Next week marks 10 years since the death of Steve Jobs. A lot of people will probably write a lot of things about his legacy. Heck, I probably will.
But first, I’d like to look backward for a moment—to two moments, actually:
August 2011, when Jobs stepped down for good as CEO of Apple (just two months before his death), and
May 2005, when he gave the commencement speech at Stanford University.
First, August 2011. Many companies fall into chaos during times of transition. Apple did not. A big part of why, I think, is that Jobs had put himself (and Apple) in a position where he could write 17 short words in his resignation memo:
"I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple."
Things often look inevitable in retrospect, but having stable leadership for a full decade and a company that's worth over 7.5 times more than it was in 2011 was not the most likely outcome when Jobs had to step down for health reasons.
I think that the reason Jobs put a prem…
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