Michelle Steiner

http://tidbits.com/article/12447?rss


When important Apple news bubbles up to the mainstream media, it’s often
distorted — or flat-out incorrect — by the time it pops out at the surface.
Steve Jobs’s resignation from Apple yesterday made the front pages of major
news outlets, and the amount of ill-informed “analysis� is piling up.

So here’s an overview of the facts, broken down into questions and answers,
to make it easy to answer a friend, family member, coworker, or anyone else
who doesn’t follow Apple and has only heard quick news snippets. Feel free
to send them this article by clicking the Email button above, or by copying
this link and pasting it into your favorite email program:
http://tidbits.com/article/12447

Question: Is Jobs no longer involved at Apple?
Answer: Although he has stepped down as CEO, Jobs was elected by Apple’s
board of directors to be Chairman of the Board. Apple has said that he will
continue to contribute to Apple’s products and directions, no doubt on his
own schedule.

Question: Who is replacing Jobs? Is he any good?
Answer: Apple’s board of directors announced that, following its succession
plan, Jobs will be replaced by Tim Cook, previously Apple’s chief operating
officer. Cook has worked at Apple for 13 years, and each time Jobs has
taken a medical leave of absence, Cook has ably taken over Apple’s reins.

Q: Does this mean the iPhone 5/iPad 3/Mac Pro/iPod touch will be delayed?
A: No. Apple has been functioning without Jobs as the active CEO since
January 2011, and they’ve done quite well, both in terms of releasing
products and in continued stellar financial results. (See “Apple Reports Q3
2011 Record Financial Results ,� 19 July 2011.)

Q: What about future products? Can anyone replace Jobs’s vision?
A: No one can be the “next Steve Jobs,� and neither Jobs nor Apple seems
interested in finding one. Instead, new CEO Tim Cook and the rest of the
executive team will guide Apple according to their own strengths. As John
Gruber so aptly put it, “Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product.
It is Apple itself.�

Q: Is Steve Jobs’s health suddenly dire?
A: We don’t know, and frankly, extensive speculation by anyone other than
Jobs’s family and doctors is irresponsible. It’s possible that Jobs is
pulling back to focus on other things, or that his health has gotten worse.
Jobs has received treatment for pancreatic cancer and undergone a liver
transplant, and he stepped away from active duty as CEO in January 2011 due
to health reasons. But he also appeared on stage to introduce the iPad 2 in
March 2011 and at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in June 2011.
According to an article by Walt Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal, “To be
very clear, Jobs, while seriously ill, is very much alive. Extremely
well-informed sources at Apple say he intends to remain involved in
developing major future products and strategy and intends to be an active
chairman of the board... His health is reported to be up and down, and even
an active chairman isn’t the same as a CEO.�

Q: Is this the End of Apple as We Know It?
A: Certainly not. The executives that Jobs has surrounded himself with have
been with the company for many years and have been executing Apple’s vision
both while Jobs has been the day-to-day CEO and during his leaves of
absence.

Also, if you look at Apple’s recent history of products, you’ll see that
years of groundwork were laid to reach the point we’re at now. Consider the
iPad as an example. Apple began work on the iPad well before 2007; the
multi-touch interface and a few initial apps showed promise, but the
company chose to take that work and develop the iPhone instead. The lessons
learned from the iPhone, and the foundation for creating and running the
App Store, led to the iPad in 2010. Compare that to companies like HP,
Samsung, and RIM, who have unsuccessfully rushed tablets to market since
the iPad was introduced.

We’re certain Apple has a secret roadmap that extends a few years into the
future. And the company has been actively working to sustain its unique
corporate ethos. In 2009, former Dean of the Yale School of Management Joel
Podolny joined Apple to head Apple University, which, according to an
extensive feature in Fortune magazine is an internal program that documents
and teaches how the company functions and makes important decisions.

Of course it’s possible, even likely, that Apple will change over the
years, but that’s to be expected. The Apple of today is significantly
different than the Apple of 1985, when Jobs last left Apple, the Apple of
1996 when he returned to Apple, and even the Apple of 2006, before the
iPhone was released. But change is one of the things Apple has done best.
As ever, we wish Jobs the best possible health, and if you have any other
questions, please ask them in the comments and we’ll address them as is
feasible.

--
Tea Party Patriots is to Patriotism as
People's Democratic Republic is to Democracy.

AJL

On Thu, 25 Aug 2011 17:53:10 -0700, Michelle Steiner
<michelle@michelle.org> wrote:


>[From] http://tidbits.com/article/12447?rss

>Q: Is Steve Jobs’s health suddenly dire?
>A: We don’t know, and frankly, extensive speculation by anyone other than
>Jobs’s family and doctors is irresponsible.

Speculation on Steve's health is certainly not irresponsible for
investors. Steve himself once said that Apple was only a few quarters
away from bankruptcy in 1996. Today it's the most valuable tech
company on the planet, with more than $76 billion in the bank. You
can't blame investors for wondering where Apple will go without his
leadership.

For example it was not that long ago that Palm (of PDA fame) had the
lead in touch screen sales and was an up and coming tech company but
it ultimately failed for lack of leadership in bringing out new and
innovative products. I still remember the complaints in the Palm
Usenet groups (also now dead) of not that much new in either hardware
or software as the new models came out...

