Steve Jobs Named Fortune's CEO of the Decade

[Rob Williams]

From our front-page news:

Step back, and take a hard look at the business world. Where CEO's of tech companies are concerned, who first comes to mind? Of course, there are many CEO's out there whom many would consider to be invaluable to the tech industry, but there only seem to be a handful who most people think of first. Could it be Intel's Paul Otellini? NVIDIA's Jen-Hsun Huang? Microsoft's Steve Ballmer? Google's Sergey Brin? It could be those, and more, but I'm willing to bet that the first name to come to mind for most is none other than Apple's Steve Jobs.

With his buttonless turtleneck shirts and casual dress, Steve looks like a man who loves to keep things simple. That's not far off the mark, as keeping things simple is reflected throughout Apple's entire product-line. But as simple as Steve might be, he's proven himself to be one of the smartest and most forward-thinking businessmen out there. How many CEOs do you know came back from a hiatus to a company on a decline, and managed to turn it around in the fiercest way possible, with unbelievable profit growth year after year and a turned the company name into a household name?

Very few, and it's for that reason that Fortune magazine named Steve as its "CEO of the decade". It's a fitting title, because even as someone who doesn't much care for Apple's products, you simply can't deny Steve's business saavy, and keen ability to predict what's going to do well, and what won't. There have been many products that Apple's released over the years that were scoffed at upon launch, but ended up growing on people over time. It's as if Steve knew better than the rest of us what we wanted from a product.

Take the iPod, for example. It's a product that's simple in almost every way, yet it's the most popular audio player on the market, bar none. Even people who aren't attuned to technology like the rest of us have to have one, and as bizarre as it might seem given I'm not an Apple fan, I also own one. Although I don't find iTunes to make much sense most of the time, the same applies here. Plus, and perhaps the most important thing, what other CEO do you know that looks as polite as can be, but also has the effect to scare the wits out of his employees when sharing an elevator?

Rather, Jobs is understandably driven by a visceral ardor for Apple, his first love (to which he returned after being spurned -- proof that you can go home again) and the vehicle through which he can be both an arbiter of cool and a force for changing the world. The financial results have been nothing short of astounding -- for Apple and for Jobs. The company was worth about $5 billion in 2000, just before Jobs unleashed Apple's groundbreaking "digital lifestyle" strategy, understood at the time by few critics. Today, at about $170 billion, Apple is slightly more valuable than Google.

Source: Fortune

[MacMan]

Steve Jobs may be more of a devil than a saint, but when it comes to being a CEO he's arguably one of the best and brightest out there, as I wrote on my blog. One of the things that struck me the most, was Andy Grove's dinner meeting with Steve when he was about 21 years of age, when Steve arrogantly said, and I as wrote on my blog:

"It was 1983. At one point during the meal, Steve stands up and yells, "Nobody over 30 can possibly understand what computing is all about."

I pulled him aside, waved my finger, and lectured him, telling him, "You're incredibly arrogant. You don't know what you don't know." His response was, "Teach me. Tell me what I should know."

We had lunch and talked, mostly about personal stuff. I don't think I taught him anything. But he was wrong when he singled a generation out. How old was Steve when the iPod came out -- 46?"

To me that is amazing, because in Steve's arrogance he also showed some incredible humility with his words, "Teach me. Tell me what I should know." For me at least, it shows Steve's passion to know, to understand and to learn, and clearly his response to being corrected, shows more than a sense of humility, but that he was highly impressionable and totally teachable, and that he could take criticism and correction like a man! Remarkable when you think about it."

From the lower case "i" found not only in Apple products, but seemingly every one elses, to the way presentations are made, from the way others copy Apple's little teaser ads, to the 'trash can' on the desktop, etc., if it wasn't for Jobs perfectionism, the world of technology would be far different than the one we find today, and who knows, we might still even be stuck in a world of DOS like commands, for all we know?

When Bill Gates was asked what he wish he had that Steve had, he said something to the effect that he wished he could have Jobs sense of styling, and his impecable great taste!

Steve Jobs may not be the best person in the world on a personal level, I don't know, but I do know that if not the best CEO, he is certainly one of the best! His close friend, Larry Ellison, said that one thing that made Steve different is that he has no real interest in making money, but rather instead had a real and sincere passion on simply making "Insanely Great:" products, and ones that helped to change the world by makiing the complex - simple!

So far, judging by the fact that Apple is the second most valuable tech company in the world, just behind its old nemesis Microsoft, is a testament that he has been right on the money, which in Apple's case is now between 37 and 45 billion per year!

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