
Steve Jobs Named ‘CEO of the Decade’ - fogus
http://www.cultofmac.com/steve-jobs-named-ceo-of-the-decade/20572
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socratees
He's one hell of a visionary, and he rightly deserves the praise.

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rooshdi
I agree, nobody has orchestrated the development of products people want this
decade more than Steve. He deserves the praise as well as all those working
for Apple.

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tvon
The actual story:

[http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/04/technology/steve_jobs_ceo_de...](http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/04/technology/steve_jobs_ceo_decade.fortune/index.htm)

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hop
Starts here -
[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/steve_jobs/2009/index...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/steve_jobs/2009/index.html)

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padmanabhan01
I don't think anyone else even comes close.

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raganwald
Oh come on, what about Ballmer? The man laughs at Steve and dismisses Apple's
products as irrelevant on an ongoing basis.

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pmorici
Every hero needs a villain.

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tybris
That seems fair, but I wonder whether in the long run the cult of personality
surrounding him is good for Apple. His ultimate achievement as a CEO would be
if he can translate his efforts into continuity.

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peoplerock
As has been argued around the business web, Jobs' absence/incapacity for
better part of a year - while Apple continued to develop dramatically better
than the rest of the industry - may have been _helpful_ as a demonstration of
what the organization can do on its own.

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oyving
Maybe, but one year you might not need the kind of complete change of
direction that he managed to pull off earlier and which made the company what
it is today.

While Apple could probably be very successful with their current direction for
quite some time, if the market changes under them the lack of Jobs might
become more apparent.

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xal
Sure, that requires Jobs. However, Apple has a pretty clear direction that
Jobs established and If all that Apple does from now on is to keep the
direction calibrated and keep the pace that he set then Apple will do very
very well in the long run.

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10ren
Another data point is Jobs' absence from 1985 to 1997. The stock rose
incredibly for 2 years ($2 to $14), then flat for 6 years, then fell for 4
years (to $3.4).

It's utterly ridiculous to extrapolate from this, because so many other
factors influence stock price and business performance - but it's more or less
what you would expect of an organization supporting a brilliant leader, and is
a tantalizingly similar data point with respect to Jobs presence.

Note that it wasn't entirely plain sailing after the return of Jobs.
[http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&...](http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Logarithmic&chdeh=0&chdet=1257491171042&chddm=2926244&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NASDAQ:AAPL&ntsp=0)

This has surely been discussed endlessly elsewhere, but I think it's
impossible for an autocrat to cultivate an autocratic successor - why would
Jobs put up with another autocrat (and why would the autocratic successor put
up with him?) I think this is a slightly different angle from the "cult of
personality" aspect.

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omouse
It looks like eye-candy excuses tyranny...

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motters
CEO of the century?

CEO of the anthropocene?

CEO of the universe?

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watt
... of all Time! Of All Time!

