delreyjones

Apple Will Flourish With or Without Steve Jobs

Great article! I think your point about being next-to-impossible to break into the field of operating systems is well-made. During their years without Jobs, Apple was just lucky enough to (barely) sustain its ecosystem. And even though he was gone for ten years, this Apple ecosystem was created by Jobs and sustained during his absence. But at the start of that period, even Jobs himself didn't understand how difficult it is to break into the operating system field. During the start of his absence, he "knew" that because of NeXT's technical superiority, it would thrive in the market. By the end of his absence ("wandering the desert"), he had learned, the hard way, the truth about breaking into the field of operating systems.

It was a fantastic coincidence that NeXT was dying from lack of market acceptance at precisely the same time Apple was dying from lack of innovation.

That said, it's not quite accurate to say that the "rest is history". It's more accurate to describe the most recent decade, i.e. Jobs' second term, as prologue to the future. During his first term, Jobs was in no way preparing to exit; he was a brash, twenty-something self-made billionaire. And even though he may have embodied Apple just as much then as he did now, his elite genius was not as well recognized. There was a common belief then that Apple needed adult supervision, and perhaps even Jobs believed that to some extent.

Today, everything is different because of three, well-understood facts:
- everyone recognizes Jobs' unique genius (the stock will take a hard, but temporary hit when he leaves)
- the company is structured exactly as Jobs wants it to be
- everyone recognizes Jobs' mortality

So it's obvious that Jobs' next departure from Apple will be nothing like his first. He has well learned the lessons of history and this case, nothing is being repeated.