The Steve Jobs Resurrectionist Cult

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Every year, like clockwork, it’s the same old dance. Apple rolls out their latest products and right on cue, the usual suspects emerge from the woodwork with their favorite refrain: “Steve Jobs would never…”

You know how it goes.

Steve wouldn’t have launched this. Steve wouldn’t have said that. And even if he had, he would have done it better, smarter, smoother, sexier, with that Steve Jobs magic that apparently no one else can replicate.

I’ve started calling these folks the Steve Jobs Resurrectionist Cult.

The tech world loves few debates more than the endless Tim Cook versus Steve Jobs comparison. It’s been years since Jobs passed away, but there’s still a devoted group of Apple die-hards and tech pundits who seem convinced that Cook (or anyone else, for that matter) will forever fall short of the Jobs standard.

No one’s denying Steve Jobs was extraordinary. The man was a visionary who transformed how we interact with technology. His obsession with design, user experience, and his almost supernatural ability to know what consumers wanted before they did – that was something special.

But this notion that Jobs would have somehow made consistently and reliably better calls than Cook at every turn? Come on. It’s not just baseless – it’s pointless. The tech world of 2024 is wildly different from Jobs' era. What worked in 2011 might fall flat today. Modern CEOs need to tackle modern problems, not play a game of “What Would Steve Do?”

We genuinely don’t know what Steve would have done.

Nobody does.

Maybe instead of trying to resurrect Jobs' leadership style, we should let leaders be themselves. Different CEOs bring different strengths to the table. That’s not just okay – it’s necessary.

We have to break free from this weird fixation on measuring everyone against mythic figures. Both heJobsand Cook have shaped Apple’s success in their own ways. Constantly second-guessing Cook against some idealized version of Jobs doesn’t help anyone. Where Cook’s decisions are bad decisions, you have to let them be bad decisions because they’re bad decisions, not because Steve would have done it better.

Innovation doesn’t need a séance – it needs leaders who can see where they are today. The best way to honor Steve Jobs' legacy? Stop trying to resurrect it.