I'm sure you've all heard the news of Apple tycoon Steve Jobs' resignation by now due to his ongoing health problems. Since Apple has principally been the Steve Jobs one-man show for so long, it will be interesting to see how this affects the company's future position. So much of Apple's success and creativity has been based on Jobs' personal judgement and risk taking that I wonder whether the company under new CEO Tim Cook will be able to sustain things without him?

Obviously I'm sad to hear of Job's illness but I'm secretly hoping that this might mark the demise of Apple or at least allow some other rival companies to gain some recognition for a while. There are a lot of other good products out there that get overlooked and remain in Apple's shadows because of the power of the brand name.

The internet is already saturated with speculation over what it all means with some people commenting that it won't make a difference while others are more cynical. According to Reuters, Apple Inc have already been marked lower by investors... but since Apple is valued at over $153 billion... they prob don't have anything to fear for a while.

And Jobs will do quite nicely with his annual salary of $1 a year along with his Apple shares worth about $2.1 billion. Funnily enough, he's also the single largest Disney shareholder, with stocks worth about $4.4 billion!?

Whatever I think of Apple, Steve Jobs has always been quite an inspiring, motivational speaker and garnered an almost cult-like following among employees, entrepreneurs and customers. Here's a video of one of his most memorable speeches at Stanford University in 2005...




link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc


What do you make of it all?