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Top 10 Crooked CEOs

Bernie Madoff, who is scheduled to be sentenced June 29 for perpetrating history's biggest Ponzi scheme, is just be the latest in a long line of industry titans turned crooks

 

Bernard Madoff

Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC

Pleaded guilty: March 12, 2009 to 11 charges of fraud

Next to Bernie Madoff, the rest of the sticky-fingered CEOs on this list seem like dime-store shoplifters. Madoff's decades-long, $65 billion Ponzi scheme, which came to a screeching halt with his Dec. 11, 2008 arrest and earned him 150 years in prison, is perhaps history's biggest financial swindle, and his trademark thin-lipped smile became the defining image of the avarice that last fall nearly brought the global financial system to its knees. What made his deception doubly painful was Madoff's sterling reputation—for years, he was regarded a pillar of the investment community, a taciturn superstar whose clockwork returns had clients nearly breaking down his door. From the 17th floor of the Lipstick Building in Manhattan, the 70-year-old money manager bilked thousands of investors, picking the deep pockets of his country-club counterparts, bankrupting charitable foundations, ransacking tycoons and celebrities alike. When he pleaded guilty in March to federal charges that carry up to 150 years in prison, millions cheered his comeuppance. What we've yet to come to terms with, however, is the way in which his unalloyed greed exposed our own.

 

Kenneth Lay & Jeffrey Skilling

15 of The World's Most Admired Companies

Via:CnnMoney

Apple

 

Top 50 rank: 1
Rank in Computers: 1
(Previous rank: 2)
Overall score: 7.95

Steve Jobs does it again: Apple is keeping its Most Admired crown for the third year in a row.

With 250 million iPods, 43 million iPhones, and 32 million iPod touches sold to date, plus the promise of a game-changing iPad, Apple won this year's vote by the highest margin ever for a No. 1. Two more years as champ and Apple will match GE for most appearances in the top spot.

What makes Apple so admired? Product, product, product. This is the company that changed the way we do everything from buy music to design products to engage with the world around us. Its track record for innovation and fierce consumer loyalty translates into tremendous respect across business' highest ranks.

As BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer puts it, "The whole world held its breath before the iPad was announced. That's brand management at its very best."

 

Google

Top 50 rank: 2
Rank in Internet Services and Retailing: 1
(Previous rank: 1)
Overall score: 7.70

Google is increasingly squaring off against Apple, so it's fitting that the search engine giant climbs into the no. 2 slot this year, notably edging past Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.

The tech behemoth -- its revenues were $23.6 billion last year -- continues to dominate search on the web and attract the smartest designers and engineers. Meanwhile YouTube, long disparaged by critics as a money-loser, has started showing signs of major growth potential and analysts expect it will become profitable in the coming year.

But all eyes are on the Android OS for smartphones, to see how seriously it will challenge Apple's iPhone in the hotly competitive world of mobile devices. Watch this space next year.

 

Top 50 rank: 3
Rank in Insurance: Property and Casualty: 1
(Previous rank: 1)
Overall score: 7.12

Warren Buffett's legendary investing genius and seemingly clairvoyant understanding of markets has kept his firm (which includes holdings in insurance, retail and energy, among others) a perennial favorite among executives.

Last year Buffett made news again when he announced Berkshire would make its biggest-ever acquisition, Burlington Northern Santa Fe for $26 billion. When the deal closed in February, Berkshire replaced the railroad on the S&P 500.

Berkshire's class A and B shares have been some of the best-performing stocks ever, last year increasing in book value by 19.8%. That's less than the 26% the S&P returned, but in his much-anticipated annual letter to shareholders last month, Buffett explained that while Berkshire has in some years lagged the index when the overall market gained, "We have consistently done better than the S&P in the eleven years during which it delivered negative results. In other words, our defense has been better than our offense, and that's likely to continue."

In fitting form, he closed with a quip after inviting shareholders to attend his annual meeting: "P.S." he wrote. "Come by rail."

 

 

Top 50 rank: 4
Rank in Pharmaceuticals: 2
(Previous rank: 1)
Overall score: 6.67

Survey respondents cheered J&J's banner year in 2008, which made it one of the most profitable companies in the Fortune 500 (earnings grew 22%, while the Fortune 500's profits dropped 85%). They also celebrated its stock performance the past few years, when the health-care giant consistently beat the S&P.

