It's few days since Apple CEO Steve Jobs said he's temporarily stepping away for medical reasons. Many rumours foreran the announcement. The rumours and the temporal resignation caused some 14% stock slid. These 14% means $12 billion in market value. Now look at it again. Does this really mean that Jobs is so essential for Apple? Was everything that Apple shown during last years only one man's show?
Jobs is known to be an outstanding entrepreneur. His management style is said to be temperamental and his personality as demanding and aggressive. Fortune magazine noted that he "is considered one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs". Steve's biography is voluminous. He co-founded Apple with Steve Wozniak in 1976, in 1985 he resigned from Apple and founded NeXT. Buyout by Apple (paid $429 million) in 1997 drove Jobs back to Apple. But that was not all. He also bought Pixar Animation Studios a former graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd. in 1986 for the very nice price of $10 million (George Lucas needed to finance his 1983 divorce). Pixar was acquired by the Walt Disney company in 2006 for $7.4 billion. Steve then became Disney's largest single shareholder with approximately 7% of shares.
Although I think that Jobs is really good as Apple CEO (better to say as CEO, no matter where), I can't believe that the invisible hand values Jobs for some $12 billion and that Apple is supposed to be unworthy without Jobs. Is Apple really a bunch of idlers doing nothing without its lion-tamer?
Jobs is known to be an outstanding entrepreneur. His management style is said to be temperamental and his personality as demanding and aggressive. Fortune magazine noted that he "is considered one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs". Steve's biography is voluminous. He co-founded Apple with Steve Wozniak in 1976, in 1985 he resigned from Apple and founded NeXT. Buyout by Apple (paid $429 million) in 1997 drove Jobs back to Apple. But that was not all. He also bought Pixar Animation Studios a former graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd. in 1986 for the very nice price of $10 million (George Lucas needed to finance his 1983 divorce). Pixar was acquired by the Walt Disney company in 2006 for $7.4 billion. Steve then became Disney's largest single shareholder with approximately 7% of shares.
Although I think that Jobs is really good as Apple CEO (better to say as CEO, no matter where), I can't believe that the invisible hand values Jobs for some $12 billion and that Apple is supposed to be unworthy without Jobs. Is Apple really a bunch of idlers doing nothing without its lion-tamer?
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