From the Australian paper TheAge, Jobs made Apple great by ignoring profit by Clayton Christensen and James Allworth (Reuters):

Steve Jobs retires as the CEO of Apple with a reputation that will place him amongst the pantheon of history’s great global business leaders. Many people have written about what makes Jobs and Apple special, but I think they’re missing what truly set him apart. Jobs has succeeded by eschewing the one thing that most people view as the raison d’être for companies — profit.

When I left the industry to come to academia 22 years ago, it was driven by a set of questions that had troubled me for some time. Why was it that the best run companies in the world — companies that have had incredibly smart leaders, following carefully detailed plans and with tremendous execution ability — reliably seem to come unstuck? The answer to this question is what has become known as the theory of disruption.

via theage.com.au

It’s not often I argue with Christensen — one of his books on disruption is a cornerstone of a class I’ve taught at the University of Washington since 2003.  Continue reading →