Silicon Insider: The Secret to Apple's Success

Jan. 17, 2008 — -- Well, as predicted last week, MacWorld wasn't quite as earthshaking as the last few -- and just as predictably, Wall Street lightly slapped the company for not being able to change the world once a year.

That noted, it has been lost on most people in tech that despite not coming up with the iPhone or iPod this year, Apple's announcements -- including downloadable movies and the superthin MacBook Air laptop computer -- are still better than just about anything being introduced by any other company in the electronics world. And of the few that have come up with sexy products recently -- Dell, LG and Nintendo -- none have managed to do so in more than one business.

So, you have to ask yourself: Why aren't more companies as innovative as Apple? After all, it's not as if Apple engineers are superhuman. I live just down the street, have them as neighbors, eat at the same restaurants -- and trust me, they are no different from any of the other engineers around Silicon Valley.

Frankly, most of the ones I know are less Apple-obsessed than the company's customers: Most are just happy to have a job in such a successful company, enjoy being the object of envy by their peers, and do their best to stay out of Steve Jobs' line of sight.

In other words, there is no structural reason why Apple should be more innovative than its competitors, who always seem to be one step behind the Cupertino giant. So that would seem to give credence to the longheld notion that the real source of Apple's success is Steve Jobs. After all, Apple was a great innovator during the first Jobs tenure, then lost its way during the decade under John Sculley, then came back to even greater glory with Jobs' return.

So let's take this one step further: What is it about Steve Jobs that makes Apple unique? It's not as if Jobs is designing the products himself -- as much as Apple likes to hide its product creators from the public and leave Jobs as the cynosure of all Apple-related coverage, we still know the names of the guys who designed the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone. So, what Jobs seems to actually contribute is the creation of an environment that welcomes radical thinking, innovation, elegant design and just general swinging for the fences technologically. Further, whatever the difficulties there are in dealing with his mercurial nature, they are overcome by the excitement and challenge of working in this environment --