Daring Fireball: On Succeeding Steve Jobs
On Wednesday, less than 30 minutes before Apple announced another record-breaking quarter of financial results, the Wall Street Journal published a story by Yukari Iwatani Kane, Joann S. Lublin, and Nick Wingfield regarding the issue of Apple CEO succession. (You can circumvent the WSJ paywall using this link, which allows access to anyone coming to the story from Google.)
Here’s the nut of it:
Since Steve Jobs went on medical leave this winter, some members of Apple Inc.’s board have discussed CEO succession with executive recruiters and at least one head of a high-profile technology company, according to people familiar with the matter.
The conversations weren’t explicitly aimed at recruiting a new chief executive and were more of an informal exploration of the company’s options, said these people. The directors don’t appear to have been acting on behalf of the full board, some of these people said. Apple has seven directors, including Mr. Jobs.
It is also unclear whether Mr. Jobs was aware. In response to questions from The Wall Street Journal about the discussions, Mr. Jobs said Monday in an email, “I think it’s hogwash.”
As I wrote when the story broke, to say that the timing of the publication was suspicious is an understatement. Everyone knows the question of succeeding Jobs is attached to dynamite.
Definitely worth a read. Gruber usually is pretty spot on with his insights about Apple.