Putting Steve Jobs in Perspective

Update: This was written prior to Mr. Jobs' passing upon his announcing his resignation from Apple


Steve Jobs, the Chairman, co-Founder, revivalist, and heart and soul of Apple Computer announced his resignation yesterday, effective immediately.  This part of the letter says it all: 

“I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.”

Steve Jobs is an extraordinary business mind.  Not a lot of people seek to start companies.  Of those who do start companies, 80% fail in the first two years, and an additional 16% go under in seven years.  Steve Jobs built a thriving business, stepped away from it by luring John Sculley from Pepsi to run it when investors were leery of Mr. Jobs’ ability to do it himself; left altogether, and then returned to bring it back from the brink in 1997 to where it is today.  Oh yes, and in between he founded NeXT and rocketed Pixar Studios to the fore in the animated film industry.

A founder and a turnaround artist from a business perspective.  Consider this in terms of other great technology business founders over the years:

1.  Ken Olson of Digital Equipment Corporation founded the firm in the late 1950s while giving away an excessive amount of equity to his venture founders to get it rolling.  In the late 1980s when IBM’s disparate minicomputer architectures clouded IBM’s messaging, Digital’s market capitalization exceeded that of IBM’s.  When things turned on Digital, Mr. Olson could not adapt.  He could not stomach shedding staff nor could he shed Digital’s matrixed management structure that enabled many people to take credit in upswings – and run from accountability in down markets.  Digital was ultimately acquired by Compaq.
   
   
2. Rod Canion of Compaq Computer.  The company started by designing a mediocre PC that weighed about as much as an IBM Selectric typewriter and put a handle on it.  In so doing Compaq proved you could purchase non-IBM devices and not get fired while also creating the portable computer segment – a segment now threatened by Mr. Jobs’ Apple iPad, we should add.  Rod Canion could not adapt, either, ultimately being forced out by the Ben Rosen and the Board of Directors and replaced by Eckhard Pfeiffer.  Compaq was ultimately acquired by HP after having mismanagedg the Digital acquisition and represents the core of the operations current HP chairman Leo Apotheker curiously announced he intends to restructure or spin off.
   
   
3. Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems came in behind Apollo Computer in the workstation market, opted for Unix rather than a proprietary variant, amassed apps, and buried Apollo.  This firm, too, ultimately fell by the wayside, getting picked up by Oracle and Larry Ellison.
   
   
4. Bill Gates of Microsoft, of course.  His story is still “to be determined” as the company faces some its most serious threats since its inception today largely due to Apple.  The reins have been passed to Steve Ballmer, and there are many in the industry who believe they need to be taken away.  Will Gates return?  Will Microsoft be toppled in the business client operating system market by Android or Apple?  Mr. Gates is a great entrepreneur, but Microsoft has not encountered business threats akin to what Apple endured (and in some ways brought on themselves) in the early 1990s when Steve Jobs returned through Apple acquiring Next.

There are countless others.  Phillipe Kahn of Borland.  Mitch Kapor of Lotus.  Ray Noorda at Novell.  Edson De Castro at Data General.  Larry Ellison, of course.  What Lou Gerstner did at IBM merits mention even though he was not a founder.  For a man internal IBMers derided at the time as “the cookie salesman” based on Mr. Gerstner having come from Nabisco, he certainly saved IBM from self-immolation by pivoting them somewhat kicking and screaming away from big iron and into software and services.

I have discussed the basic business operations in all of the above rather than, necessarily, Mr. Jobs ability to peer around the corner and develop – no, INVENT – products and create markets.  In catching an MSNBC special on Mr. Jobs a few weeks ago, I was struck by an assertion in the documentary that Steve Jobs directed his product development teams to try to render obsolete the existing Apple product lines.

I had been taught this concept by a business mentor years ago.  During the course of discussions he made clear it was a hugely difficult thing for companies to accept reality and essentially launch products that would kill – or seriously weaken – core product lines.  As he put it, however, “Do you want to slit your own throat, or do you want to have your competition do it for you?”

Steve Jobs relished the chance to slit his company’s own throat.  Over and over again.

And this is why you have to go outside the industry and into the history books to find a comparable business mind, and the current comparisons coming out of pundits are with Henry Ford and Thomas Edison.   The former brought transportation to the masses, the latter wired the home.  Mr. Jobs brought consumer access to the wire, but neither he nor Al Gore invented the internet.

Today the client side computing market faces disruptions the likes of which it has not seen in decades, and it can largely be credited to Steve Jobs and the iPad.  The merging of consumer and business computing tasks onto this single device will revolutionize the client side of business IT operations.  Curiously enough, it could shake out with Apple, a company that has diligently eschewed the business environment after Mr. Sculley’s ill fated foray into the segment, dominating the business client landscape.

There are many, many exceptional business minds taking risks and creating companies in the high technology industry.  We love the stories of the two guys in the garage getting started akin to Messrs. Hewlett and Packard and Messrs. Jobs and Wozniak.  

But I cannot think of one person who built a company.  Left it.  And returned to pull it back from the brink of extinction to catapult back to the top of its industry. 

All of this and revolutionizing the world of information access and sharing, too.

A fascinating man and company to follow.