Steve Jobs resigns from Apple as CEO

His resignation letter:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community: I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

        I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board        sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.     
        As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our        succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.     
        I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it.        And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new        role.     
        I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank        you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.     
        Steve

…and that’s that. Goodbye, Apple.

I think they’re still a decade away from peaking, but we’ll see.

Guess he really is very ill then. Well, certainly personally I wish him the best, as much as dislike his business approach.

Further update confirming Tim Cook as the new CEO.

Not entirely unexpected but it would seem to not bode well for his health (unless there’s some other reason he’d resign).

Isn’t Apple’s culture sufficiently established that the company can function more or less the same without him at the top?

Yeah, thats where I’m at. Not a big fan of Apple products or their approach, but its a bad sign for he and his family that he can’t continue. Hopefully its not that bad.

Yes, but it could just as easily devolve over time without someone else stepping with the same fervor of keeping things on track.

Wow. This was certainly expected at some point, but still, it’s a real shame. Announcement went out after market close or we’d see AAPL plummeting right now.

My sincere best wishes to Mr. Jobs and to his family.

Steve’s legacy is secure, whatever happens to Apple next; revolutionizing an industry twice in one lifetime (three times, if you count Pixar) is something very few executives have ever accomplished.

Yes, yes. Please, keep saying that, and say it to as many people as possible. I’ve got my market orders all queued up to buy AAPL at a bargain price in the morning, assuming there’s enough short-sighted negativity in the market to keep driving prices down (already off 5%!) in after-hours.

He’s not flat-out leaving the company. They have massive funds, some of the most brilliant people in the industry, and, from what I’ve read, his own hand-picked successor (who’s had practice running the company during his medical leaves) has already been installed by the board.

This is not to discount Jobs genius and influence on the firm, but it will be just fine without him, because he’s molded it to be like him.

But no, please, doom Apple now. My portfolio will love it.

(Celebrating 35 years of going out of business!)

((And, I’ve-been-drinking-a-bit-tonight snarkiness out of the way, this can’t but bode ill for Jobs’ health, and that makes me sad. He’s had a nearly unrivaled impact on personal computing, and I hope this is more of a “I need to seriously focus on my health” than “I’m going to die tomorrow”. Because that day will truly be a loss to us all.))

You can see the stock dropping in after-hours trading: down 5% last time I checked. Still, I think people were expecting this at some point, and I can’t imagine that sales are going to drop anytime soon. Hopefully he can at least play an advisory role for high-level product decisions for the time being.

I think the lesson of Ballmer’s tenure at Microsoft is that, no, you simply can’t replace a visionary founder and expect things to be the same. I’m sure Tim Cook will be a perfectly competent CEO, and his Apple will hum along and continue to make good money, but there’s no way it’ll be Apple as we’ve known it under Jobs.

Jobs retiring is genuinely sad, because while I certainly have my share of criticisms of him, there’s simply no denying that he was a major, major force in the industry.

Sure, but the future is in change and Jobs was the catalyst behind changes at Apple. They can probably maintain without him but can they move forward? I don’t know.

Apple II, Macintosh, iPod, and iPhone give you at least four without Pixar.

(There’s also the iMac and OSX, which certainly revolutionized Apple, but don’t quite rise to industry-changing levels.)

So will Steve Jobs give away his billions in wealth the charities like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have pledge?

I imagine what they have in the pipeline will keep them busy for a few years, THEN we’ll see what they plan sans Jobs. (flash?)

And yeah he really must be ill to finally pass the torch. Positive thoughts sent his way.

Short term Apple has enough product in the pipeline to continue being a dominant force.

Long term my worry is that the company will devolve into squabbling camps arguing about “what Steve would have wanted.” The reason why Apple succeeded was because they had a visionary at the helm to drive the company right when the rest of the industry was going left. And several of those bets were win-or-go-home.

Time will tell if Tim Cook can come up with the next iPod/iPhone/iPad/iTunes/App Store.

Blind anti-Apple vitriol much?

Truly end of an era.

Nah.

Him and the Google founders have yet to pledge to give away portion of their fortunes. He’s closer to death’s door so one would think he would take up philanthropy like Bill and Melinda Gates have. Or they can take their fortunes with them to the afterlife like the Chinese emperors and Egyptian pharaohs.

Do you have any knowledge at all of what charities Steve Jobs is involved with? His lack of participation in this particular thing doesn’t mean very much.