Apple will never be the same as it was under Steve Jobs. Period. In a world of A, B, and C players, Jobs was an A+++ player; you can probably count them on one hand.
The thing is, no one can bring him back to life. He's gone forever and it seems like a lot of folks have not yet reached the "acceptance" stage of grief. And if I can be cynical for a moment, writers and reporters can make a nice living off exploiting that, by writing articles and books like this one.
Apple can still be a great company. It does not need to change the world every 4 years to accomplish that goal.
Life is not black and white. There is a huge range between best company in the world (how some people saw Apple toward the end of Jobs' 2nd tenure), and failure.
In a world of A, B, and C players, Jobs was an A+++ player; you can probably count them on one hand.
How can we distinguish this statement from Jobs-worshiping woo? It feels like the truth, but we 21 century thinkers now know that that's not nearly enough to take something as actually being true.
Basically, this subscribes to the 19th century "Great Man" theory of history. I think there is something to Steve Job's insight, but he was also around in the right place at the right time.
There is a lot to be learned from hanging around a scene which is a little outside the mainstream experience, like music. If you get a little behind the scenes in a music scene, you'll find that there are a lot of people just as talented or even more talented than the stadium tour headliners, but didn't have the same strokes of good luck and/or weren't as good at marketing themselves.
The problem I have with applying "Great Man" theory to Steve Jobs, is that it tends to blind us to what he did right and what he didn't get right. Steve Jobs was very perceptive and had a demonstrated track record showing that he could analyze products in the marketplace from first principles.
Steve Jobs most certainly was a great man. However he wasn't a god, he didn't possess an unknowable magic, and the harm to Silicon Valley done by people who blindly imitate his surface qualities in the hope of somehow receiving the same "cargo" is, I suspect, disturbingly large.
> How can we distinguish this statement from Jobs-worshiping woo?
Results. He made Apple a huge success then come back and did it again. He took Pixar to wild successes whilst masterfully cutting deals with Disney. Even NeXT for all it's faults had some impressive technology back in the day.
He was indeed an A++ player not just for what he did but for what he represented. Himself and Bill Gates are the parents of the modern computing industry.
And I 100% that people who emulate him are just being idiots. His personality makes no sense without his unique history to back it up.
Results. He made Apple a huge success then come back and did it again.
Yes, but I could also posit that Jobs was the only visionary type who not only had a POV that let him see under the surface of mainstream thinking but also had the good fortune of founding Apple, which enabled him to found his later enterprises. (If nothing else, than through the reputation it gained him.)
The thing is, no one can bring him back to life. He's gone forever and it seems like a lot of folks have not yet reached the "acceptance" stage of grief. And if I can be cynical for a moment, writers and reporters can make a nice living off exploiting that, by writing articles and books like this one.
Apple can still be a great company. It does not need to change the world every 4 years to accomplish that goal.
Life is not black and white. There is a huge range between best company in the world (how some people saw Apple toward the end of Jobs' 2nd tenure), and failure.