Ed,
Regarding your comment on Jobs:
"I think he's been very lucky. He's run businesses that did not make money but he comes out smelling like a rose."
The term "businesses" suggests more than one. I can't imagine what you'd be referring to other than NeXt (singular). Your description certainly wouldn't include Apple or Pixar. In the case of Apple, he co-founded, acted as President and was the thrust behind the creation of the Mac. Apple wasn't losing money. At NeXt, he did run the company and, as you stated, it didn't make money. But what it did do was offer a model of computing, at the beginning of this decade, that is being adopted as we speak. It also developed an Operating System that was sufficiently advanced to be germane today. And at Pixar, he has turned a $50 million investment into an $850 million return. I certainly hope you don't regard this as "just lucky".
This topic has been discussed in the past, where the unsinkable Bill Jackson has piped in (in his belief, Jobs can do no right). He made claims that Jobs' success at Pixar was due only to the team he purchased, and therefore, was not to his credit. Easy enough to say. But to such thinking, I would respond: "Who was it that renegotiated the Disney deal to a 50% take from 15% after one production (Toy Story)?" It wasn't the team, it was Steve. And under whose watch did Pixar go from a 3-year product cycle to the current 1-year cycle, accomplished in a 2-year period. Once again, it was Jobs. And it's Steve Jobs circa 1998 (for those that have a tendency to live in the past).
Steve Jobs may not be perfect, but even the Devil deserves his due. So I submit this in the spirit of balanced reporting, in the assumption that such is your goal, as well. As to the Bill Jackson's of the world, I have a hunch that, if AAPL were to go to $200 in the next year, he would attribute it to the rest of the Board of Directors (not including Jobs), or "just pure luck".
Respectfully,
Scott |
