Who will be the next CEO of Apple Computer?
October 09, 2006 by Charles Jade
Douglas McIntyre at bloggingstocks.com asks and gives some possible answers to the question of who will eventually replace Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple Computer.
* Philip Schiller, 45, Apple Computer
* Timothy Cook, 45, Apple Computer
* Tony Fadell, 36, Apple Computer
* William Campbell, 65, Intuit
* Jerome York, 67, IBM
* James Allchin, 55, Microsoft
* Susan Decker, 43, Yahoo
* John Thompson, 57, Symantec
One has to examine the list of candidates as if Steve Jobs were leaving Apple today, if for no other reason than adding five or ten years disqualifies several people because of age. Even without adding time, it's probably safe to eliminate those individuals collecting Social Security, so York and Campbell are gone, probably Thompson too. A peek at the Executive Profiles and Board of Directors shows leadership at Apple begins with a Y chromosome, so that likely eliminates Susan Decker. As for Allchin, does anyone really think Apple Computer is going to hire the midwife of Windows Vista?
The more obvious and likely choices come from within Apple, but the question really isn't who will replace Steve Jobs. The real question is who will choose the successor, and that will likely be Steve Jobs. Some time after returning to Apple Computer in late 1996, Jobs remarked that he had "given Apple to a bozo once," and that it wouldn't happen again. What this means is that the future of the company, like the present, is dependent upon the brilliant and erratic vision of Steve Jobs. Let's hope he's in the iPod groove, and not Cube mode, when the next CEO is chosen.
arstechnica.com |
