Robert “I like yogurt” Scoble interviewed Steve Jobs’ yogurt purveyor, asking him if the wizened CEO had been in lately. The answer? Yes. So Steve is well enough to eat yogurt. Smack 32 cents onto Apple’s stock price.
This frenzied speculation about Jobs is quite sad indeed. As we all know, Jobs is the driving force behind Apple’s innovation but, last time I checked, Apple has 32,000 employees all dedicated to making the products we love. Just because he might not show up this year is no cause for alarm. Heck, based on this +5 Turkleneck of CEO Charisma Correlation Effect, you’d expect Windows 7 to suck with the figurehead Bill Gates out of the picture. Apparently it doesn’t because even I’m interested in Windows 7.
Think about the average Apple keynote: stats, some products, and some John Mayer-esque musician shambling out on stage and playing a guitar. It’s basically open mic night at a Berkeley coffee shop and Steve is the guy in sandals who studied at Iowa, man. While I don’t want things to go the way of Microsoft - WOW BANG ZOOM HOT NEW BAND POW *fizzle* - Jobs understated delivery is not for us anymore. It’s for an earlier generation of journos who reveled in the calm majesty of Jobs delivery: the slow reveal, the roots-influenced musical guests. His are the Prairie Home Companion of press conferences.
So he’s gone. Good. Give someone else at the company a try. If they screw up - and they will - we’ll tell them about it, they’ll quietly fix it and claim it was never an issue and we’ll go on buying their products. We don’t need a mercurial computer god to bow down before anymore. We need consistently good products. Want to effect Apple’s stock price? Release dubiously sourced but compelling stories about iPod Touch Tablets. Leave Steve alone.
Hindsight is 20/20, but…….Apple PR dept is botching this…..never should have gotten into a situation where Jobs is essentially known as the only face of apple.
Exactly. You can’t expect Steve to stay forever. I mean Gates left Microsoft and they are doing fine. In fact Jobs being the only face of Apple might be the prime reason for their lack of progress in the marketplace. The iPod and iPhone got lucky but Mac is still sorely behind. I, for one, don’t like Apple because of Steve. Not saying anything bad about the guy and don’t wish ill on him, but I never really liked his ideas and I see him as the main person behind everything they do. I might be convinced to switch to Mac, but it would take a lot, and I mean a lot more than a stupid commercial to do that. Plus I hate his keynotes, they are always so cheesy and made specifically for Mac cultists.
“…their [Mac] lack of progress in the [PC] marketplace”
Clearly, you and I are seeing wildly different marketshare numbers. - Tim
Can anyone imagine what he and his family must be going through over the holidays reading these speculations.
Of course he is an icon to many, but if all he asks for is privacy regarding his health, don’t we owe him that ?-)
It’s part of Steve’s job to go through all these. The only difference is not there are blogs and social media; not just the evening TV shows and news.
Point taken from John’s post is simple. We love Steve Job but we mostly love Apple products. The man is kicking arse but in the corporate world and NASDAQ walls he’s just a CEO (ok the iCEO). Apple’s board has all the wisdom or stupidity for a backup plan and a backup of a backup plan.
As for Bill Gates I actually think that his nerdy appearance is one of the most well done pieces of personal marketing I’ve seen so far.
He’s become something like the prototypical nerd and he did so intentionally. If he wore a suit and a tie he’d be just another boring indistinguishable CEO.
That’s of course if he still was CEO.
This comment is not related to the topic, but I am posting it here, in case someone here can help.
I wrote and posted a blog about Microsoft at my blog, at this link; http://princesimon.wordpress.com/2008/12/30/big-dumb-idea-microsoft-outlines-vision-of-pay-as-you-go-computing and has gotten thousands of traffic from CNN.com, more than ever before, and about an hour ago, I suddently got locked out of my Wordpress blog account.
On the same Wordpress account, there are other 4 separate blogs on the same account, and I can login and edit the other 3 blogs, but I cannot edit the blog on which I posted about Microsoft. I can login, browse and edit other 3 blogs, but not mine at http://princesimon.wordpress.com.
Does anyone know or has an idea what might have happened? I changed my password, cleared my browser cache, tried Forefox, and I still have no access to edit or even post new posting on my blog.
spamming asshole…
The guy uses one of those animated snowflake backgrounds on his site, so he’s not very smart or technical. I have no idea how he thinks this will translate into credibility on stories about Microsoft, but he is a spammer after all. Feel free to leave more spam or racist jokes on his site.
