La Preocupación por Steve Jobs

A propósito del retiro "temporal" de Steve Jobs de su cargo como cabeza de Apple reproduzco algunas frases que esbozan la importancia de una sola persona para una organización, en este caso para Apple:

"The aesthetics that he has demanded of his machines are not the frippery of corporate identity; they are the aesthetics he's demanded of himself. They are a response to something -- something deeply personal -- which is why they remain mysterious and impossible to duplicate. "It's almost like all the products are his own appearance," says Steve Wozniak, the guy who built the first Apple computer in the garage of the house where Jobs grew up in Cupertino, California."

"Every Apple computer, every iPod and iPhone, is signed -- though not literally -- by Steve Jobs. Remove that signature, remove his animating sense of ownership, and they become something less; they become gadgets, and Apple becomes just another cool gadget company, like Sony in the eighties."

"So long as Steve Jobs is alive, Apple will always be more than a cool gadget company. It will always be more than a computer company. It will be more than an iTunes company or an App Store company -- more, even, than the sum of its parts. It will be part of the ongoing history of humankind's relationship to machines."

"His greatest value to Apple may be the influence he has with employees and outsiders. Only Jobs is capable of convincing the 32,000-person company that it can wade into new business—like music or cell phones—and rewrite the rules of competition. While mobile-phone rivals produce dozens of models designed to meet the needs of various consumers, he came out with a single iPhone—and took a big chunk of the business. He also persuaded AT&T and other wireless operators to give up control over what software can be installed on the iPhone, giving Apple the opportunity to distribute new applications for the device."

"There's not a lot of management at Apple -- only about six layers between any employee and Jobs. So if Apple begins with Steve Jobs's experience of technology, it ends with its employees' experience of Steve Jobs. "You might go awhile without seeing him," says a former software engineer. "But you are constantly aware of his presence. You are constantly aware that what you're doing will either please or displease him. I mean, he might not know who you are. But there's no question that he knows what you do. And what you're doing."