Steve Jobs: Redefining The CEO

conq writes "BusinessWeek has a nice piece on how Steve Jobs is redefining the job of being a CEO. From the story: 'Just over a decade ago, Steve Jobs was considered washed-up, a has-been whose singular achievement was co-founding Apple Computer back in the 1970s. Now, given the astounding success of Apple and Pixar, he's setting a new bar for how to manage a Digital Age corporation.'"

Comments

A new bar?

[Nuclear Elephant]

he's setting a new bar for how to manage a Digital Age corporation

literally.

Behind the Cover podcast

[merger]

Business Week also has a podcast where they talk with the author of the story to provide a litte more depth. It was a fairly entertaining discussion where they discuss a little of the history of how it all came about and the relationship between Steve Jobs and Disney.

This sums it up for me

[Lord Satri]

TFA is only 7 paragraphs long (with 7 pictures), but this sums it up for me:
"Other CEOs may focus on finance or sales. Jobs spends most of his time trying to come up with the next blockbuster product."

He's not there for the money, he's there to change the world. Well, at least, he succeeds in making us believe he's not after the money... Of course, MacOS X is not open source (yet?!), he's running a corporation after all!

I remember his quote: "Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful, that's what matters to me"
I don't think a majority of CEO can honestly say this nowadays.

Re:This sums it up for me

[Jasin Natael]

He's a founder. Look what happened when John Sculley came in in the early 90's. We got the Newton, which I liked, and still like, a lot. But we also got to see the American MBA in action.

The type of accounting and business strategy that for-hire CEO's and CFO's are trained with tells them that everything is about increasing shareholder value in the short-to-mid term (ie, no more than 2-5 years). They are unconcerned with providing value to employees or customers, unless doing so will assist them with goal #1. Even if they think they are working for the long-term success of the company, all the tools they have to put things in perspective are centered around the short-term stock value.

When Jobs came back to Apple, it was like he was the spurned father called to the hospital when his child was morbidly ill or injured. This company is his baby, and he wants to see it succeed in the long term. He wants products that his customers will slowly come to believe they can't live without, not some flash-in-the-pan fad with the latest buzzwords attached.

A lot of Silicon Valley CEO's are founders and have this fatherly instinct. They don't get press because they weren't ousted and then called back to fix things. Neither do the CEO's who weren't called back as their companies went to the chopping block.

If you oust the original founders of the company, it's almost always a death sentence. Apple's board was right to call Jobs back to the helm. But don't think it's something special about Jobs. It's what any company founder should do, and what most would do, because they actually believe in what they're doing.

Jasin Natael

Re:Who is going to top him?

[Deanasc]

I don't think anyone is going to top Steve Jobs. I think that like Henry Ford there will be imitators and skillful managers who stand out. Men like Malcolm Bricklin, John Delorean and Lee Iaccoca will be forgotten long before history forgets the man who changed the face of the earth with standardized parts and the moving assembly line.

Jobs will definately surpass Bill Gates in the history books simply because his story is so much more dramatic. Found the first personal computer company that goes beyond the simple needs of the hobbyist, get fired by the guy he hired to manage the business, start a competing business that goes nowhere, start another business that breathes new life into a 100 year old art form, get begged to come back to the company that fired you, see both businesses take off beyond all possible dreams. What did Bill Gates do? Bluff his way into buying an operating system early in the game and copy copy copy then leverage market position to unfairly damage new comers and competitors. Don't get me wrong, Bill Gates had a great idea at the right time but I doubt he'd be anything more then a footnote if he had to do it twice in his life.