Congratulations to Apple's Steve Jobs, Fortune's CEO of the Decade

Love him or hate him, you have to admit that Apple CEO Steve Jobs has had a helluva decade.

Consider that, under his helm, Apple (AAPL) defined the portable music player market with the iPod, has shaken up the mobile industry with the iPhone, rocked the retail music business with iTunes and re-invented the computing business with OS X in a way that the PC business - with less than 10 percent of market share - is no longer the bread-and-butter of the company.

Add to that the brilliant marketing behind Apple and the loyal, almost cult-like, following of Apple’s fans and it’s no wonder that Fortune Magazine Thursday named him the CEO of the Decade. The opening lines of a story written by Fortune Editor-At-Large Adam Lashinsky (which also includes a nice video segment) explain it nicely:

How’s this for a gripping corporate story line: Youthful founder gets booted from his company in the 1980s, returns in the 1990s, and in the following decade survives two brushes with death, one securities-law scandal, an also-ran product lineup, and his own often unpleasant demeanor to become the dominant personality in four distinct industries, a billionaire many times over, and CEO of the most valuable company in Silicon Valley. Sound too far-fetched to be true? Perhaps. Yet it happens to be the real-life story of Steve Jobs and his outsize impact on everything he touches.

Yes, I’m a Mac guy. We’ve been through that on this blog many times. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m a huge fan of everything that Jobs and Apple do - after all, I’m also one of those press guys who would like to be less surprised and more prepared when the company makes news. I would especially appreciate the company confirming or squashing a rumor every now and then, too, so I don’t have to spin my wheels trying to find out whether there’s any real substance to it.

Putting that aside, you cannot deny that the manner in which Apple conducts business has been highly effective at not only increasing sales and broadening the company’s portfolio but also setting trends, creating buzz and putting out top-notch (dare I say near perfect?) products again and again and again.

Having been to many of Apple’s news announcements, I know first-hand about the giddiness in those auditoriums - even from the press. And the fact that Apple almost always has the items in-store and online by the time Jobs takes the stage surely helps spark some spontaneous sales. There’s rarely a months-long wait for products the way there is for some competitors.

So, congratulations to Steve Jobs for a strong decade at the helm of Apple. Here’s to the next one.

Comments

[logicalthought:]

Steve Jobs is a brilliant guy and Apple makes fabulously creative products (and this is not a short-term call because I don't follow the company at all), but based on the "Sports Illustrated cover jinx principle", it's probably time to sell the stock. For those who've never heard of this, the rationale is simple: It's an extremely competitive world out there, and once you're universally recognized as being on top of it, there's nowhere to go but down.

Nov 06 10:22 AM

[iJah420:]

It's about time.

Jobs has a true legacy. It will last for many many years to come if not Forever as long as tthe earth still exists with humans on it's surface.

This award was deserved. Furthermore, to all the rest of the undeserving corporate company tech schmucks out there..... Steve Jobs EARNED this award!

Congratulations Steve Jobs!!!!

The best has yet to come!!!!!

Screw YOU Ballmer. Nothing but a Monkey Boy pushing third rate products that are WAY overpriced.... You PC nerds think Apple's stuff is expensive??? Maybe you should conduct a more extensive research on TCO and EOL on PC ownership.. It far exceeds the price tag of a new Mac.. Which BTW has been documented to run windows better than an equally equipped PC.

Keep laughing Naysayers Steve Jobs has caught his 4th wind.

Nov 06 11:30 AM

[JW.USC:]

Brilliant financial decision making there, logicalthought. I can see that you don't live up to your screen name in any way, shape or form.

And Steve Jobs was the obvious choice for this recognition by Fortune. Hands down.

Nov 06 11:30 AM

[swissfrank:]

A well-justified accolade. What stands out over the last 25 years is Apple's success in devising - again and again - an intuitive interface between a technology and a human user. I imagine that Apple's engineers are at least as good as those of any other tech firm (and Steve Wozniak was clearly in a class apart) but engineering brilliance alone doesn't get you to Apple. That final step - replicated by so very few - involves a team leader with a strong aesthetic/functional vision for the product with enough tech knowledge to motivate and drive the engineers beyond their comfort zone towards a higher goal.

Such single-mindedness may not make for a pretty personality but it has indeed produced incredible results. A rare bird, indeed.

Nov 06 01:32 PM

[mollytjm:]

great article! Jobs really did earn it... but he did something else that those of us who hold the stock will be grateful for later... he built a company so good, brought in so many brilliant minds, made the company so financially secure, that eventually it will do just fine without him... a Disney without Walt, a Chanel without Coco. Thanks, Steve! we owe you!

Nov 07 10:27 AM

[GSlusher:]

Several people have explained the "Sports Illustrated cover jinx." For one thing, people tend to remember the few athletes who started downhill after they were on the cover more than the majority who don't.

Stephen Jay Gould, among others, pointed out that, in the universe, there's something called "regression to the mean." In the long run, short term fluctuations tend to average out. The athletes on the SI cover have usually been having an unusually good record recently, far above their average performance. Thus, it's likely that their performance will decline sometime in the (near) future. (It's not just that there's nowhere to go but down.)

There's also no definition of the timing of the SI cover jinx--how long it takes to come to fruition. It's been said to be a week, a month, 6 months, even an entire season. If you wait long enough, any team or athlete (or any stock!) will have a downturn.


On Nov 06 10:22 AM logicalthought wrote:

> Steve Jobs is a brilliant guy and Apple makes fabulously creative
> products (and this is not a short-term call because I don't follow
> the company at all), but based on the "Sports Illustrated cover jinx
> principle", it's probably time to sell the stock. For those who've
> never heard of this, the rationale is simple: It's an extremely competitive
> world out there, and once you're universally recognized as being
> on top of it, there's nowhere to go but down.

Nov 09 12:09 AM