apple will be around a long, long time. I've been critical for years concerning Apple's almost cultivation as a niche company. But they've made it pay off. I felt that Apple would have whipped Microsoft at the OS game with the Mac OS, and they would have. But Jobs always wanted to be in the manufacturing business, and it paid off handsomely for them. If they were a software-only company, there'd be no iPhone, iPad, iPod, to mention a few.
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