C’mon guys!!!! I need MORE traffic!!!!
“We don’t need a mercurial computer god to bow down before anymore. We need consistently good products.”
I couldn’t agree more. The point here I think is that Jobs seems to have created a focus on product quality that is truly unrivaled. He’s brought some great strategy to the table and the company has done well with him at the helm.
Markets abhor uncertainty, and -IF- Jobs is stepping to the side or his health is failing or he just wants to take a sabbatical, it doesn’t matter. He will not always lead the company. The question that stockholders and consumers want an answer to is, “what will the next leader do?”
When Jobs left Apple before, the company went down the tubes. I think there is a general myth that Apple is weak without Jobs, because, well, history demonstrates it.
Hopefully Steve has instilled a culture and a discipline of success that can be embraced and even improved upon by whoever takes the reins, whenever that might be.
And someday, we’ll know the answer.
It’s “Berkeley”, not “Berkley.”
You young whpper snappers may not realize, but Steve left the company once before and it tanked under what was considered very competent leadership.
Just as long as all of the iPods don’t go with him. (sad, morbid, funny?)
“you’d expect Windows 7 to suck with the figurehead Bill Gates out of the picture”
Actually, you have it backwards. Windows sucked with Gates in the picture. Maybe 7 will work now that he is gone.
You’re calling your own story dubiously sourced? So why did you run it?
He didn’t call his story “dubiously sourced” he called the apple tablet story that, and inferred that other stories on job’s health were also “dubiously sourced,” and the tablet story was not written by the same guy.
Naturally this bad sourcing translates into repeating rumors. John Biggs has so much class that I’m surprised you didn’t know this. There’s such a fine line between gossip and news, he can’t possibly be expected to try to find it.
Well said. Part of Steve’s great leadership, I hope, is knowing how to hire and cultivate great employees. While the overall vision may suffer in the short term if he retires, Apple’s pretty well set up for the next five years or so. They just need to release incremental improvements of their existing iPod, Mac, and iPhone lines. They will eventually need a new product, and without Jobs it may be hard to get the “revolutionary” buzz.
Hope Steve Jobs feels better.
But I’m not dead yet.
If you want to know the REAL reason Jobs isn’t at Macworld this year, its because he and I are running away together to a remote Island somewhere in the Pacific with our lovechild….
Please stop covering this guy’s poor health with such little respect. It is no laughing matter for his friends and family, and shouldn’t be one for us either.
Respect? Come on, if Michael Arrington was ever suspected to have health problems he’d write the TechCrunch story himself.
He has semi-explosive diarrhea… Should we be concerned? Not.
No, unless he cleans the bathroom himself. He likes to believe that we have a very “democratic” office.
I wonder if Steve Jobs goes to Yummi Yogurt, the excellent frozen yogurt place in San Mateo, CA. It’s just a few minutes away from Cupertino. And they have yummy yogurts that change flavor daily.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/yumi-yogurt-santa-clara&sa=X&oi=revisions_result&resnum=4&ct=result&cd=1&cad=revid%3D1079183992&usg=AFQjCNFF7ulHA_Yc47ErdQHhAGmYDn3p3Q
San Mateo is not “a few minutes away from Cupertino” and it’s spelled “Yumi Yogurt.” Good job finding a reference on Yelp though, you should get a raise.
Jobs’ type of cancer, malignant adenoma of the pancreas, could be slowed down with a very aggressive treatment, but unfortunately, it is not usually curable.
I am not and have never been a fan of Apple or its products, except its stock in recent years, but I like what Steve Jobs did by turning around the company.
Prior to the introduction of newest products such as iMac and iPod, etc, Apple seemed like it was going down the hill. For instance, in December 1997, its stock hit the lowest at $3.28. Most analysts then seemed to have written it off until the settlement of Microsoft’s antitrust case, coupled with the introduction of Apple’s new products; iMac, etc.
The problem that seems to face certain companies is when one mostly brands and ties the company with the Founder/CEO, and if something happens to him or her, it always seems like the company itself may also go down. So, with Steve Jobs, it may look like without him at the realm, that Apple may not do as good but surely, it will hopefully continue to do okay.
Steve only needs to do what Bill Gates has done, by identifying or appointing his future replacement now, so that the market can get to know and get used to the person who may replace him some day.
Leave Steve alone.
Who are you… Biggs Croker? You do a remake and post it and you got a deal…
I’m not dead yet.
korktum be :D