But the troubled economy brought sluggish sales last year, and J&J was forced to lay off 7,000 employees in November.

Even so, thanks to continued innovation and an overhaul of its pharmaceutical business, the company continued to win admiration. It also rewarded shareholders, increasing dividends as its stock climbed nearly 32% in the past 12 months.

 

 

Top 50 rank: 5
Rank in Internet Services and Retailing: 2
(Previous rank: 2)
Overall score: 7.39

What a show! The Internet retail giant makes a triumphant debut on the list this year at No. 5 as continued growth, strong sales in the recession, and the early success of the Kindle won Jeff Bezos the respect of our voters.

While Amazon doesn't publicly disclose product sales figures, the company claims millions of the electronic media readers have sold, and that it now sells six Kindle e-books for every 10 printed books.

That early success will soon be challenged by Apple's forthcoming iPad, of course, but Amazon's innovation and leadership in 2009 were more than enough to win Big Business's high esteem.

 

Top 50 rank: 7**
Rank in Motor vehicles: 3
(Previous rank: 2)
Overall score: 5.20

Surprised to find Toyota on our list? Not only did the troubled car maker make the top 50, but at No. 7 it's the highest-rated foreign company. What gives?

Our surveys were completed in the fall and winter -- most were received after Toyota's October recall of floor mats, but well before the gas-pedal crisis escalated to epic proportions in January. At the time of the polling, Toyota reaped the benefits of its legendary reputation for quality leadership and from its continued growth as U.S. car companies suffered; in 2008, the company surpassed General Motors as the world's largest automaker.

Even with that polling schedule, Toyota fell four spots from last year's list. The true test will be how it fares next year.

If history is any guide, it has a rough road ahead. When Merck recalled its arthritis drug Vioxx in 2004 after a clinical trial confirmed that it increased the risk of heart attacks, the pharmaceutical giant fell off our America's Most Admired Companies list the following year. It has yet to return.

 

Top 50 rank: 8
Rank in Megabanks: 1
(Previous rank: 1*)
Overall score: 7.66

The public at large may still see Goldman as the poster child for the greed that sparked the financial crisis, but its reputation in the business world is stronger than ever: The company shot up 7 places from No. 15 last year.

The strongest financial services firm to emerge from the recession, Goldman paid back its $10 billion TARP loan with a 23% return to taxpayers in July, and has watched its stock rise 85% in the past year, and is currently trading around to $158 a share.

Responding to criticism over extravagant executive pay, last month the bank announced that as a bonus, CEO Lloyd Blankfein would collect 58,381 shares of restricted stock -- valued at $9 million -- but no cash.

 

Top 50 rank: 9
Rank in General Merchandisers: 1
(Previous rank: 1)
Overall score: 7.14

With $405 billion in revenues, the world's largest retail chain has earned the respect of business by managing an elephantine network of discount stores that employ more than 2 million people in 15 countries -- stores that welcomed new customers seeking low prices in a troubled economy.

With more than 100 million shoppers per week, the company now accounts for 10% of retail sales in the U.S., and managed a 8.8% profit gain last year by cutting costs.

Not that it's immune to recessionary pressures: In January, the company announced it would lay off 11,000 workers in its Sam's Club stores.

 

Top 50 rank: 10
Rank in Beverages: 1
(Previous rank: 3)
Overall score: 6.98

While sales lagged in the U.S. last year, the food and beverage maker saw growth in emerging markets like China and India, as well as Europe, where favorable exchange rates have helped bring fizzier revenues.

Coke has been a leader when it comes to environmental issues: It is aiming to be water neutral -- meaning every drop of water used by the company will be replenished -- by 2020, and CEO Muhtar Kent participated in climate change talks in Copenhagen in December.

But Coke is perhaps most admired for one thing: the strength of its brand. As the company watched consumption patterns change in the U.S. -- where consumers are becoming more health- and cost-conscious -- it focused marketing on its take-home division.

Kent has strong opinions when it comes to what it takes to preserving a corporate reputation: "There are two things in this regard a CEO can never delegate," he told Fortune. "The first is communicating your organization's vision for the future, and the second is ensuring that you are developing the right leaders to execute that vision. Everything about a company's reputation emanates from those two sources of influence."

