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jobs1984My condolences go out. It's needless to say, and redundant, but Steve Jobs was most definitely an iconic leader, a hell of a CEO and a man with one of the, if not the best tech track records of the modern tech era.

In short, Steve Jobs has proven (several times over) to be an outstanding manager and large scale entrepreneur. One of the characteristics of successful entrepreneurial managers is the ability to plan ahead, and plan ahead better than the competition. With that being said, it is highly unlikely Jobs failed to put in place a very, very competent team to take Apple to the next level in his wake. It is highly hypocritical, nonsensical even potentially offensive, to imbue Steve Jobs with such visionary accolades and ability from afar and then assume he was not competent enough to create the team to see his vision through. If he couldn't;t he would be akin to a one hit wonder, and if anything he has proven he was anything but.... Remember Apple 1.0, NeXT, his Pixar movie studio ventures, and then Apple 2.0 which brought you the sexy minimalist PC as an fashion statement, sexy laptops, the iPod, App Store/iTunes done and marketed correctly, the iPhone, IPad. That is not the track record of a man that does not know how to plan ahead.

This is the rub. I  believe Apple has seen its heyday in that its business growth rate has peaked. Apple alone faces more, and the most competent, competition of any company that I know of. It was very likely Apple would have seen its core products (mobile computing) overtaken by the Android onslaught in the medium term regardless of Steve Jobs health, and/or passing. Business leaders come and go in cycles, and Apple has had a very strong run - but is facing extremely stiff and competent competition – a lot of it, and that competition is actually outgrowing it.

Unfortunately, the Android momentum is building up to a head a the same time Jobs has passed and the mantle has been passed to Cook, and it is inevitable that Cook will catch the fallout for something whose brunt should actually be felt by a much broader team, Jobs included. Then again, Jobs illness probably prevented him from performing at his best for some time now, so one could only speculate what would or could have happened.