Macworld - The greatest fallacy in the story of Steve Jobs stepping down as Apple CEO, the one youll find in endless media reports, is this: In 1985 after Steve Jobs left Apple, the company went on a downhill slide that led it to the brink of bankruptcy. Therefore, the Apple of 2011 is at risk of doing the same.
The factual statements are true, so far as they go. Steve Jobs did leave Apple in the mid-80s, and a succession of Apple CEOs named Sculley and Spindler and Amelio did manage to nearly run Apple into the ground over the next 12 years.
But the flaw in the History Repeats Itself storyline being promoted in some corners as Jobs steps down as CEO is that the Apple of today is nothing like the Apple of 1985.
When Steve Jobs left Apple the first time, I was finishing my freshman year of high school. As a result, I have no insider knowledge of that era. Eight years later, I was covering Apple and Apple rapidly went through three CEOs who made numerous bad decisions that led Apple to the brink of disaster. Steve Jobs, meanwhile, was building a company (Next) that had created an interesting computer operating system that was being used by approximately nobody.
The magic happened when Jobs came back to Apple, so when I say that Gil Amelio helped run Apple into the ground, I have to admit that he also made the decision that saved Apples life: He bought Next and didnt just get the foundation of Mac OS X (and eventually iOS)he also got Steve Jobs.
By 1997, Jobs ran Apple with absolute power, the kind of power he had never had during his first go-round at Apple. Jobs was a co-founder, yes, and his time working with the original Macintosh team is the stuff of legend. But the Apple of 1985 wasnt Steve Jobss companynot hardly.
When he took the interim CEO job more than a decade later, Jobs didnt make that mistake again. Older and wiser, and with the complete support of Apples board of directors, Jobs remade the company to his specifications. The iMac was a first quick sign of the turnaround. The original iPod and the decision to open retail stores began the real momentum. The release of the iPhone and the iPad marked Apples ascendance to what it is today: The most important technology company in the world.
The Apple of today is hugely profitable, with tens of billions of cash, a 90 percent share of the tablet market, a rapidly growing smartphone business around the world, and the only truly profitable personal-computer franchise left. This is where Steve Jobs leaves Apple as CEO: on top, with momentum to carry it further up.
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