 

Top 50 rank: 11
Rank in Computer Software: 5
(Previous rank: 5)
Overall score: 6.54

The successful launch of Windows 7 and the debut of search engine Bing – a noble effort to win over Google detractors -- shows that Microsoft is still holding onto its title as king of the software business. In the works at the house that Gates built: software for a mobile smartphone and a new tablet OS to vie with Apple; a new version of the company's Office application suite; and a revamped xBox console to compete with Nintendo's Wii.

 

Top 50 rank: 12
Rank in Airlines: 4
(Previous rank: 3)
Overall score: 6.26

Despite facing the most difficult economy ever for the airline industry, the leading low-cost U.S. carrier gained market share and extended its flight map. Southwest added new routes, including gates at New York's LaGuardia, and made an unsuccessful bid in August to acquire bankrupt rival Frontier Airlines for $170 million. And while other cash-strapped carriers have started adding fees for checking a bag, Southwest will still carry two for free, earning from consumers and business the respect it touts with its stock ticker symbol: LUV.

 

Top 50 rank: 13
Rank in Delivery: 2
(Previous rank: 1)
Overall score: 7.26

Business looks to FedEx as a barometer for the economy, and as customers sent fewer packages during the recession, decreased revenues led to the company's first-ever layoffs last November. The delivery specialist dropped slightly in its favor with executives, falling six spots from No. 7 last year. But increased demand in its international business, particularly Asia and Latin America, as well as the company's ability to strictly manage costs without sacrificing service, has enhanced the company's reputation for reliable on-time deliveries.

 

Top 50 rank: 14
Rank in Food Services: 1
(Previous rank: 1)
Overall score: 8.08

The fast-food king saw sales dip last year as competitors offered heavy discounts and recession-crunched consumers cooked at home.

But Mickey D's fought back, beating the competition with its dollar menu and offering a variety of new products, including espresso drinks and wraps. As it catered to patrons with less to spend in the recession, McDonald's posted huge profits.

The restaurant giant's nimble reactions caught the attention of our respondents: It climbed two spots on our list this year from No. 16.

 

Top 50 rank: 15
Rank in Information Technology Services: 1
(Previous rank: 1)
Overall score: 7.60

Big Blue's decade-long transition away from hardware and into software and services continues apace: Its software business has nearly tripled in the past 10 years, and its services division continues stellar growth. In 2009, the company also bucked the recession and watched its stock climb 60%. Part of the reason: IBM is leading the Unix market in midrange servers -- beating Oracle and Intel -- and recently introduced the new Power7 chip, which runs four times faster than its predecessor. Who says big companies can't change -- or, for that matter, innovate?

Top 5 Reasons Porn-for-Profit Is Dying

 

Why is the adult film business in dire straits? Sasha Grey and other stars answered The Daily Beast’s question this weekend at the porn industry’s annual convention in Las Vegas.

Every January, the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas is the biggest annual gathering of the adult film industry. But the biggest is suddenly a lot smaller. The 2010 AEE convention, which ran Thursday through Sunday, had shrunk from packing two floors of the Venetian’s Sands Expo Center last year down to one floor (and that one with lots of empty space).

“The AEE show is an example of what the business faces. There are fewer fans, less foot traffic, and less companies exhibiting,” said Steve Javors, editor in chief of industry trade publication XBIZ. “During the 2000s, porn kept expanding outward. We thought there was an insatiable appetite for porn, and there would keep being more companies and more porn stars. Now, we are finding out that is not true.”

“People used to be ashamed to say their girlfriends did porn. That is gone. Anyone can afford a Web site now,” said Pete Housley, who aggregates porn on Twitter.

As for the concurrent, AVN Awards—AVN being another adult industry trade publication—which the porn world bills as their Oscars, it moved from the arena-size Mandalay Bay Events Center to the few-thousand-seats theater at The Palms. AVN head Paul Fishbein sounded like he was echoing the words of Spinal Tap’s manager when he described the venue switch as not so much to a smaller space, but one more “selective and intimate.”

• Douglas Rushkoff: The Internet Mob’s Porn Bomb So, what happened to the porn business, which had been magnificently profitable since the arrival of the VCR? The attendees at this year’s Adult Entertainment Expo gave a number of reasons for its problems.

Here are the Top 5 reasons why it is harder than ever before to make a living selling porn:

1. Piracy.

Lanie Crossman According to porn star Dana DeArmond: “If people don’t realize it is stealing and start paying for their porn then performers are going to stop performing.”

Among the acts DeArmond performs (solo or in group sex with men and/or women) are anal sex and double penetration. “I don’t think people are just going to do what porn stars do for free and put it on the Internet,” she said.

