No, don’t worry. Nothing happened to Steve. Just that a new book will hit the bookstores next week and I wanted to present it. The book is called “The Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a New Generation” written by Jay Elliot and released by Perseus and Vanguard, present the things that made Steve Jobs to become the leader that he is today and also of how many people Apple will need as a CEO, to deliver the performance that the company provides today, when Steve is at charge. Well, right now, as we all know, Steve Jobs has some problems with his health, but they will pass and Steve will move on. But let’s imagine what will Apple do, let’s say in 100 years, when Steve will not be among the living, because of… well… natural causes.
The author of the book says this phrase I wrote above much too drastic. He thinks not only of natural causes of death, but to unpredictible events, like what will Apple do if one day Steve would be hit by a bus? In his book, Elliot says that Steve is a person who cannot be replaced considering his charismatic state, but he can be replace in terms of managing the Apple company by… three persons. His legacy can be carried further only if you name three people who will have the role of a CEO, because Steve is definitely a person with a lot of energy who works day and night for the success of the company.
The book will be released on March 11. In an interview that Jay Elliot offered to Information Week, the author sais that when the time will come, Apple will most likely have a new CEO, but that person is going to fill only one part of the Steve Jobs, the man, the leader, the visionary. Steve Jobs is on his medical leave right now, even though the reasons for that leave were still undisclosed. All we know is that he visits regularly the Stanford Cancer Center and he receives treatment there. We don’t know how long this will go on and if he will be able to come back to the Apple’s CEO chair after this. We know Steve is a powerful man and I am sure that he will be back to Apple in no time.
It is also reported that Steve does not only go to that cancer center, but also to Apple headquarters to see his colleagues and evaluate how the company is going. A person like Steve Jobs will never say that he leaves the company, since this company is his life. I guess that not even in 100 years, Steve will not leave it. He is the soul of the company, in my opinion and I can hardly think of Apple without Steve Jobs. Right now, Tim Cook replaces Steve, but Elliot thinks that this is only in title, since Jobs cannot be replaced in full by another human being. Tim Cook is most likely the next successor of Jobs, if he leaves, or when he will decide to step back. Tim Cook is clearly the person that could manage very well the company and probably this is why Steve selected him to run the business while he is out.11