Steve Jobs and how Apple will work without him

There’s being “on-brand” and then there’s being the brand itself. To all intents and purposes, Steve Jobs is Apple. But it hasn’t always been that way…

During his wilderness years in exile from the company he founded, and while saving Pixar from George Lucas and steering NEXT to build the basis for OS X, Jobs left Apple floundering with a lack of direction.

Without Jobs there were too many products, too many middle managers with tentacles in every product category. Apple had become a bloated mess. Thankfully though, corrective surgery was swift and decisive after Jobs’ return.

Steve Jobs cut off the useless limbs and stripped Apple back to the core. He built the titan that Apple is now incrementally. He made his mistakes (initially failing to see the appeal of digital music and CD burners) but he moved quickly when he realised the direction things were going in.

Since the iMac and the iPod, Apple has had very few duds. The ones we focus on (the Apple Hi-Fi, we’re glowering at you) are so notable because they can be contrasted with the world-changing products, like the iPhone and the iPad, borne forth by Jobs’ incredibly rare attention to detail and nose for a hit.

Count on Cook

But now with Jobs taking his second medical leave of absence in two years, will Apple stay on course? Will the iPad 2 and iPhone 5 launches and Apple’s involvement in Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily suffer with the absence of the Steve Jobs magic?

Fear not stockholders and Apple fans, Steve Jobs has applied that legendary attention to detail to his executives too. Steve’s finest achievement isn’t a product you can hold in your hands, it’s a value system you can live and breathe.

Tim Cook will take the reigns during Steve Jobs’ leave of absence. He was the cool head who took the helm during the last medical crisis. Cook is Apple’s COO and the man who turned Apple’s byzantine supply chain into one of the most efficient in the world (if not THE most efficient).

Cook cut Apple’s number of suppliers to a slim 24 and got those firms to move their factories and warehouses to Apple’s assembly plants creating a just-in-time manufacturing system that is envied by the rest of the industry.

According to Inside Steve’s Brain, Cook cut Apple’s inventory from months to six or seven days. Only Nokia has better supply chain management than Apple. It can ship millions of units quickly without breaking a sweat.

Of course, Cook lacks the rhetorical flourish of Steve Jobs. He is a decent presenter who performs well at keynotes, and he has learned well from Jobs. It’s no accident that Jobs has been delegating more elements of new product presentations to the rest of his executive team – it’s like a live audition for them and good practice for their potential ascension to a permanent CEO and presenter-in-chief role.

While Cook takes the helm now, should a permanent replacement be required, there are several other candidates including Phil Schiller, Jonathan Ive and iOS boss Scott Forstall. There is no shortage of talent in the Apple executive pool.

But it is not in Apple’s interest to announce the heir apparent. To do that would mean that the strong team currently in place could be broken up and disturbed. With various candidates in the frame, there is a sense that everyone can compete for the crown as and when Steve Jobs chooses to go. And make no mistake, Steve Jobs will, like Tony Blair once said he wished to, go at a time of own choosing. There will be no repeat of the boardroom coup that saw Jobs ousted before those wilderness years.

What Would Steve Do

Shareholders and Apple fans should not panic about the leave of absence. Steve Jobs has stated that he will maintain responsibility and a guiding hand on strategy but there is even more reason to feel confident. Steve Jobs has built Apple in his own image. The abiding thought within the organisation is “what would Steve do?” and like in a Looney Tunes cartoon, each Apple exec has a tiny devil Steve sat on their shoulder guiding their actions.

Apple’s DNA is wound through with the DNA of Steve Jobs, both for good and for ill. Steve Jobs leaving Apple would not be like Bill Gates taking off from Microsoft. Apple will not go off the boil because Steve Jobs has designed its culture as carefully as Apple designed the sleep light on the Macbook Pro, or the Gorilla Glass screen on the iPhone 4. Apple is Steve Jobs’ greatest product.

So while the AAPL stock price will wobble and commentators like me will expend thousands of words wondering “what next for Apple?”, the answer is that it will continue to produce great products while the legend of Steve Jobs lives on.

The influence of Steve Jobs is like The Force in Star Wars, it is strong in Apple, built into its very core (pun intended) and while the magic of Jobs cannot be replicated, the institutional memory knows What Steve Would Do.

And even if it didn’t? A wobble? A faltering of confidence? Steve Jobs isn’t going anywhere. He’s remaining both CEO and major Apple stockholder, and while speculation is inevitable, consider this a calming call. We shouldn’t wish for a Jobs Mark II. Instead, we should breathe easy that his teachings are well regarded in the Cupertino mothership, and wish a speedy recovery of technology’s most interesting and enduring character.

What Would Steve Do t-shirt available from Far Out T-Shirts.

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