“It is stealing, and unfortunately it is hitting the adult industry hard right now,” said Sasha Grey, the current porn It Girl.

According to XBIZ’s Javors, thanks to illegal downloading and “Tube” sites like YouPorn, sales of porn’s most profitable product, DVDs, have taken a huge hit this past year. Javors said: “Piracy is the biggest single factor contributing to the economic malaise we are in. How can you compete with free?”

Dan O’Connell, president of Girlfriends Films, explained how his company has been among the few to claim an increase in DVD sales from 2009. “We’ve been able to grow our DVD sales, because we have been aggressive going after piracy. In the past eight months, we have taken down 17,000 pirated videos of ours by just sending out letters warning them that we will sue.”

But Girlfriends Films is just one company that averages about five movies a month. And even Grey does not see DVDs sticking around much longer. “I think DVDs are going to be a collectors’ medium like vinyl,” she said.

2. Video on Demand Meets the Masturbating Fan

Paying online hasn’t worked out so well for porn. Unlike conventional movies, the other Hollywood has a serious Achilles’ heel. “People look at VOD as the salvation that is going to be this huge revenue generator. But it is expensive to shoot a feature,” said Pete Housley of Candid Tweet. His company sits between fans and the industry by aggregating porn stars on Twitter. His perspective: “If you think about the costs of making a movie, and then selling it for 6 or 7 cents a minute, well, that is great for Hollywood. The problem for porn is that a guy watches 4 or 5 minutes, jerks off and is done. So, residual payouts are becoming less and less.”

AVN’s Fishbein said: “A lot of the studios that depended on DVDs are trying to make it up through video-on-demand. That is where you have people struggling, because they haven’t figured out how to fully monetize that content.”

John Stagliano, owner of Evil Angel, one of the largest DVD distribution companies in porn said: “We make money on VOD, just not nearly as much as comes from DVD sales. But we are making money on VOD. It isn’t the newspaper business yet.”

3. The Taboo Is Gone

“People used to be ashamed to say their girlfriends did porn. That is gone. Anyone can afford a Web site now,” said Housley.

Lanie Crossman So, Housley has developed criteria for his various feeds. For example, PornStarTweet requires that the performer has appeared in at least one DVD. Still, there are close to 500 qualified porn stars on this feed.

Mark Spiegler has been an adult talent agent for almost 20 years. His clients include some of the biggest names in the industry, like Dana DeArmond and Belladonna. But he no longer has to look for his talent: Aspiring porn stars email him in droves: “I send away at least two girls a week who think they can do porn,” he said.

Not everyone gets sent away. Spiegler likes to tell of the email he got in 2006 from the then recently turned 18 Sasha Grey. He immediately put Grey in her debut, a John Stagliano film.

 

 

Lanie Crossman Though Spiegler no longer reps her, he nostalgically keeps Grey’s first email on his phone. This weekend, reporters on the red carpet at AVN Awards asked to see this initial email. It appeared that it wasn’t the first time he had performed this ritual. He read the email aloud like a proud father, omitting only her real name, and ended by turning the phone around to display the long, long list of all the sex acts Grey was willing to perform on camera. The reporters turned totally silent as Spiegler scrolled down the list.

“Very few people are cut out for this business. Almost all of the girls who contact me, I send away. In my entire time doing this, there has only been one person who was perfect in every way for the porn business and that is Sasha Grey.”

At that point Grey, walking the carpet, came up behind Spiegler and the two warmly greeted each other.

4. Online Gaming

Lanie Crossman One of the strangest challenges porn faces is competition from online games like World of Warcraft, though the connection may at first seem random. “It is all entertainment that you are getting involved in the same way as porn is entertainment,” said Aiden. “I won’t say everyone, but a lot of people in the industry play videogames. The games are competition for porn. Fans jerk off to porn and are done, but you can keep playing a game.”

Aiden (no last name, this is porn!) should know, as he is also Webmaster for his wife Belladonna’s successful site EnterBelladonna.com. As for his online gaming, his wife wants him to cut back. “Yeah, my wife and I occasionally argue about the amount of time I spend playing.”

5. Porn Star Hookers

Why fight for the diminishing supply of work in the porn business, doing those double penetrations, when you have fans who will pay you more for basic missionary-style sex with them? It is a logic that is increasingly making sense to some porn stars as fans are able to connect ever more directly with them via Facebook and Twitter.