Michelle Steiner

In article <ln1g575o6mbilve4uiuiismra83jk1edg7@4ax.com>,
AJL <128945nomail@none.com> wrote:

> >[From] http://tidbits.com/article/12447?rss
>
> >Q: Is Steve Jobs’s health suddenly dire?
> >A: We don’t know, and frankly, extensive speculation by anyone other than
> >Jobs’s family and doctors is irresponsible.
>
> Speculation on Steve's health is certainly not irresponsible for
> investors.

It certainly is, and moreso even if he were still CEO. Since those
speculating on his health don't know anything about his health other than
what has been made public, actions taken based on those speculations are
irresponsible.

--
Tea Party Patriots is to Patriotism as
People's Democratic Republic is to Democracy.

JF Mezei

AJL wrote:

> Speculation on Steve's health is certainly not irresponsible for
> investors.


This was true in the past. Now that Jobs is officially "out of the loop"
from an operations point of view, his health is less of matter because
it is Tim Cook's health that matters.

We just have to get used to Apple being without Jobs.

It is unlikely his health is improving. And if it is deteriorating,
chances are his involvement with Apple will decrease.

So we really need to get used to Apple being runned by Tim Cook. Shiller
Ives and others remain below Cook, so it should be business as usual.

With regards to the next announcement, my suggestion would be for Jobs
to sit in the audience, perhaps get a standing ovation, but Cook and the
others make the presentation with Jobs staying in the audience.

Cook has to show the world he is in charge now, and they must let go of
Jobs.

JF Mezei

Michelle Steiner wrote:

> It certainly is, and moreso even if he were still CEO. Since those
> speculating on his health don't know anything about his health other than
> what has been made public, actions taken based on those speculations are
> irresponsible.

While Jobs was CEO, concerns about his health were perfectly valid.
Concerns about transition were valid.

Now that he is no longer CEO, those concerns are no longer valid.
Concerns should focus on Tim Cook's abilities to steer Apple.

Michelle Steiner

In article <4e5842cb$0$4523$c3e8da3$460562f1@news.astraweb.co m>,
JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca> wrote:

> > It certainly is, and moreso even if he were still CEO. Since those
> > speculating on his health don't know anything about his health other
> > than what has been made public, actions taken based on those
> > speculations are irresponsible.
>
> While Jobs was CEO, concerns about his health were perfectly valid.

Don't confuse "concerns" with "speculation
".

--
Tea Party Patriots is to Patriotism as
People's Democratic Republic is to Democracy.

AJL

On Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:44:22 -0700, Michelle Steiner
<michelle@michelle.org> wrote:

>In article <ln1g575o6mbilve4uiuiismra83jk1edg7@4ax.com>,
> AJL <128945nomail@none.com> wrote:
>
>> >[From] http://tidbits.com/article/12447?rss
>>
>> >Q: Is Steve Jobs’s health suddenly dire?
>> >A: We don’t know, and frankly, extensive speculation by anyone other than
>> >Jobs’s family and doctors is irresponsible.
>>
>> Speculation on Steve's health is certainly not irresponsible for
>> investors.

>Since those speculating on his health don't know anything about his health
> other than what has been made public, actions taken based on those
>speculations are irresponsible.

Those making investment decisions are often called 'speculators'
because they make speculative decisions about how management changes
might affect a company's future. That's SOP in the investment
business, nothing irresponsible (or immoral) about it. In fact it
would be irresponsible for an investment company not to take such
things into consideration before investing a clients money.

JF Mezei

Michelle Steiner wrote:

> Don't confuse "concerns" with "speculation


If one is concerned about something, and there is very little hard
information about that "something", then one speculates based on any/all
tidbits they can find.

So by not releasing information in health condition back in january but
staying on as CEO, it did lead to cencerns which lead to speculation.

Now, he is out of the loop, there is no longer a need to speculate or be
concerned (from the point of view of AAPL governance). One can still be
concerned about a fine human being, but that is different. And at that
level, I find the "eulogies" a bit premature.

AJL

On Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:02:17 -0400, JF Mezei
<jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca> wrote:

>AJL wrote:
>
>> Speculation on Steve's health is certainly not irresponsible for
>> investors.
>
>This was true in the past. Now that Jobs is officially "out of the loop"
>from an operations point of view, his health is less of matter because
>it is Tim Cook's health that matters.

IMO the question is can Apple continue to be innovative as it has
under Jobs. His creative ideas always seemed to be ahead of the pack.
Was that his gift alone or can new management continue the success?
Judging from recent stock moves it is currently an open question to
many investors.

D.H. Nortic

On 08/26/2011 09:33 PM, Michelle Steiner wrote:
> In article<hhgg57dv3meo1tu997osu2qgt52lsq51o8@4ax.com >,
> Howard Brazee<howard@brazee.net> wrote:
>
>> Some people have been recommending selling Apple Stock for some time -
>> based upon Steve Job's health, and their belief that he has to be
>> running things to keep current growth.
>
> That's the reason the stock has increased in price the past two days, right?

Michelle, I couldn't agree more. This Cookie guy will rip Apple users
much better than Jobs. Look at this mean face!

Mac users will no doubt continue to rejoice about Apple having the
highest market cap in the world.

> The stock is at its highest for the week. It went up $9.68 (2.64%) today.

And will keep going up for ever and ever. Amen.