The Idea Dude

CONNECTING THE DOTS ONE AT A TIME

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Resilience

Just read an article on Apple in Businessweek. Clayton Christensen of The Innovator's Dilemma fame questions the ability for Apple to survive in the future. I'm a great admirer of both Apple and Christensen. I would agree with him if Steve Jobs were no longer at the helm. Until then, I'd be the last one to place a bet against Apple. Here's why. If you follow Steve's journey in business, a couple of things stand out. He bucks the trend and has the courage to admit failure and do the right thing. He's not always right but he is relentless in challenging the norm. What he's done is build a brand and a loyalty that borders on religion.

They thought he was done when he was ousted from Apple, he built an awesome animation studio at Pixar challenging Disney. Without blinking, he returned to Apple and led the renaissance through iTunes and iPod. While the Mac was always known for their multimedia, to venture into online music and music-only devices was a stretch. I'm sure there'll be product failures in Apple's future...they're aren't immune. But I for one will be routing for them, in the world of bland, they exude technology excitement, innovation and style. The last thing you would accuse Apple of is being boring.

BTW: Steve in my opinion is so much like Richard Branson, another serial entrepreneur. They don't hesitate in taking bold steps even though to the masses, it seems stupid or foolhardy at the time. Not always easy being the prophet...

Here's an interesting transcript of a speech by Jobs. Worth reading and immensely inspiring.

As Steve says, "Stay hungry, stay foolish"

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Also Larry Ellison.

12:52 AM  

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