Silly Sunday Survey: Who would replace Steve Jobs?

Kevin Rose, I can just see it now.

Well of course Steve can't be replaced, the question is wrong. But the person to put up there instead can't be a business guy. Remember John Sculley...knowledge navigator? Still, Sculley was the better of all bean counters that followed until Steve made it back.

The leader of Apple has to be someone who won't take no for an answer, neither from engineering or marketing. Someone with creative thinking totally unfettered by technical constraints. And a track record for succeeding with that attitude (i.e. not John DeLorean, tho I love that car!) Methinks Richard Branson or Dave Lee Roth ;)

It should either be me or Paul Otellini ;)

Ok serious now: I think a combination of Phil Schiller and Jonathan Ive would be great. Scott Forstall is another option. He doesn't quite have de RDF yet, but I think he can achieve that over time.

Yeah, Scott Forstall. He's got the Jobs vibe, yet he's not a clone.

It would have to be someone who has
(a) technically competence
(b) a sense of design.
(c) personality/drive

How about John De Lorean?

Scott Forstall is the only one currently at apple who could replace Steve.

Woz would be the first one to tell you he'd be a terrible choice for CEO of Apple. He's an engineer, not a businessman.

#20 - Motorola? Are you serious? Have you ever used a Motorola product that included a user interface, like one of their phones? The entire company is an amalgamation of engineers and marketers, devoid of any understanding what the words "design" and "usability" mean. Yeah, they hire some outside contractor every now and then to design something crazy like the V70 or the RAZR, but even those are only superficially pretty - on closer inspection they look unpolished, gimmicky and sport extremely poor usability. And they're calling their products RAZR, ROKR, SLVR and PEBL, for chrissakes. MCBKPRO, anyone? Seriously, go to a local cell phone store and compare the construction, consistency of design, and feel of a SonyEricsson or Nokia handset to that of a Motorola or Samsung. While the usual geek audience will not care about anything other than size and feature overkill, one would think Apple has better standards than "Hello Moto".

As to who could replace Jobs, no one. Not yet. He needs to be at the helm another five to ten years, until the revolution he started is over and Apple has complete and utter control of the digital lifestyle market, is the number two or three movie and music retailer in the US and has beaten Vista and its successor into the ground. With no Jobs at the helm, we run the risk of half the crazy rumors about idiotic Apple products actually coming true. Tablet Mac! Upgradeable sub-$1000 Mac gaming rig! "True" video iPods before the technology is mature enough or regardless of whether the UI paradigm is actually workable.

First off, Jobs can't be replaced

From the list I'd say Schiller, he's like the anti-Ballmer, and that's a good thing

but for charisma's sake, I'd say Jonathan Ive (and because I'm also named Jonathan)

Apple run by a designer, Imagine that

Just one more name: I've heard that Bill Gates won't be spending much time anymore at Redmond, maybe he could fill in for Steve

Peter Oppenheimer

This is something I don't want to think about, really.

But, if I'm not mistaken, CEOs generally don't make all the innovations, so giving ALL the credit to Jobs isn't the best thing. The company would still have the R&D without Jobs, of course, but it wouldn't be quite the same without Steve. Now, I'm not entirely sure, but does Jobs take an active part in the development of the products Apple creates, like Bill Gates did with Windows?

I still think Apple would survive without Jobs. You guys seem to be forgetting that since Jobs cares a great deal about the company, he'd most definitely pick a worthy successor :P

And the Woz wouldn't be the best choice. If you guys are all worried about Jobs' health, the Woz wouldn't be any better. Wozniak is almost 10 years older than Steve, so his health will likely deteriorate earlier than Jobs'.