The internet ws crawling with Jobs reports last Thursday. Nearly every news aggregator put Apple's new leadership situation ahead of hurricane Irene evacuations. (Though always-classy AOL promoted the 10-year anniversary of Aaliyah's death and some scandalous Blake Lively pictures instead. Finger on the pulse!)
So the CEO torch has been passed to Chief Operating Officer and occasional substitute CEO Tim Cook. Visionary founder and leader Steve Jobs takes a strictly strategic role as Chairman of the Board, and may dump his trademark turtlenecks for a Sinatra-style tuxedo.
Torches pass down all the time, sometimes even from standout leaders in Steve Jobs' class. So let's look at a few famous stories of charismatic leaders passing the baton to see what history suggests about Apple under the leadership of Cook.
Perhaps the closest analogy to Steve's resignation comes from arch-rival Microsoft. Bill Gates made Microsoft into the most valuable company in the world before stepping down: Apple's $349 billion market cap as of last night looks paltry next to Microsoft's $600 billion valuation at the end of 1999.
Two weeks after that moment, Gates announced his resignation from the CEO post, passing the buck to trusted lieutenant Steve Ballmer. Gates stayed active as Chief Software Architect and Chairman before relinquishing the architect job in 2008, though he still runs the Board of Directors. Gates' operational duties have been scaled down in an orderly manner, giving him more time to spend on the Gates Foundation's charity work.
This was a dramatic change. The strategic planning that Bill Gates had done "in his head," according to Ballmer, became a job done by committee. At the same time, Ballmer went public with his rejection of Gates' leadership: "I'm not going to need him for anything. That's the principle. Use him, yes; need him, no," he said to The Wall Street Journal in 2008.
So how has that worked out for Ballmer? Microsoft's stock hit its zenith when he took the reins and has lost nearly 60 percent of its value since then. Microsoft is still big and important, but only the fifth-largest company in the world counting by market cap—some $150 billion behind Apple.
And that market slump is not undeserved. Under the reign of Ballmer, Microsoft has largely failed to capture the Internet opportunity and missed the mobile revolution. Windows Vista was a long time coming and then turned out to be a dud, much like Duke Nukem Forever. Sales growth over the last decade has been timid, profit margins are dwindling, and the once-reliable cash machine sometimes burns more cash than it makes.
You may not like the Gates way of doing business with a ruthless knack for erasing competition, but that model worked. Apple, which has nearly created several markets in the last decade (iPod, iTunes, iPad), needs to keep its eye on the next new thing rather than surfing its current product line into a wipeout.
Intel tells a happier story. The chip giant's first three CEOs were all cofounders with very different strengths: visionary Robert Noyce passed the job to engineering marvel Gordon Moore and then to "Only the paranoid survive" businessman Andy Grove. Craig Barratt and Paul Otellini have continued the tradition of strong leadership with orderly succession planning, and at no point in its 43-year history has Intel's survival been in doubt.
Granted, Intel's stock chart has followed Microsoft's pretty closely over the last decade. Like the other half of the WinTel partnership, Intel is growing more slowly these days due to the cooler PC market and explosive growth of ARM-powered smartphones and tablets. But Intel is squeezing more profit out of every sales dollar today even as Microsoft's profit share keeps declining. In short, I think Intel's bad market rap is undeserved while Microsoft's isn't.
Noyce, Moore, and Grove set the tone for decades of dominance and provided a blueprint for success to their heirs. Through popped Internet bubbles and economic chaos, and amid spirited challenges from AMD and ARM, Intel still stands tall. If Cook can keep the Good Ship Apple on course without losing momentum, and also culture an obvious next-in-command to take his place one day, this could be Apple's future.
Scott McNealy wasn't Sun's first CEO, but he was one of its four cofounders and one of the longest-running chief executives in business history. After 22 years at the helm and with some turbulence at the end as that Internet bubble popped, McNealy signed off in 2006. On his watch, Sun Microsystems had played a major part in Internet history both on the hardware and software sides.
Jonathan Schwartz only had two years of high-level management experience, but he had a decade of company commitment. Schwartz lasted just three years at the top before the mortgage-based financial crisis of 2008 destroyed Sun's order flows. IBM and HP were armed with rock-solid balance sheets and could take a kidney punch, but Sun had no such luxury. In 2009, Sun signed an agreement to be acquired by Oracle; McNealy's successor never had a chance.
Was that McNealy's fault for not preparing the transition better or simply a stroke of bad luck? The truth probably lies somewhere in between those extremes. McNealy did nearly double Sun's cash balance in the last two years of his reign—buoyed by a $2 billion payment that ended a patent and royalty war with Microsoft—so he didn't hand over the keys of an already-crashed car. Perhaps he could have chosen a less reckless prince to take the throne.
We don't think that Apple's future looks anything like this.
It's hard to come up with leadership-change examples of the magnitude Apple is facing. Much respect to Tim Cook and all, but Steve's shoes look nearly impossible to fill.
I find it comforting that Mr. Jobs stays on as Chairman, much like the Intel tradition of moving from CEO to board leader as the generations go by. Also, the recent health-related leaves of absence have helped prepare the new man for the job.
Still, Steve probably can't hold Tim's hand for a decade as Bill Gates did with Ballmer. There are health issues at work here, something Microsoft never had to deal with. In due time, we'll see exactly how much of Apple's success comes from Steve's visionary brain and how much can be done without this genius on deck.
Photo illustration by Aurich Lawson
See Also:
- The End of Innocence at Apple: How Steve Jobs Was Able to Save the Company
- Money Quotes, Steve Jobs-Style
- Aug. 6, 1997: Apple Rescued —�� by Microsoft
- The Plans For Steve Jobs’ New House
- Photos: The Historic House Steve Jobs Demolished
- Steve Jobs | Epicenter
- Steve Jobs | Gadget Lab
- Steve Jobs | This Day In Tech
