All Good Things
On a holiday Monday when Wall Street was closed, Apple announced that their visionary CEO, Steve Jobs, was taking a medical leave for unspecified reasons and an unspecified time period. There is simply no way to spin this as good news. No other company’s fortunes are so closely identified with a single individual
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As I understand it, Steve has liver cancer, which is almost always incurable, and has had it for several years now. He was in remission, but this is a sign that this period of remission has ended. He's probably pursuing more treatment.
I am hoping that he has been there long enough to keep the momentum going when that time comes that he's no longer alive. Apple is now much bigger than Microsoft, and they continue to come out with new products while Microsoft limps behind with its cheap knockoffs.
Years ago I saw a documentary in which Steve made a statement that I've never forgotten. "I don't have anything against Microsoft," he said, "they're welcome to their success. What bothers me is that they don't make good products." He was talking about Adobe fonts (if you recall, Adobe was a spin-ff of Apple) and how much more attractive they were, and how with GUI they appeared onscreen just as they would on paper. People take fonts for granted today, but there was a time when there was nothing but ugly, bitmapped technofonts. That decision to make attractive, classic, scalable fonts was very much an aesthetic one, yet that same decision gave birth to a whole new technological arena in desktop publishing.
But then Jobs' goal was always less about market dominance (as was Microsoft's) and more about aesthetics, ease of use and, most important: quality. Apples cost more than PCs, but you do get what you pay for: a product of exceptional beauty and quality. In a world where most manufacturing is focused on what can be done cheaper and faster to line the pockets of executive managment and the Board of Directors, it's important to recognize this. It's also important to recognize that, since he came back on board, Jobs' salary has been $1.00 a year. Yes, it's a largely symbolic gesture (Jobs still owns a considerable amount of Apple stock, after all), but how many other CEOs, especially those whose companies are failing, are making that gesture? None of them. In fact, those who accepted government stimulus packages have even used a good part of the money to retain the very talent that has already failed them.
Imagine how different things would be if more CEOs bothered to follow in his footsteps. But now wealth is considered a right borne only by title. The higher up you are in the company, the less (if anything at all) you have to sacrifice. Who says we don't have a class system?
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