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有几个首席执行长与其公司的关系像乔布斯(Steve Jobs)与苹果(Apple Inc.)之间一样密不可分。由于乔布斯即将卸任首席执行长一职（不过他将成为董事长），要保证公司继续以引领潮流之先、令消费者惊艳的产品和服务跑在竞争对手前头，基本上就得仰仗他的副手们。乔布斯在1985年被逐出他所创办的苹果公司，1997年回归。此后他让公司从破产边缘起死回生，重振了Macintosh电脑这块业务，并在推出iPod、iPhone和iPad等突破性产品的过程中发挥了非比寻常的重要作用。
作为CEO，他极具个人魅力，同时具有知道消费者想要什么的敏锐直觉。但他的后备队伍也被认为是一支强大的管理团队，只是基本上都处在聚光灯以外，一直到现在才引起关注。
可能接替乔布斯担任CEO的50岁首席运营长库克(Tim Cook)，曾经三次从乔布斯手中接过公司管理大权。一次是在2004年，乔布斯做胰腺癌手术后的康复期间；一次是在2009年初，乔布斯为肝移植手术请六个月病假期间；还有一次就是在2011年初再次请病假（没有解释具体请假原因）期间。
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
乔布斯的这些年
库克是亚拉巴马州人，在奥本大学(Auburn University)就读期间主修工业工程（现在是奥本老虎(Auburn Tigers)橄榄球队的忠实球迷），并在杜克大学(Duke University)拿到工商管理硕士学位。1998年，库克正在为担任康柏电脑公司(Compaq Computer Corp.)高管职务接受培训的时候，乔布斯把他招了过去。
曾任康柏全球生产负责人、当时也是库克上司的佩奇(Greg Petsch)说，库克是最后的决策者。在佩奇记忆中，他是一位要求严格的人，但处事冷静，不同于乔布斯远近闻名的火爆脾气。他说，你可以是一位严格的管理者，同时又可以尽管坦率地提出具体要求，根本用不着提高嗓门；库克给人提出的期望是非常具体的。
乔布斯苹果帝国十年扩张路
认识他的苹果人士说，他有礼貌，但坚持自己的要求，毫不让步。他们还说，他能够消化大量数据，很快指出存在的任何问题。
除库克外，负责苹果工业设计团队的高级副总裁艾夫(Jonathan Ive)等副手也参与了公司最近的创新。据一位认识艾夫的人士说，他"与乔布斯心有灵犀"。 艾夫和他的团队一直负责设计产品外观和风格，正是苹果的独特风格使其有别于竞争对手。
iPhone操作系统和其他软件开发团队负责人佛斯特(Scott Forstall)、负责互联网业务、被视为多面手的副总裁柯尔(Eddie Cue)，以及全球营销负责人席勒(Philip Schiller)也都是重要的人物，他们多年来一直是乔布斯核心集团的成员。
过去几年来，乔布斯在公司媒体活动中与其中的很多人一起登台亮相，看来是在支持自己的领导团队。
相关报道
保留现有的管理层可能也有困难，因为苹果的股价近年来一直在飙升，使高管们可以从供职苹果期间获得的股票期权中赚个盆满钵盈，而没有太多的留任动力。
举例来讲，负责苹果零售业务的高级副总裁约翰逊(Ron Johnson)将于11月离职，转投J.C. Penney Co.担任首席执行长，他曾是大获成功的苹果商店背后的主要策划者。Mac软件工程主管塞莱特(Bertrand Serlet)已于3月离职。
一些人认为，如果他们中的大部分人留下来，这个团队完全有能力管理苹果，特别是鉴于苹果已经度过了最强劲的增长期，即将进入一个需要保持业务势头的新阶段。
Yukari Iwatani Kane / Nick Wingfield
（更新完成）
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
There are few chief executives who are as closely identified with a company as Steve Jobs has been with Apple Inc. Now that he is stepping down as chief executive─ although he will be chairman─it will largely be up to his deputies to make sure that the company continues to stay ahead of the competition with trend-setting products and services that impress consumers.
Since Mr. Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 after being ousted in 1985 from the company he founded, he has brought the company back from the brink of bankruptcy, revived its Macintosh computer business and played an unusually important role in the introduction of ground-breaking products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
As CEO, he provided a charismatic persona and sharp instinct for knowing what consumers want. But his bench is considered a strong management team that has largely stayed out of the limelight until now.
His likely successor, Tim Cook, 50 years old, is the chief operating officer to whom he handed the reins of the company three times once in 2004 when Mr. Jobs was recuperating from pancreatic cancer surgery, once in early 2009 when he took a six month medical leave of absence for a liver transplant and again in early 2011 for another unexplained medical leave.
Mr. Cook isn't the showman that Mr. Jobs was, but people who know him call him an 'operational genius' who was responsible for crafting Apple's current supply chain system and helping to transform the company into one of the most efficient electronics manufacturers today.
The Alabama native, who majored in industrial engineering at Auburn University (he is a big Tigers football fan) and earned a master's in business administration at Duke University, was being groomed to become a top executive at Compaq Computer Corp. when Mr. Jobs recruited him in 1998.
'Tim was the ultimate decision maker,' said Greg Petsch, who was Mr. Cook's boss at Compaq as the head of global manufacturing. Mr. Petsch remembers him as being tough, but calm unlike Mr. Jobs, who is known for his fiery temper. 'You can be a tough manager, and never have to raise your voices just by defining the requirements upfront. [Tim] was very specific in terms of his expectations,' he said.
