back to article Apple shareholders demand CEO succession plan

Later today Apple's board will be asked to reveal its plans for replacing the company's absent boss Steve Jobs. The current CEO is on medical leave from Cupertino for the third time in the past seven years. The Apple chief told staff in January that the company board had agreed to his taking time off from the Mac and iPhone …

COMMENTS

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  1. maclovinz
    Happy

    Hope something works out....

    Let's NOT make comments about: "I hope he....blah blah blah's"

  2. jake Silver badge

    What happens when Steve goes?

    The iUniverse will fold up like a used condom; see HP sans Bill & Dave.

    EOF

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The board ...

    Is worried about the share price.

    When you have a cult of personality you have to suffer the drawbacks.

  4. Positive Luddite
    Happy

    "Egypt"

    No succession plan.

    S. Jobs will be ousted by the Apple masses sometime around his 80th birthday.

    They may chant "We demand to leak!", "Freedom of speech, blogposts, tweets!" and even "iPhone is just a phone, a Mac is just a computer!"

    Shareholders beware.

  5. Lord Lien
    Joke

    I'm taking over from Steve Jobs & I'm going too...

    ... take the shareholders money, fly to Vegas & put it all on black, on the roulette table.

    I have either doubled their money or they will fire me & I will get a big pay off.... so its a win, win situation for me.

    1. Dino
      Joke

      I'm the roulette table dealer

      Sorry sir - Can't allow 100Billion dollar bet - table limit on color is 5000-10000 dollars max...... please distribute across all tables in Vegas over several months/years?? !!!

  6. Scott Herter
    FAIL

    The share price will drop...

    The only question is when and how much. If they start talking about it now, the share price will drop, but not a huge amount. As time goes on it will recover somewhat. When Steve Jobs leaves, no matter how, it will drop. The amount it drops will depend on how scared everyone is. If they have a public succession plan, then it won't drop by a disasterous amount and should recover in a moderate amount of time. If there is no known succession plan then it will drop a lot and if the board looks like it doesn't know what to do, it will drop a disasterous amount and may never recover. Not only that, but if it drops enough, it would be a very tempting take over target for a lot of larger companies.

    The smart thing to do is to start talking about it now, publicly, to calm fears. Unfortunately this involves long term planning and risk mitigation, something we americans are very, very poor at. Most companies can't plan or think more then three months ahead, let alone years.

    Hanlon's Razor

    Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

    It seems particularly appropriate in this situation.

  7. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
    Stop

    And therein lies the problem...

    The fact that the board are suggesting that any succession plan be withheld on commercial grounds just highlights the fact that any plan they may suggest to have, doesn't actually exist.

  8. Neill Mitchell

    I hope...

    The successor demands a 30% subscription fee for their services. Only fair right ?

  9. JaitcH
    Alert

    Jobs losing his grip: named successor will acquire power

    Cook has been alongside Jobs since for ever so he is a natural to take over.

    The board will find it tougher this time around since some the larger shareholders are also demanding he details apart from the union shareholder that first raised the matter.

    Once Cook is named permanent CEO we will then find out whether he supports the 30% skim enforced since last week.

    They could follow the North Korean practice and name Jobs 'Eternal President', as they did with Kim Il-sung who moved on in 1994. To preserve the body, placing the corpse in a glass bath with potassium acetate, alcohol, glycerol, distilled water, and as a disinfectant, quinine does the job and will require an 18 month repeat cycle. Then they could keep it in a glass box to wheel out on appropriate occasions. Russians are the experts in this.

    1. TheBroker
      Jobs Horns

      LOL..

      LOL.. Awesome :D

  10. Dino
    Thumb Down

    It's proof ..

    I can understand why they are not wanting to disclose. Thing is they are digging their own hole by insisting on such secrecy - it' s proving that the only game plan apple has is steve jobs and by not allowing discussion of succession it's just digging the hole deeper!!..

  11. Hedon
    Grenade

    Bucket meet Can

    Can the board kick the CEO kicks the bucket can further down the road or will the bucket be kicked before the board can?

  12. mraak

    The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

    Not just Who. But also How. They will certainly not be able to act like fussy arrogant bitches after Steve.

  13. Rick Leeming

    Just put Woz in charge

    Because putting Woz in charge will give them the other Founder, and a man who does actually believe in open, interesting, fun and innovative new products.

  14. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Grenade

    Ravings of the Anti-Fanboy

    "Apple doesn’t want to publicly disclose any such plan because the company is worried that it could affect retention of its top people, who might be lured away by rivals."

    If that is the case then those same people should be creeped out even more with that little disclosure.

    'We won't be offering you the job, but we would like you to think you will get it so you keep on working as hard as usual in your executive position trying to impress the board while we look at high tech firms in Hong Kong for imaginative replacements instead of those people currently in place. Do not fear though. Our stock prices, ummm, sorry staff is the most important thing in the world to us.'

    Mr. Cook has my sympathies. Psuedo-CEO whose decisions can be over-ridden at a moments notice by his Jobness.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The answer is simple

    Once Apple's policy of Juche is firmly cemented, Jobs will ascend the heavens to become Apple's Eternal Leader. There will be no succession. Instead, a new Dear Leader will regularly communicate with Apple's Eternal Leader via a seance.

  16. Tempest
    Unhappy

    All this speculation depends on whether or not ...

    Jobs will even heed the call of the Grim Reaper, given that he is used to people following him.

    Americans make death such a fetish: all fancy coffins, urns, etc. Death is natural, so why fear it or treat it as being so 'special'?

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