No iJobs 2

My article from an old Media & Tech blog (August 26th 2011)

Apple store, in Shanghai

OK, maybe you’re tired of hearing news on Steve Jobs’ resignation as Apple CEO. Or maybe you’re like me, someone who’s impressed and inspired by this seemingly larger-than-life, iconic figure, and you can’t get enough news about him. Either way, I feel it’s a good time to step back and reflect, now that the tsunami of tweets and articles on him has abated.

To this end, I want to focus on a Reuters piece, that asks the quintessential Wall Street question “How much higher can Apple shares go without Jobs?”

But with many equating Jobs’ vision with Apple’s success, there is a fear that competition will finally gain on the company years down the road. 

"In the long term, if Steve Jobs’ health deteriorates or if he becomes more disengaged and does not lead the strategic aspect of the company, we will probably cut back our position by half,” said Channing Smith, co-manager at Capital Advisors in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “Guys like Jobs don’t come very often.”"

First of all, I hope that Jobs’ health improves, and I wish him good recovery from what sounds like a very serious illness: pancreatic cancer. Reports are that he’ll assume chairmanship of the Board. Me, I don’t care what position he takes. As long as he stays healthy and involved, Apple will be just fine. All of us will have more opportunities to buy products we really can’t afford, but buy anyway because they’re so cool and inventive.

Second, this point about guys like Jobs not coming very often to our lives is a profound truth, I believe. Here’s why. As a beloved anyone or anything approaches an end, we as people naturally seek continuation. A way to stave off or rebut that finish. But knowing in our hearts that no one and nothing are forever, we seek the next best thing. A replacement. Call it an iJobs2, if you will. Tim Cook looks to be our man at the top.

Cook gave a commencement speech at Auburn University in 2010. He’s a well-respected executive, a really solid guy, it appears. While he spoke articulately and soundly, however, I felt underwhelmed and unimpressed by his speech. I know it’s not fair, but compare this with Jobs’ own commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005. Cook ain’t no iJobs2.

What really is at issue here is evolution, not continuation or replacement. 

Jobs simply cannot continue, because, never mind his recent resignation, he will die at some point. And he simply cannot be replaced, no more than anyone of us can be replaced. We’re fundamentally and inviolably unique. There is no iJobs2, sadly. So, will Apple continue to evolve in the next few years, while it still has Jobs very much in its midst? How will Apple evolve over the longer term, knowing that regardless of what happens, he will exit? Apple struggled mightily after it ousted him unceremoniously in the 1980s, so how will it do this time around?

More from the Reuters article:

”In the long-run, considering that he is an irreplaceable icon, … is Tim Cook the man? We don’t know,” [James] Meyer said. “We’re witnessing a business legend moving toward the exit door. Time only will tell if the company maintains the innovation and the creativity that he put in place there,” said Keith Wirtz.

We have to acknowledge, and keep acknowledging, that we don’t know exactly how things are actually going to evolve. Yes, we can surmise a future, based on our intelligence, experience, and even hopes. Yes, we can predict the future to some extent and in certain ways. But in either case, we cannot surmise perfectly and we cannot predict wholly. We are inevitably limited in what we know and what we can know from the vantage of the present. 

The cool thing, I propose, is that the future becomes present every single moment.

We don’t know, but time is a teacher and time will tell us. So we will know just a bit more tomorrow about Apple, about Jobs, about Cook. And still a bit more the day after. And so forth.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD