Thanks for this post. I remember the Gil Amelio years at Apple (mid 90s) when the company was lost in the wilderness.
I also agree (sadly) with your assessment that the company will not long survive its founder. I hope I am wrong and that another visionary will take the helm. When Jobs died, someone wrote that Apple had five years’ worth of his ideas in the pipeline yet to be implemented. So far I’ve seen (lately) a larger iPhone and a smaller iPad. They’ll run through those ideas fast. Then what?
I don’t know.
The problem is that today, American corporate management is filled with people who are rent-seeking, risk-avoiding muppets. They just want to do their thing for a few years, polish their resume’ and then collect the big bucks.
Jobs was one of the rarest of CEO’s - someone who was willing to bet big and lose big. Someone who was willing to attach his face to ideas and take the heat for them, win or fail.
There’s so few CEO’s today who are willing to take on real risk that we’ve become a nation of corporate pussies.