Steve Jobs: The Irreplaceable Boss

Apple will miss their strongman, currently on medical leave.

Steve Jobs remains the CEO of Apple for now, even after passing the reins to Tim Cook. This is reassuring to the market and many fans of the fruity company, for good reason. Steve Jobs has a style. He possesses a combination unique to him in his field.

Jobs distinguishes himself in many ways:

His Ascetic Side

Since the time he was a (not so diligent) student in Oregon, Steve Jobs wanted to attend the Kumbh Mela, a large Hindu gathering that happens on the banks of the Ganges in India every four years. If he didn’t stay for perhaps as long as he would have liked, his trip became a formative journey. “I’ve seen him sick with indigestion for days at a time, without complaining once,” recalls his friend Daniel Kottke, whom he met at Reed College. Another example?

His Income

Steve Jobs obviously sits on a fairly comfortable fortune ($5.5 million, according to Forbes). And with over 50 million shares, he is by far Apple’s largest individual stockholder. That doesn’t even take into account Apple’s growth (thirty-fold since 2000!), which guarantees him very nice capital gains on the stock options that the board of directors regularly offers to him. Yet, even though Apple is the most attractive high-tech company in the stock exchange, Jobs is “only” the 136th richest person in the world, trailing far behind Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Steve Ballmer, or even Michael Dell. Moreover, outside of his stock options, he limits his own salary to … one single dollar. How many CEOs have followed this path?

His Passion for Design

Andy Hertzeld, one of the original members of the Microsoft team and currently at Google, often tells of how Jobs would regularly pass by the Macy’s storefront to study the curve of its sign, or the colors of the coffeepots inside. Leander Kahney verifies this tale in his book, “Inside Steve’s Brain.” In 2003, Jobs told the Times, “It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” In addition, he is one of the first CEOs to attach the design department directly to executive management.

His Obsession over Details

Jobs wants to be a master of everything: notably, of the exact moment to announce his products (which sparks an insane curiosity well before their unveilings) and the manner in which to do so. This control proves itself to be overwhelming. A communications manager suffered the consequences in the early 1990s. She had modified the recommended typography for a press presentation ever so slightly — and she was asked to leave the company.

His Willingness to Pick a Fight

“When Apple first started, he would wake himself up in the middle of the night, brandish his fist in the air, and say ‘I want to conquer the world,’” remembers Chris-Ann Brennan, who gave Jobs his first daughter, Lisa. How irritating. “Nothing is more annoying than when he explains to you, with his feet up on the table, that he can do very well without you,” says the head of a large European telecoms operating company. He only redoubled his energy when he returned to Apple in 1997. He didn’t stand for his ousting, in 1985, from the company that he himself had created nine years earlier — an ousting by John Sculley, formerly of Pepsi, who Jobs himself had recruited. During his wandering in the desert, he had even formed and finessed a plan with his friend, Larry Ellison of Oracle, who would buy Apple back and hand Jobs the keys.

So we ask ourselves: who would be the best to even follow Jobs? Larry Page’s return to the top of Google shows all too well how difficult it is for a company, especially an old start-up, to keep up its enthusiasm and dynamic progress without its founder. Internally, there is talk of the loyal Tim Cook, formerly of IBM; of Phil Schiller, marketing director; of Johnatan Ive, design head; or even Scott Forstall, who handles relations with iPhone developers. But the board of directors may pick from the outside. Who can we imagine? Why not Bill Gates, Jobs’ best enemy for thirty years, who has now distanced himself from Microsoft and casts nothing but praises on Jobs? Or we can look for a co-founder, like the charismatic Steve Wozniak? Although he remains close to Jobs, Woz told CNET that he hadn’t expected the latest announcement of his friend’s medical leave.

Jobs will remain at the controls for an undetermined period of time. But no one doubts that he will personally give his opinion on whoever follows him. He will assign the future CEO the toughest job of all: to be his successor.