I think it’s an encouraging sign that Apple bought
Beat. Now let’s see if they can
integrate Beat’s leaders with their culture.
Why do I think it’s encouraging? As everyone knows Steve Jobs was the visionary
at Apple. That is he could look at something
and had an unbelievable ability to see if it was cool. But more than that, he had focus and energy
to look at lots of cool things and pluck out what was really cool, drive people
to create something cooler, or move mountains to make technologies he thought
he needed for cool to come about.
What he didn’t do is hire competing executives. He hired complementary executives. That is he surrounded himself with guys who
could execute what they know Steve would like, or find cool things for Steve to
choose from. But the final decision was
always Steve. With him gone the decision
maker for cool is gone. Apple’s problem
is now who decides what’s cool? And for
a company like Apple, that’s the difference of remaining on top or just
becoming another Silicon Valley technology company.
So Beat, the guys at Beat are cool, know what cool is, and
can project ahead what consumers will buy because it’s cool. Which is what Steve Job’s did. By buying Beat, Apple has now bought
executives that hopefully can fill the shoes Steve Jobs left empty.
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