The Fanatic Innovator: Steve Jobs Medical Leave and How Leadership Affects Technology

Apple is one of the companies I‘ve been most impressed with in recent years. While I’ve yet to encounter a ‘perfect’ Apple product, and there are numerous things I would improve in each of the Apple products I own (such as my iPhone, Macbook Air, and iPod), I think the company has taken personal technology to a whole new level, way beyond any of its respective competitors.

Apple products are elegant, efficient, innovative, and mostly user-friendly. From my experience, innovation and attention to detail of this kind has to be abundant in two directions: both upstream and downstream. Upstream, you must have creative, competent, and motivated employees who will build and suggest amazing products. However, no matter how great and smart your employees are, if innovation and clear vision are not coming from the top, you will not make truly spectacular products. You might make good products, even great ones occasionally, but never spectacular.

A leader like Steve Jobs knows exactly what they want, does not take ‘no’ or ‘impossible’ for an answer — no matter how challenging the task at hand, and is willing to take huge risks (like dedicating $150MM and almost 3 years to develop a product they had no experience with, in a highly competitive and saturated market).

When senior leadership isn’t fanatic about building amazing products, it sets the stage for various ailments that plague mediocre products, for example design-by-committee, or making decisions based on how things currently work in the industry instead of how they should be working in a better world.

Steve Jobs’ announcement today that he’s taking a medical leave until June (which can easily become longer) can spell very bad news for Apple if no other visionary ‘buck-stops-here’ kind of leader takes over the company.  I truly hope the company can maintain it’s vision and excellence. Too bad however that unlike apples, Steve Jobses don’t grow on trees.