There’s a lot of handwringing out there following the news of Steve Jobs’s resignation as Apple’s CEO. Yes, things will be different. Sure, it’s the End of an Era. But Jobs is only stepping down from operational control. This could actually be the best thing that ever happened to him—and to Apple.
How many truly creative people love all the management crap that comes with running a company?
In his famous commencement speech at Stanford, Jobs stated that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have happened to him.
“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
When Jobs left Apple in 1985, it was a public humiliation: he was fired from the company he’d created. Yet he went on to start Pixar and NeXT, and the rest is history. Today, Jobs is leaving Apple voluntarily at the top of his professional game, with an amazing organization in place behind him.
Who knows what Jobs may yet accomplish in this next period of his life? Freed once more from the weight of success, and the weight of running a world-changing company, who knows what yet he may create? Who knows how much his health may improve by eliminating the stress of running Apple?
Great things may well lie ahead for Jobs and for Apple. Let us wish him resounding health and great ideas.
