I read this today:

What If Steve Jobs Doesn’t Come Back to Work?

But the risk to Apple is far higher if we imagine the grim possibility that Steve Jobs is unable to return to work. I’m not saying that because there is any shortage of good people at Apple. The company’s top management ranks are filled with some very skilled executives, including Tim Cook, the company’s chief operating officer, who will step in for Mr. Jobs while he is on leave.

But the essence of Steve Jobs — the obsessive visionary who involves himself in the smallest details of Apple’s products and advertising — has fostered what is in effect a corporate operating system that will need to be completely upgraded whenever a successor is named.

Steve Jobs deserves a lot of credit for the success of Apple. Before he returned, the company was headed in the wrong direction. But, somewhat ironically, it was headed in the wrong direction because it was doing all the things that conventional business wisdom said it should do – going after market share above all else, sacrificing quality for price, forgoing innovation for mass appeal, even licensing the operating system to other vendors ala Windows. Everyone would have said that Apple was doing the right thing…until 6 months later when they were in the stinker and Steve returned.

Steve has succeeded by doing innovative things well. The iPod almost single-handedly resurrected the company – who would have thought of that? The iPhone could have been a crappy “iPod with a phone” but instead Apple created a whole new platform for mobile applications. The point is that Apple has succeeded when it ignored common sense and when with great design and great ideas.

Steve is not the only guy around with great ideas. Apple has a great team in place to carry the company forward. The success of Apple depends less on Steve Jobs than on Apple’s own faithfulness to its customers, its vision, and its tradition of no-compromise design. It is still the case that only Sony among electronic companies ever gives Apple a run for its money when it comes to designing consumer technology products. Apple will continue to be the leader in computer design so long as Apple refuses to do what popular corporate wisdom says. When Apple sticks to her guns, Apple comes out on top, Jobs or no.