At Apple, he oversaw the manufacturing of its computers for several years before he was given responsibility for the company's world-wide sales and its Macintosh computer division. He became chief operating officer in 2005.
People, who know him at Apple, say he is polite but persistent and unyielding in his demands. They also say that he can absorb a huge amount of data and quickly pinpoint any problems.
In addition to Mr. Cook, Apple's recent innovations have also been helped by deputies including Jonathan Ive, an Apple senior vice president who oversees the company's industrial-design team. Described by one person who knows him as 'sharing a brain with Steve,' Mr. Ive and his group has been responsible for coming up with the physical look and feel of products that has helped set Apple apart from competitors.
Scott Forstall, who leads the team responsible for the iPhone's operating system and other software, Eddie Cue, Apple's vice president of Internet services who is regarded as an all-purpose fixer, and Philip Schiller, who runs world-wide marketing are also important figures, who have part of Mr. Jobs's inner circle for many years.
Over the last few years, Mr. Jobs has appeared to endorse his leadership team by sharing the stage with many of them at company media events.
But longtime Apple watchers, who have witnessed how the company unraveled after Mr. Jobs left the company in 1985, worry that the company could eventually be lost again without Mr. Jobs's dominant personality and killer instinct.
Retention of the current bench may also be difficult since Apple's stock price has surged in recent years, allowing executives to make fortunes from stock options during their careers at the company and giving them less incentive to remain.
Ron Johnson, senior vice president of Apple retail who was the mastermind behind the success of Apple stores, for example, is leaving in November to take the helm of J.C. Penney Co. Mac software engineering chief Bertrand Serlet left in March.
If most of them do stay, some people believe that the team is fully capable of managing Apple, particularly now that the company's biggest growth is behind it and it is entering a new phase of having to sustain its business momentum.
Yukari Iwatani Kane / Nick Wingfield
Since Mr. Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 after being ousted in 1985 from the company he founded, he has brought the company back from the brink of bankruptcy, revived its Macintosh computer business and played an unusually important role in the introduction of ground-breaking products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
As CEO, he provided a charismatic persona and sharp instinct for knowing what consumers want. But his bench is considered a strong management team that has largely stayed out of the limelight until now.
His likely successor, Tim Cook, 50 years old, is the chief operating officer to whom he handed the reins of the company three times once in 2004 when Mr. Jobs was recuperating from pancreatic cancer surgery, once in early 2009 when he took a six month medical leave of absence for a liver transplant and again in early 2011 for another unexplained medical leave.
Mr. Cook isn't the showman that Mr. Jobs was, but people who know him call him an 'operational genius' who was responsible for crafting Apple's current supply chain system and helping to transform the company into one of the most efficient electronics manufacturers today.
The Alabama native, who majored in industrial engineering at Auburn University (he is a big Tigers football fan) and earned a master's in business administration at Duke University, was being groomed to become a top executive at Compaq Computer Corp. when Mr. Jobs recruited him in 1998.
'Tim was the ultimate decision maker,' said Greg Petsch, who was Mr. Cook's boss at Compaq as the head of global manufacturing. Mr. Petsch remembers him as being tough, but calm unlike Mr. Jobs, who is known for his fiery temper. 'You can be a tough manager, and never have to raise your voices just by defining the requirements upfront. [Tim] was very specific in terms of his expectations,' he said.
At Apple, he oversaw the manufacturing of its computers for several years before he was given responsibility for the company's world-wide sales and its Macintosh computer division. He became chief operating officer in 2005.
People, who know him at Apple, say he is polite but persistent and unyielding in his demands. They also say that he can absorb a huge amount of data and quickly pinpoint any problems.
In addition to Mr. Cook, Apple's recent innovations have also been helped by deputies including Jonathan Ive, an Apple senior vice president who oversees the company's industrial-design team. Described by one person who knows him as 'sharing a brain with Steve,' Mr. Ive and his group has been responsible for coming up with the physical look and feel of products that has helped set Apple apart from competitors.
Scott Forstall, who leads the team responsible for the iPhone's operating system and other software, Eddie Cue, Apple's vice president of Internet services who is regarded as an all-purpose fixer, and Philip Schiller, who runs world-wide marketing are also important figures, who have part of Mr. Jobs's inner circle for many years.
Over the last few years, Mr. Jobs has appeared to endorse his leadership team by sharing the stage with many of them at company media events.
But longtime Apple watchers, who have witnessed how the company unraveled after Mr. Jobs left the company in 1985, worry that the company could eventually be lost again without Mr. Jobs's dominant personality and killer instinct.
Retention of the current bench may also be difficult since Apple's stock price has surged in recent years, allowing executives to make fortunes from stock options during their careers at the company and giving them less incentive to remain.
Ron Johnson, senior vice president of Apple retail who was the mastermind behind the success of Apple stores, for example, is leaving in November to take the helm of J.C. Penney Co. Mac software engineering chief Bertrand Serlet left in March.
If most of them do stay, some people believe that the team is fully capable of managing Apple, particularly now that the company's biggest growth is behind it and it is entering a new phase of having to sustain its business momentum.
Yukari Iwatani Kane / Nick Wingfield
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