Few will talk about this, but one well-known veteran put it this way: “A lot of hookers make a few movies just so they can put ‘porn star’ on their escort Web site. That did not used to happen and still doesn't with the top girls. But a lot has changed in the past few years. It used to be girls in porn were unattainable fantasies. But they also used to be able to work five days a week if they wanted to. Now, very few of the younger girls can get that much work.”

Perhaps the clearest sign of this efficiency was the booth at AEE occupied by the legal brothel Mustang Ranch, located over 400 miles from Vegas. The brothel is starting a porn production company using their hookers as stars. They hope to have their first release, One Night at the Mustang Ranch, out by spring. But don’t look for it on DVD. It will be Internet only.

by Richard Abowitz

#Steve Jobs: CEO of the Decade

By Adam Lashinsky

Yet for all his hanging out with copywriters and industrial designers and musicians -- and despite his anticorporate attire -- make no mistake: Jobs is all about business. He may not pay attention to customer research, but he works slavishly to make products customers will buy.

He's a visionary, but he's grounded in reality too, closely monitoring Apple's various operational and market metrics. He isn't motivated by money, says friend Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle. Rather, Jobs is understandably driven by a visceral ardor for Apple, his first love (to which he returned after being spurned -- proof that you can go home again) and the vehicle through which he can be both an arbiter of cool and a force for changing the world.

The financial results have been nothing short of astounding -- for Apple and for Jobs. The company was worth about $5 billion in 2000, just before Jobs unleashed Apple's groundbreaking "digital lifestyle" strategy, understood at the time by few critics. Today, at about $170 billion, Apple is slightly more valuable than Google.

Its market share in personal computers was plummeting back then, and the cash drain was so severe that bankruptcy was a possibility. Now Apple has $34 billion in cash and marketable securities, surpassing the total market cap of rival Dell. Macintoshes make up 9% of the PC market in the U.S. today, but that share is increasingly beside the point.

With 275 retail stores in nine countries, a 73% share of the U.S. MP3 player market, and the undisputed leadership position in innovation when it comes to mobile phones, Apple and its CEO are no one's idea of underdogs anymore.

In 2006 Disney paid $7.5 billion to acquire Pixar, the computer animation film studio Jobs had nurtured and controlled. Jobs, in turn, became a Disney director and the blue-chip company's largest shareholder. His net worth, solely based on his stakes in Apple and Disney, is about $5 billion. Other executives have had stellar decades but none can compare with Steve's.

With Jobs back at the helm of his company, plenty of challenges lie ahead. Will the Goliath role suit him nearly as well as playing David clearly has? How will he respond to the competition he has awakened, particularly in smartphones, even as the personal computer fades in relative importance? Has he fashioned an organization that can succeed him? Can he possibly be as dominant in the decade to come as the one that is ending?

The "decade" of Steve actually began in 1997, when he returned to Apple after having been ousted a dozen years earlier. That was a year of triage, of a humbling investment from Microsoft, of paring Apple's product line to a bare minimum of four computers.

How's this for a gripping corporate story line: Youthful founder gets booted from his company in the 1980s, returns in the 1990s, and in the following decade survives two brushes with death, one securities-law scandal, an also-ran product lineup, and his own often unpleasant demeanor to become the dominant personality in four distinct industries, a billionaire many times over, and CEO of the most valuable company in Silicon Valley.

Sound too far-fetched to be true? Perhaps. Yet it happens to be the real-life story of Steve Jobs and his outsize impact on everything he touches.

The past decade in business belongs to Jobs. What makes that simple statement even more remarkable is that barely a year ago it seemed likely that any review of his accomplishments would be valedictory. But by deeds and accounts, Jobs is back.

It's as if his signature "one more thing" line now applies to him as well. After a six-month leave of absence in the early part of this year, during which he received a liver transplant, he is once again commanding a 34,000-strong corporate army that is as powerful, awe-inspiring, creative, secretive, bullying, arrogant -- and yes, profitable -- as at any time since he and his chum Steve Wozniak founded Apple in 1976.

Superlatives have attached themselves to Jobs since he was a young man. Now that he's 54, merely listing his achievements is sufficient explanation of why he's Fortune's CEO of the Decade (though the superlatives continue). In the past 10 years alone he has radically and lucratively reordered three markets -- music, movies, and mobile telephones -- and his impact on his original industry, computing, has only grown.

