Does Apple Need a New Front Man?

People are worried that Apple is going to go to crap now that Steve Jobs is on his second leave of absence. The strong undercurrent of thought is that since this is the second time Steve has left there's a stronger chance that he won't come back. No Steve Jobs means no Apple to a lot of people.

The fears seem well founded. When Steve wasn't at Apple the company was hugely innovative, but not very profitable. Steve Jobs returned and performed the best turnaround in recent history, and now Apple is the second most valuable company in the world. How nice? If you had invested $1,000 in Apple on the day Steve was named CEO (September 16, 1997) you'd have been able to purchase, roughly, 185 shares. A little over ten years later you'd have 740 shares thanks to splits, and the thousand bucks you originally invested would be worth $240,000. Looking at those numbers it is easy to see Steve Jobs as an indispensable part of those profits.

Recall that when Steve first announced Apple was profitable the company was much, much smaller. Everything Steve did had a much bigger impact. Back then Apple was a fast and flexible PT boat, today Apple is an aircraft carrier, powerful and hard to stop.

Steve Jobs isn't micromanaging things anymore, he can't. There's just too much going on. When all Apple sold was Macs, if there was a problem with the chips Steve could take a personal interest and go to Motorola to throw a fit. Things are different now, Steve can't take care of the lack of white iPhones, negotiate with Verizon and develop the iPad all at the same time.

Which brings us to the part where we have to admit Steve gets a little too much credit for Apple's current success. The popular perception seems to be that Steve sits in his office stamps "denied" or "approved" on various proposals that come across his desk while personally developing the iPad. From scratch. Using only a paperclip, rubber bands and aluminum foil. And maybe a little pocket lint. It is as if people think that Steve Jobs is some sort of real world Tony Stark, banging out iPhone prototypes by hand. That notion is about as realistic as, well, Iron Man.

People will then say that Steve Jobs is crucial because of his design acumen. They'll hear stories about Steve telling engineers to add two screws to a MacBook or reflect on how radical the iMac was when it was first introduced and imagine that Steve is the most gifted industrial designer that has ever lived. If you are in that camp consider the following anectdote: When the iMac G4 was being designed Jonathan Ive wanted to produce a machine with all the guts behind the monitor. Steve Jobs brought Ives to his home and said, "Jonny, you insufferable prick, the guts of the computer want to lay down." Well, the insult part isn't accurate, but he did tell Jonny that the motherboard and such wanted to lay down. When you think about that for a moment it seems like a design stroke of genius. The Sunflower iMac was beautiful. When you look at the current iMacs you realize that Mr. Ives was ahead of the curve.

None of this is meant to minimalize Steve's influence at Apple, the company is what it is today because of his leadership, and the sheer force of his personality. But the company is going to be great a long time after he is gone because of what he has put in place. Steve has paved a great path, but the one area of Steve's leadership that seems truly unparalleled and that will be sorely missed is his ability to pitch.

Steve Jobs has a certain charisma, a certain enthusiasm for Apple products that isn't going to be replaced easily. If you were fortunate enough, as I was, to attend the Macworld where the original iPhone was introduced you actually felt the Jobs' charisma in person. It wasn't  the forum that got Steve Jobs over, it wasn't the pro Apple crowd, it was just Jobs. Everyone else who took the stage that day had interesting stuff to say but everyone else was boring.

Two years later Phil Schiller did the keynote. Steve was out on medical leave and the initial reaction to the keynote was: "Good Gravy! That was awful!" Except it wasn't. When you go back and watch Phil's keynote you'll discover it was really nice, it holds up against almost any corporate keynote you'll see. Except for a keynote given by Steve Jobs.

It doesn't seem like it should be hard. Pick the high spots of any product, gloss over the low spots, have abundant enthusiasm and practice your presentation relentlessly. Mick Jagger knows that isn't true, it's The Singer, not the Song and if Apple wants the hype-filled media circus the company's press events currently create they are going to need to find a new rockstar, not just a new singer.

If the past is any indication, Apple needs someone to enthusiastically tell the fans of the company how great their stuff is. And looking at the people in upper management, you just don't see it right now. As I mentioned previously, Phil Schiller did a nice job but put his performance up against Steve Jobs' masterful crowd manipulation and he comes off as a boring professor. Tim Cook is running the company in Steve's absence, and Tim Cook is a great choice, but if Mr. Cook was doing a product intro it would probably go like this:

"We made a phone. It is great. If you like it you should buy one. Why are you still here?"

Honestly, Al Gore loves Apple board meetings because when Tim Cook is there he isn't the most boring person in the room.

Wait, maybe the entire premise is flawed. The idea, so far, is Apple needs another great pitchman because Apple has had a great pitchman since Steve returned. But is that necessarily true? Does Apple need an animatronic Billy Mays to keep the company going? Not anymore.

When Apple was teetering on the verge of insolvency it was crucial to have a head evangelist. When Apple is selling tens of millions of products a year the pitchman is not nearly as important. Apple is not a specialized company selling to the best of us anymore, Apple is selling to the entire consumer market. The broad market Apple appeals to now isn't as obsessed with the utterances of Steve Jobs, and they aren't desperate for a reason to buy the latest Mac. In the end, Apple will be fine without a great pitchman. But old school Mac fans will miss him, until he returns.