Steve Jobs has — as you’ve heard, no doubt — stepped down as CEO of Apple. He hasn’t retired; he’s now chairman of the board. And, despite many publications clearly running their pre-prepared obituaries as “profiles”, he hasn’t died.
His departure as CEO is clearly big news, the end of an era, and, given that it’s inevitably down to his poor health, quite sad. No matter what you think of Apple, its products and how it operates, Jobs at the head of that company was a powerful combination.
What’s… shall we say, intriguing, is the responses some people have had to the news. Newswire service Reuters has rounded up a few comments, and the unintentional comedy is incredible (there are also some funny-in-a-good-way stories emerging; check out this one from Google’s Vic Gundtora about Jobs’ attention to detail – and colours – here).
Here are the best/worst ones – keep in mind these are from this morning alone; we can only assume people were still in shock. If you see any other howlers, share them in the comments below.
“Steve Jobs is my hero, a legend in global industry and a true Willy Wonka-esque deliverer of joy and happiness through product and experiences,” Jason Hirschhorn, co-president of MySpace. Do you think Jobs has an iPhone fountain running through his mansion? If we find a golden iPad, do we get an invite to his house? That would be cool.
“It’s really sad,” said an anonymous Silicon Valley CEO. “No one is looking at this as a business thing, but as a human thing. No one thinks that Steve is just stepping aside because he just doesn’t want to be CEO of Apple anymore.” That’s all very true. However, this anonymous person decided to keep speaking: “It feels like another shoe is going to drop.” Which is a horrible, unthinking euphemism for: oh my God, he’s going to die soon, very soon.
“Frankly it removes an overhang,” said portfolio manager Michael Walker, being rather frank indeed. He also said: “I don’t know if anyone knows how his health is.” Jobs is a smart man, we’re pretty sure he knows how is health is, actually. If you don’t know about his health, stop talking about it.
“The battle is moving to the cloud and connective services,” said analyst Scott Sutherland. “It’s a chance to hire some people with those capabilities.” Yes, because Apple has a salary cap; it’s one in, one out at Cupertino.
“The timing is quite strategic, considering Apple is expected to announce the new iPhone soon,” said analyst Hendi Susanto, clearly aware of a new breed of strategic cancer. Jobs is a superb CEO, but no-one can manipulate diseases to correspond with product launches.
“The foregone conclusion was that we wouldn’t have Steve as CEO forever,” noted analyst Daniel Ernst, who perhaps needs to look up “immortal” in a medical dictionary.
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