Remaking any one business is a career-defining achievement; four is unheard-of. Think about that for a moment. Henry Ford altered the course of the nascent auto industry. PanAm's Juan Trippe invented the global airline. Conrad Hilton internationalized American hospitality.

In all instances, and many more like them, these entrepreneurs turned captains of industry defined a single market that had previously not been dominated by anyone. The industries that Jobs has turned topsy-turvy already existed when he focused on them.

He is the rare businessman with legitimate worldwide celebrity. (His quirks and predilections are such common knowledge that they were knowingly parodied on an episode of "The Simpsons.") He pals around with U2's Bono.

Consumers who have never picked up an annual report or even a business magazine gush about his design taste, his elegant retail stores, and his outside-the-box approach to advertising. ("Think different," indeed.)

It's often noted that he's a showman, a born salesman, a magician who creates a famed reality-distortion field, a tyrannical perfectionist. It's totally accurate, of course, and the descriptions contribute to his legend.

By the following year Steve's regime had kicked into gear. Jobs completed the hiring of a new management team, which included several executives from his previous company, Next. Those top players would form the nucleus of the Jobs brain trust for nearly 10 years.

Then came the first Macintosh after Jobs' return, the iMac, a breakthrough all-in-one computer and monitor that heralded Apple's return to health. The success of the pricey iMac, coupled with drastic cost cutting, allowed Jobs to build a cash cushion. By repairing Apple's balance sheet, he prepared the company for big investments to come, a shrewd business move if ever there was one.

Jobs laid the foundation for Apple's leap from stable to stratospheric when things looked darkest. In 2000, Apple missed its financial targets in a September earnings announcement, sending its stock price plummeting in subsequent months to the equivalent of $7 in today's prices. Yet Jobs by this time had set in motion the key elements of Apple's rejuvenation.

Over the course of 2001, as global markets fell and the world headed into recession, Apple launched the iTunes music software (in January), the Mac OS X operating system (March), the first Apple retail stores (May), and the first iPod (November), a 5GB model that Apple bragged would hold 1,000 songs.

The market didn't catch on quickly to the significance of those events. iTunes was just music-playing software embedded into Macs and lacked an online store that sold music. The new operating system, though impressive, powered a niche product. The iPod was a snazzy MP3 player in an established market.

As the company's stock languished, takeover rumors appeared from time to time. What was never reported was that Jobs seriously contemplated taking the company private with the help of newly formed buyout group Silver Lake Partners. An Apple buyout would have been the deal of the century, but according to people familiar with the talks, Jobs ultimately shut them down.

That was actually the second serious proposal to buy Apple. In 1997, Jobs' friend Ellison, later an Apple board member, lined up financing to take over the company on the assumption that Jobs would run it. In a recent interview Ellison said Jobs didn't like the idea of being "second-guessed" if it looked as if he'd returned simply to make money. "He explained to me that with the moral high ground, he thought he could make decisions more easily and more gracefully," says Ellison.

For those paying attention after Jobs' return, the CEO was telegraphing Apple's trajectory. "I would rather compete with Sony than compete in another product category with Microsoft," he told Time in early 2002. "We're the only company that owns the whole widget -- the hardware, the software, and the operating system. We can take full responsibility for the user experience. We can do things that the other guy can't do."

Jobs was convinced that the masses would turn to Apple, but only if he could speak directly to them -- and not just to faithful Macintosh users, a club that included mainly artists and students. The strategy of building company-owned retail stores, so integral to Apple today, was derided at the time as a risky cash drain.

"He did this with a nervous board," says Bill Campbell, a former Apple executive who went on to become chairman of Intuit and an Apple board member. "He knew that this is what customers wanted." What's striking looking back is how little there was to sell in the original Apple stores. Jobs knew how he'd fill them.

Jobs made it his business to know everything about Apple. "He's involved in details you wouldn't think a CEO would be involved in," says Ken Segall, a former Chiat/Day creative director who has worked with Apple on and off for years. Jobs commissioned the iconic "Think different" campaign, says Segall, well before any of Apple's new products were introduced -- or even described to the ad team. "He'd say, 'The third word in the fourth paragraph isn't right. You might want to think about that one.' "

The rare pairing of micromanagement with big-picture vision is a Jobs hallmark. Early in his return to Apple, he recognized that gorgeous design was a differentiator for Apple in a computer industry gripped by the successful blandness of Dell, Microsoft, and Intel.

