Apple Investors' Warring Hopes and Fears

In response to Apple CEO Steve Jobs' January 17 announcement that he was taking another medical leave of absence and "hoped" to return to the company he loves, former partner and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak said he was scared and surprised.

"The news actually frightened me because I did not expect it," Wozniak said in an email to Cnet.

Markets, analysts, Apple fans and Apple fanatics are frightened too, as Apple COO Tim Cook once again steps in to tackle the daily grind. Cook took over for Jobs in 2004, when he had surgery for a rare form of pancreatic cancer. Though Jobs returned to his post, he was constantly dogged by media speculation on his health.

The thought of life without Steve spooked everyone again in 2009, when he took a six-month leave for unexplained health reasons. Only after the fact did news surface that he had undergone a liver transplant.

In 2009, however, "there was an estimated time of coming back to the office," said Joe Silverman, CEO of New York-based Computer Help, an Apple/Mac certified IT service company. "With this recent health scare, there is not an end date in sight. That leaves investors bracing for the worst."

Fear of Failure

With new versions of the iPad, iPhone, and iPod poised to gobble more market share, will the worst materialize? Given Apple's great success, are all the concerns justified?

Ironically, it may be success that's motivating what is essentially, a fear of failure.

"When an organization is successful, people become very afraid of any change," said human resources and organizational change consultant BJ Gallagher, author of A Peacock in the Land of Penguins: A Fable About Creativity and Courage who has written about Jobs for the Huffington Post. "People fear that change will ruin their success."

More specifically at Apple, Gallagher told TechNewsWorld, unanswered questions unrelated to Jobs' health may also be driving the fear.

"People at successful organizations especially fear failure when they are unsure WHY they're successful," she explained. "Is Apple's success due to Steve Jobs? A superb design and engineering team? Terrific marketing? Their ability to create demand for a product we didn't even know we wanted? Or for creating a Cool Kids Club to which we all want to belong?" Gallagher asks. "If you don't know the reason for a company's success, you will not want them to change anything."

Gallagher's questions may finally get answered should Jobs do the unthinkable and never return.

Apple's Core

The job Jobs does recalls a line by basketball great Michael Jordan: "There is no 'I' in TEAM -- but there is in WIN," Gallagher explained. "Jobs is the superstar of Team Apple. Does he score all the points by himself? Of course not. But he inspires the team to greatness."

In his capacity as Apple's center, Jobs reminds Gallagher of Walt Disney. "Disney survived Walt's death and carried on his legacy." When Jobs passes, either sooner or later, "Apple will survive and carry on his legacy -- if they choose to."

Unlike Disney, however, "there is no succession plan in place at Apple," Computer Help's Silverman told MacNewsWorld. "Who can follow or is expected to lead a post-Jobs Apple company? The public has eaten, breathed, and lived with Jobs for decades. Seeing another spokesperson, marketer and inventor as the face of Apple seems like a foreign concept."

Byte of the Apple

Ultimately, Steve Jobs is legendary for a basic reason. Sure, he's ultra-creative, a genius marketer, and a sharp business person who can be ruthless when the opportunity presents.

Mostly, though, Steve Jobs is a survivor. He survived starting Apple, being ousted from it, and returning to find his beloved firm in shambles, a pending morsel for Microsoft, long considered the dark overlord of pseudo-innovation by legions of Apple fans.

He's also survived pancreatic cancer, a liver transplant, and every evidence of cachexia, a cancer-related wasting disease whose rail-thin presentation Jobs has ascribed to nutrient and hormone imbalances.

The most common pancreatic cancer -- adenocarcinoma -- is uniformly deadly, with a life expectancy of about one year. However, Jobs had a rare, more survivable form, an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor.

Surviving is a humble goal, but Jobs had a humble goal when he began, "to make a ding in the universe," Gallagher said. With or without him, "others will make their own dings in the universe -- both at Apple and in other high-tech companies."