by Kevin Miller, RunRev CEO

My first introduction to the Mac was as a kid in the early 90s. My parents purchased a Mac LC and I was immediately hooked to its 256 color display. I quickly developed a fascination for computers and for all things Apple. I watched on the edge of my seat as Apple floundered from CEO to CEO and was as amazed as anyone else when Jobs came back and managed the turnaround that he did. I owned one of the first iPods, the model that wasn’t yet cool and could still be used as a weapon. And while RunRev has always used a plethora of platforms and devices, no-one to this day has managed to prize my Mac out of my hands.

So I was saddened today to read today about the resignation of Steve Jobs. For me, Jobs was always about leadership, about the power of design, of talent and charisma, combined with obsession and execution. He embodied the management adage that you should never let your company culture design itself. Jobs was the opposite of what many of today’s business leaders are: being much more famous for his involvement in the details of design than in his operational prowess.

Of course all leaders of all styles need talent and execution to succeed. But I also believe that in most cases, talent and execution must be combined with good timing and even a little luck. You have to be in the right place at the right time to truly succeed. Yet for me, Jobs flew against that adage as well. There was nothing in my mind particularly fortuitous about the timing of his return to Apple, other than that the company was struggling. He turned it around almost by sheer force of will, redefining Apple as something entirely different: as a creator of, and innovator in, the “post-PC era”. And making full use of his reality distortion field to do so. The distortion field was famous for many things, including making people want most things that he demoed, including products that they couldn’t imagine wanting…just a few minutes before watching Jobs on stage. But for me the distortion came with one more thing, even bigger than that. It seemingly came with the ability to create luck itself through sheer force of will. Even when things went wrong it worked…That’s not the death grip you’re looking for.

Of course we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye. RunRev has had its share of ups and downs and as is par for the course for any smaller company operating in the fringes of some larger ones, there has been the odd bump in the road. But we have a strong Apple following in our company and community and I know that if you look at both the big picture over time and at the many opportunities today (particularly on iOS), both RunRev and many of our customers have done very, very well over the years having businesses that operate in and around the Apple ecosystem. So (beyond just wanting the stream of cool toys to continue!) I’m hoping that Jobs’ successor will be capable of taking Apple forward and keep it driving the face of innovation for all of us in the tech industry for many years to come.

The hardest task that Tim Cook has to face right now is the fact that he has to follow Jobs. We have to replace that very familiar Steve icon with a perfectly adequate but radically less well known icon of Tim on our desktops. I’m sure that Apple has solid plans in place for the next couple of years and will do very well over that period. The timing of Jobs’ announcement today was most driven by health reasons but one thing is clear: Jobs certainly left Apple on a high. Hopefully some of the other design talent in the company will have a chance to surface and assert itself as Apple rides the wave it has created for itself over the next couple of years. We wish Apple and Steve well.

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