Some of these businesses -- particularly the latter category (Kraft, Kroger, Walmart, General Mills, P&G, etc.) -- are "systems" businesses, and not necessarily "people" businesses.

P&G runs like a machine because it is a machine. It's a relentlessly optimized, error-reduced, tolerance-tightened machine. Jobs at P&G fit into very clearly defined (almost proscribed) roles, and if you hold one of these jobs, your mission is to execute that role without deviation. The company hires very smart people -- but it's more concerned with people who can fit frictionlessly into the machine than with people who want to break the mold. Same thing with Walmart, or McDonald's, or General Mills, or Coca Cola, etc. The general philosophy is to design an internal playbook that is foolproof, then hire people who are sharp enough not to mess it up.

[At this point I will pause to note that the description "systems business" is not intended to be a pejorative. Tightly controlled systems are not necessarily correlated with failure to innovate, to design, or to grow. P&G is capable of innovation, for instance, but it has playbooks for how to innovate. It follows recipes for innovation, rather than relying on the hiring of wildly creative people who will swing for the fences and hit or miss.]

Contrast these firms with what I'd call "people" businesses -- typically, tech startups or creative fields. Many of these companies are high-variance systems. A visionary founder, or visionary product leads, can propel a "people" company forward like a bat out of hell. But a lackluster CEO, or dimwitted product leads, can dash the company's fortunes on the rocks. These businesses give their people a lot of freedom to operate, to pursue whims, and to think outside the box. I would put Google in this category, or at least the Google of recent memory. Same thing with Disney, or Warner Brothers, or Virgin. These companies are in the homerun business. They swing for the fences, and at any given at-bat, they either they smash it out of the park or strike out. More often than not, they tend to strike out -- but the grand slams often make up for the multiple strike-outs.

Apple is interesting, in that it's neither fully one, nor the other. With Steve Jobs at the helm, Apple was certainly dependent on one person -- so it had the characteristics of a "people" company. At the same time, Apple was actively engaged in systematizing its roles and procedures, especially in the latter years of Jobs's life. Jobs even made occasional reference to the P&G model. It was as if he knew that the longevity of the company depended on the ability to implement foolproof, flawless internal systems that any smart people could operate without failure. The problem is that he still left a critical hole at the top, and he never took the systematizing exercise to its natural conclusion.

Well, any time you're looking at companies before vs after the death of their founder, you've got the confounding factor that the company is always younger when the founder is alive.

Google founders Brin and Page were what, 25 when they founded Google? If they've got a 75 year life expectancy, Google will be a 50 year old company when they die. I'd have thought a 50 year old Google would look more like a stable blue chip company than a fast-moving frenetic startup.

It's hard to say definitively. I think it's mostly about installing well-groomed successors. Degrees, of course, have almost nothing to do with this; companies need a consistent philosophy to produce consistent results, and a CEO you hire off the street isn't going to do much unless your company is in full automation mode by that time. Apple definitely did the right thing to style Tim Cook as a Jobs protege. I'm not really worried that Apple is just going to lose its material edge overnight, but I think some may perceive things that way, and for Apple, it's all about perception.

Something like McDonalds, Wal-Mart et al was established as a cookie cutter, repeatable thing. People go there because they want consistency; they know what to expect. Their patrons aren't looking to have their minds blown or to become excited about their interactions; the most successful companies in the world are much maligned externally because they're seen as dry and exploitative, but most people still patronize them. It's not cool to like them, but they do very well precisely because of that predictability, that blandness.

Apple, however, lives and dies by its reputation as a visionary, an entity that is constantly breaking new ground. This is because owning a Mac is as much about the cult of Mac as it is about the actual benefits of the product. Apple isn't a cookie-cutter franchise; it needs to bring controversy and produce products that are radically different from the rest of the industry to maintain credibility. If that credibility as a visionary is lost, much of Apple's userbase comes into jeopardy, because believe it or not, it's still less effort for most people to use Windows. That will never change until OS X approaches 50% of the market.

For companies like this, the keystones of their cultural identity are the most important business assets to protect. Unfortunately, Apple chose to heavily exploit "the genius of Steve Jobs" angle while he was around (perhaps because it's much more difficult to propagate a narrative about the vision of a design committee than the vision of one amazing man), and now they're paying a price for it.

Apple may recover, and they have some usable momentum, but it's definitely going to take some oomph out of their sails because Apple's dominance is not based on the superiority of its products, but the culture and attitude around them. I think Cook is well-qualified for the CEO position, but imo the way to put this Jobs stuff to rest is to present Cook as a regularly ordained successor, tutored by Jobs, and to have him assume some very Jobsian habits that would make this externally visible (for instance, give Cook the same veneration and mystery that Jobs received while presenting at Apple conferences, make him the human focal point and the apparent origin of all innovations). To the people closest to Steve Jobs, this may seem a grotesque mockery, but if your whole company is based on the dog and pony show, you have to keep up appearances.

I am always amazed by people who claim Apple is ''breaking new ground''. Thats the exact opposite of what they do. They are never the first ones to introduce new devices or new services. They are rather followers than innovators. They did not invent mp3players, they did not invent smartphones and certainly did not invent tablet computers. All you can say is that they are good/fierce competitors, and good marketers, but ''breaking ground'' classes you either as an ignorant or a member of the mac cult.

I think it's pretty unfair to characterise the iphone as not breaking new ground. They didn't invent cellphones or touchscreens, but in 2006 you could not buy a phone that looked anything like an iphone, and yet by 2009 that was the dominant form factor for smartphones.

Even the ipod I would say is similar, albeit a little less so; prior to 2001 mp3 players were hardly entrenched, the ipod was the device that didn't just take them mainstream but finally made CD and minidisc players obsolete. To me, that was breaking new ground, even though it wasn't the first portable mp3 player.

Totally agreed. They might not be the original inventors of a computer technology, but their implementations are always groundbreaking. From the start, they took things other people did poorly and dominated on implementation, totally shaking up the market. Just look at the big 3:

- There were computers, they made personal computers

- There were mp3 players, they made the ipod

- There were phones, they made the iphone

In all 3 cases, the invention existed but was poorly designed and people did not like it or use it very often. And in all 3 cases, they created a version that was smaller, lighter, better designed, and that people loved to use and completely changed the entire industry.

" There were computers, they made personal computers"

Glad you forgot to mention the C64, the computer that sold much more units than Apple could hope to sell with their ridiculously priced Apple 2, thereby bringing actual computers into millions of homes while Apple II remained on a niche market.

Please don't rewrite history to your convenience.

The Apple II went on sale in 1977. The Comodore 64, in 1982. So, half a decade later another computer was introduced and you say that he's "rewriting history" to ignore this computer that came so much later?

It is people like you who ruin HN for everyone.

For our purposes, it's about the perception of groundbreakingness, not the reality of it. They need to make things that look and feel different than what's available (and in this sense they are breaking new ground in consumer design) and get a controversy stirred. As long as the new stuff is philosophically compatible with the old stuff and a credible claim to the spirit of Jobs can be established, the cult of Mac will grow until they reach some level where these dynamics go out of balance. Apple relies on its underground status for its coolness, too; if everyone had it, the many Mac denziens that want to feel special will find another obscure thing to latch onto.