"I cannot count the number of clients who have marched in and said, 'Give me the next iPod,' " writes Tim Brown, CEO of product-design consultant Ideo, in his new book "Change by Design." "But it's probably close to the number of designers I've heard respond -- under their breath -- 'Give me the next Steve Jobs.'"

Jobs also has a knack for pouncing at the right moment. The music industry had failed repeatedly to develop its own digital-music sales site before Apple came along with iTunes, which was by then prepared to become a store for buying music.

Jobs cleverly made his pact with the record labels when iTunes worked only on Macs, which in 2002 had a personal-computing market share in the low single digits. Apple's humble position -- before iTunes became compatible with Windows, expanding its potential market share to nearly all PCs -- was a virtue. This made iTunes an experiment rather than a destructive paradigm shift.

"I don't understand how Apple could ruin the record business in one year on Mac," said Doug Morris, the head of Universal Music, according to "Appetite for Self-Destruction," a new book about the record industry's ills by Rolling Stone writer Steve Knopper. "Why shouldn't we try this?" Writes Knopper: "By the time Steve Jobs came around, he was the last resort. He was merely smart enough to know it. He played tough, but not any tougher than any lawyer for a major label who had negotiated an artist contract in recent decades."

A key Jobs business tool is his mastery of the message. He rehearses over and over every line he and others utter in public about Apple, which authorizes only a small number of executives to speak publicly on a given topic.

Key to the Jobs approach is careful consideration of what he and Apple say -- and don't say. Harvard professor David Yoffie estimated that in the months between announcing and selling the first iPhone in 2007, Apple received $400 million in free advertising by not making any public statements, thereby whipping the media into a frenzy.

Jobs himself is careful to avoid overexposure, preferring to speak only when he has products to promote. He didn't disclose his 2004 cancer surgery until after it occurred, and then only in an employee e-mail that was strategically released to news outlets. Similarly, he told the world of his recent leave in another employee missive, with no additional comment from him or anyone else at Apple.

Nobody in Jobs' sphere speaks without the permission of the company's media relations team, which reports directly to Jobs. Apple declined to make Jobs available for an interview for this article. It did bless the participation of some people in Apple's orbit to speak about him, while nixing requests for others.

The secrecy has rankled corporate governance experts, who insist the health of such an indispensable CEO warrants greater disclosure.

Jobs was initially mum as well about a stock options backdating scandal that embroiled the company's former finance chief and general counsel. In an eventual SEC filing, Apple said Jobs was aware that the company had adjusted option grant dates so that the grants were more profitable for employees. Jobs apologized for the backdating, calling the episode "completely out of character for Apple."

Jobs manages the money, the message, the deals, the design, and more. Consider the case fairly made that the long-ago enfant terrible of the computer industry has built up impressive business chops and that his company is peerless. But if nothing else, his recent illness is a reminder that Steve Jobs is mortal. When he's gone, how long will his company thrive without him?

Apple's future.

This past September, when Steve Jobs made his triumphant return to the public eye, he thanked precisely one Apple executive by name: Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer.

At an event to introduce a new line of iPods, Jobs first informed a crowd of journalists, analysts, and Apple developers that he now possessed the liver of a "twentysomething liver donor who had died in a car crash." Then he thanked Cook and the rest of the management team for "ably" running Apple in his absence. Cook, in turn, led a standing ovation for Jobs, his arms raised over his head from the front row of a San Francisco auditorium.

With Jobs back at work, the conversation has been postponed as to whether Cook, or anyone else, is prepared to fill Jobs' shoes. "At Apple the hierarchy is determined by who Steve calls," says a former Apple executive. "There's a lot of value in 'Steve said.'"

Larry Ellison, a CEO known to dislike the topic of succession, says of his friend, "He's irreplaceable. He's built a fabulous brand. He's got a wealth of products. Whenever he leaves, I hope he retires in good health and he's sailing off in his yacht in the Mediterranean. But they're going to miss him terribly, because it's a consumer products company. The product cycle is so fast."

There are signs that Jobs has inculcated the troops enough to last awhile without him. "The organization has been thoroughly trained to think like Steve," says someone with contacts among the Apple executive team. "That's why the six months went so smoothly. People could envision, 'This is what Steve would do.'"

Jobs, in fact, inspires far beyond Apple. Larry Pag