back

by nzealand·13y ago·view on hn ↗
Can Apple survive without Jobs? Who is shaking up the can until the product is polished?

Large organizations often take very smart people and very good ideas and then produce crap. The most successful organizations usually have one very strong leader with visionary ideas yet an incredible attention to product detail. Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Salesforce, Facebook... take away that one leader and they struggle. Because large organizations thrive on teamwork and not taking any big risks (if you are right, everyone basks in your glory, if you are wrong, your ass is on the line.)

Apples latest maps application was far from polished. Then their CEO fired the one guy who seemed willing to shake things up. I am looking forward to their next big thing, to see how polished it is.

3 comments
May I ask how you know that Tim Cook, Jony Ive, or any other Apple exec isn't "shaking up the can"?

As a matter of fact their CEO fired the one guy who wasn't willing to shake things up. In fact, I think he was fired for that very reason.

Yes Apple can survive without Jobs because he cared about that too:

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/06/business/la-fi-apple...

Here you can see how the people he left in Apple look and talk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7HVt3xgTn4

Check out "From Good To Great" by Jim Collins. You'll find that the "most successful" organizations actually have a leader whose principal strength is their ability to find and empower the right people. These organizations have sustained, long-term growth that outlasts that one visionary.

Contrast with organizations like Chrysler, which under Lee Iacocca, became fantastically successful... Until he turned his gaze elsewhere and the organization of yes-men he built crumbled to the ground, unable to accomplish anything of their own volition.

Jobs appears to be an Iacocca-style leader. A great visionary with incredible personal willpower, who guided a company from obscurity to domination. And yet now that he's gone, you have to ask, who is left that has sufficient personal willpower and initiative to keep driving Apple's stock upward? Did Jobs' abrasive managerial tactics leave anyone with those qualities?

Those charismatic leaders who really shake things up also polish something else to a dull, boring gloss: other people.