2012 100 - Networld Media Group

THE SPIRITUAL SUCCESSOR TO STEVE JOBS
Although Tim Cook assumed the mantle when Ap-
ple’s iconic CEO stepped down due to illness, Walter
Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs included the astonishing
disclosure that Apple’s senior vice president
for industrial design, Jonathan “Jony” Ive, has nearly
complete freedom to do as he sees fit. Ive, whom Jobs
called his “spiritual partner,” had “more operation
power” at Apple than anyone besides Jobs himself.
Jobs further told Isaacson that no one at the company
could tell Ive what to do. That, Jobs said, is “the way I
set it up.” When the reclusive and soft-spoken Ive took
the podium at a November event on Apple’s campus
to commemorate Jobs, he looked to be, in the words of
Michael A. Robinson, “as many have pointed out, the
spiritual successor to Steve.” While Ive’s design work
ultimately must mesh with the hardware requirements
coming out of Apple’s engineering groups under Bob
Mansfield, Eric Slivka wrote on MacRumors.com, “it’s
clear from Jobs’ comments that Ive is free to pursue
his own design solutions for Apple products.” That
Jobs-like level of freedom “ultimately helps to guard
against a watering-down effect that could occur if his
designs were subject to the approval of and revision by
others in the company.”
“Perhaps no one spent more time with Jobs in the last
fifteen years, and Jony looks poised, charismatic, and
unbelievably inspired,” Slivka wrote. “In short, he’s not
Steve, but he’s another kind of creative genius.”
Devin Leary-Hanebrink, blogging at Ludwig von
Mises Institute, posits that Jobs’ successor “would
more fittingly be an entrepreneur rather an innovator.”
Jobs, he says, “enjoyed a gift
few possess: the ability to transform
a fledgling idea into a masterpiece.
He rarely created from
scratch, but he could recognize
what we ‘needed’ long before we
even wanted it.” Not to be outdone, Kanye West proclaimed
himself to be Steve Jobs’ successor. In a series
of tweets on Jan. 5, 2012, the rapper announced
that he is creating a company called Donda — named
for his late mother — that “will pick up where Steve
Jobs left off,” with a mission, to “marry our wants and
needs to make products and experiences that people
want and can afford.” Apparently, he wasn’t joking. As
subsequent tweets explained, “We need scientists and
top world designers to directly affect governments.”
And, “I am assembling a team of architects, graphic
designers, directors, musicians, producers, A&Rs,
writers, publicists, social media experts …”. There, his
thought trailed off. Although his global plan remains
short on specifics, we include West here to represent
the countless others like him inspired by Jobs to think
different.
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