Lex Luz

Time to Stand Up for Steve Jobs

Having a celebrity CEO is a blessing and a curse for a company. It's unlikely that Apple has been effective in planning succession for Jobs, more likely because of Jobs' own ego than much else. Not a problem as long as he's fit, healthy, and in the game, and at least for now, he probably is. Irrespective of the fundamentals underlying the stock price, if Steve Jobs got hit by a bus tomorrow (God forbid, by the way), the stock would be pummeled. Yes, he's a genius, yes, the company is grand and wonderful and innovative. Jobs' fatal flaw - and someday, this flaw will manifest in the stock price - is his apparently comprehensive inability to groom a successor and share the spotlight with that person sufficiently to ensure an orderly transition. The risks here are difficult to measure in any tangible way, but rest assured they are real and when a disorderly transition comes about, the risk will be realized first and most obviously in the form of billions of dollars sucked away from Apple's market cap.