The Jobs model works when you have a Jobs, or Gates, or Musk, someone whose inherent talent is so strong that the organization can look to him for all decisions. But the strategy for running a company in the long term cannot assume such a pope. If you have Michael Jordan on your basketball team your strategy can be “give him the ball” — if you are just five ordinary guys you will need a philosophy.
I’m talking about a pickup game of basketball with Michael Jordan on one team. That obviously doesn’t work when your opponents have 90% of the skill of Jordan.
This is exactly correct. Organizations that create dependency on such highly performing individuals can coast on their talent while they're around but once they're gone, its hard to replace them.
Usually these uber-productive individuals are required and necessary during the early stages of a corporation where you literally need that kind of productivity to survive. Once an org matures though, there is no such requirement.
It’s hard to give a good answer as I’m not privy to what was going on within Apple when he worked there. If I had to guess, I would say that Apples future was safe after the release of the first iPhone, and that Jobs could have stepped down at that point and the company would have done just fine.
