RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CA – JUNE 01: Apple CEO Steve Jobs speaks at All Things Digital June 1, 2010 in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. Jobs spoke about where he thought the industry was headed. (Photo by Rick Smolan/Against All Odds Productions/Getty Images)
There are few people who have left a bigger imprint on the company they founded than Steve Jobs, who—along with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne—started Apple Computer in his parents’ home in Los Altos, California in 1976. Over the next four decades, Jobs introduced the world to iconic products like the Macintosh, the iMac, the iPod, and, of course, the iPhone. Even today, people still talk about Apple’s product decisions in terms of whether or not they think Jobs would have agreed.
Everyone has an opinion about something “Steve Jobs would never do.” I have no idea whether it’s true that, in any particular situation, Jobs would have made a different decision, but that isn’t really the point. The point is that Jobs had such a powerful impact on the way we think about Apple, that it’s natural to wonder what the company might be like today were he still around…