There has been much discussion about Steve Jobs' health after
Apple's iconic cofounder and CEO appeared on stage at the Worldwide
Developers Conference (WWDC) in early June looking gaunt and seriously
underweight - even "sickly", according to some - and speculation that
he might be ailing.
And about what effect his departure would have on from Apple future
and stock valuation.
This is not exactly a new line of conjecture. In 2004, Jobs
announced to Apple employees that he had been diagnosed with a
malignant tumor in his pancreas, but that it was a rare, far less
aggressive form of pancreatic cancer known as islet cell neuroendocrine
tumor, which was subsequently removed successfully in July 2004. He
returned to work later that year.
However, at the 2006 WWDC keynote, Jobs' "thin, almost gaunt"
appearance and "listless" delivery (to cite commentary at the time),
together with his delegation of portions of the keynote to other
spokespersons, sparked a spike of media and blogosphere speculation
about his health, which blew over fairly quickly, but it has been
reignited by his appearance at that event this year.
Apple tersely explained Jobs had been battling a "common bug" and
was taking antibiotics, but that didn't quell the rumors and conjecture
about Apple's possible future without Steve Jobs.
During the company's July 21, 2008: earnings announcement conference
call, Apple again insisted that Jobs' health is a "private matter", a
stance I'm inclined to agree with, but that didn't satisfy many
commentators. On July 26, New York Times columnist Joseph Nocera
reported a somewhat testy "off the record" phone conversation in which
Jobs informed him that while his recent health issues "amounted to a
good deal more than 'a common bug,' they weren't life-threatening and
he doesn't have a recurrence of cancer."
Walt Disney and the Disney Company
Last year, the financial journal Barron's suggested that
Apple's market cap would instantly drop by a dizzying $20 billion in
value should he suddenly be forced to resign his company chairmanship,
which is the main concern driving widespread anxiety about Jobs'
health. That's arguably a legitimate concern, as others have suggested
that a Jobs departure from Apple would be analogous to what happened to
the Disney Company after Walt Disney died - only several magnitudes
greater, and more than a decade after Jobs returned to Apple after a
long exile, having been fired from the
company he founded by John Sculley in 1985.
There is still no obvious heir-apparent. Perhaps Jobs is quietly
grooming someone to replace him as Apple CEO, but it's difficult to
fathom who that might be, although The Economist recently
published a speculative
piece on the Jobs succession at Apple, noting:
Jobs is arguably unique in the extent to which his
identity and fate are intertwined with those of his company. Imagining
Apple without Steve Jobs, or Jobs without Apple, is difficult - as his
exile from the company between 1985 and 1997 made plain....
So who might succeed him? Tim Bajarin, an analyst who
has followed Apple for decades, thinks that Jobs has bred such a strong
culture within Apple that there is "nobody on the outside who could
even come close" to taking the reins successfully.
He also believes that Jobs has recently groomed "the
strongest team he's ever had," making it even more likely that the next
boss will come from this group....
Hopefully gloomy forebodings will prove groundless, but should they
not, heaven forbid, (and, of course, even if he lives to a ripe, old,
age, the day will come for what I hope will be a long and happy
retirement), what are the prospects that Apple will continue to crank
out insanely great stuff for decades to come after he leaves?
The Walt Disney analogy is an apt one. Disney was never the same
after Walt died. Like Jobs, he was the visionary and anchor of the firm
he created, and the money-grubbing bean-counters who followed in his
wake simply didn't possess the imagination and creativity to carry on
his legacy faithfully and authentically. The "vision thing" can't be
whomped up at will. You've either got it or you don't.
William Lyons and Jaguar Cars Ltd.
Another
analogy is England's Jaguar. Apple was founded by two Steves, and
Jaguar was founded by two Williams (William Lyons and William Walmsley)
as the Swallow Sidecar Company back in the 1922. As with Steve Wozniak
at Apple, Walmsley left early on, and Lyons become managing director in
1933. While there were many other contributors to the rise of Jaguar,
such as engine designer Harry Weslake and chief engineer William
Heynes, Lyons was the visionary and had a personal hand in conceiving,
designing, and styling all of the classic Jaguar models right up to the
legendary XJ6.
However, when Lyons stepped down as Jaguar managing director in 1966
(he remained chairman and CEO until 1972), the rot quickly began to set
in. The company was swallowed up in a series of mergers that created
the British
Leyland Motor Corporation conglomerate, and basically continued to
exploit the gradually diminishing momentum of the Lyons vision. New
models were introduced, but they lacked the grace and elegance of the
Lyons designs.
Jag hived off the foundering Leyland group in 1984 and continued
struggling along until it was bought by Ford in 1989, ensuring its
survival for a time at least. It never made a profit for Ford in 18
years, and it was sold again last spring (along with Land Rover) to
India's Tata Motors Ltd. in a
$2.3-billion deal - considerably less than half what Ford had paid for
the two companies in 1989 and 2000 respectively. This is a mere
spit-in-the-ocean compared to the $50 billion some observers suggest
the Jaguar/Land Rover adventure cost Ford.
Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata, who eight years ago acquired another
British corporate icon - Tetley Tea, which is
reportedly prospering under his ownership - has commented, "Our plan is
to retain the image, the touch, and the feel of Jaguar and Land Rover.
We will not tinker with the brands in any way. They are special global
brands, and whoever acquires them has a responsibility to nurture them
and enable them to prosper." Hopefully, Mr. Tata will succeed where
Ford failed.
Jaguar
has as yet never transcended the Lyons legacy, with its most successful
and signature styling themes derivative of the XJ6 and the 1950s
vintage S-Type, and
the grace of Lyons' E-Type sports car has
never been matched. Sadly, the latest Jaguar XF apes the Lexus GS in
profile - still handsome, but neither original nor stunning the way
virtually all the Lyons Jags were.
Can Ratan Tata restore the vision? We'll see.
Steve Jobs and Apple
Jobs/Disney and Apple/Jaguar are rough analogies at best, since
Apple's history contains a long precedent interregnum of 12 years
without Jobs, which was longer than his present tenure, and the company
still managed to produce some pretty cool products during that
period.
Still, the second Jobs era has certainly been Apple's creative
heyday, and even in exile, Jobs (at least in hindsight) was laying the
groundwork for Apple's renaissance in the form of NeXT Computer, whose
NeXTstep operating system became both the basis for Mac OS X and
the vehicle that brought Jobs back to Apple.
I've disagreed with a lot of Jobs' decisions at the time they've
been announced, but more often than not he's been proven right - for
instance, in pulling the plug on Mac
OS clone licensing back in 1997, although I still think he was
astute in canceling the G4
Cube in 2001. On the other hand, there probably never would have
been a Cube without Jobs' vision, so there you go.
For now, Mac OS X and the continued elegance and superb user
experience of Apple products will keep me and a lot of others in the
fold - and Apple's balance sheets healthy.
And who knows? Steve Jobs is a bit younger than I am. Perhaps he'll
outlast me.
