Jobs takes leave, AAPL down 7.71% in after hours trading

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/01/14/ap5921875.html

Too early for a dead pool?

IMO, yes too early

the big question: if/when he dies will he rise again?

jobs 2.0

lol

The mind boggles as to why he seems to be so integral to apple. Perhaps much of apple's success is the fact that he is a bit of a dictator? Committees usually produce mediocre watered down results...?

And it does seem to be common for the first versions of Apple products to have flaws that cause them to crap out...

I've read a few things suggesting that is the case, but Apple certainly still has committees, they just have clear and well defined boundaries and design goals.

The 'inspirational leader' thing helps a lot.

And yeah, you wouldnt believe how small Cupertino actually is, the only business unit that isnt in the 6 small buildings on campus is the new iPhone unit.

Most of Apple management is there from the 80's, i've got a mate who's the head of QA who is one of the "untouchables" (old friends of upper management, and they literally call themselves this and have their own culture)

http://www.pcworld.com/article/157863/world_without_steve.html?tk=rss_news
Hmmm, really makes you think eh.

If there was no Steve at the beginning, there would be no apple (obviously). Had he not come back in '97 apple would probably have died a horrible death.

No imacs, ipod, itunes, iphone...

kinda scary, would anyone have filled that void?

Yeah? It's not exactly like any of those things a revolutionary ideas. Craploads of products around that do similar stuff. Maybe not with as much hype or as good an interface in some cases.

Dont forget that Apple's dealing with record labels has been masterful Harv... They've fought tooth and nail to define how the whole ecosystem works.

Its consumer tech, hype and interface are more important than technical stuff, geeks forget that too easily.

Yes. But hardly scary.

Hahaha... with you there