Apple CEO Steve Jobs is allegedly a nightmare boss, but that hasn’t stopped him from changing (or taking over) the consumer world.

• Jobs pioneered touch-screen technology with the iPhone, and triumphantly pulled Apple from the bottom of the pile to the top of the world. He also ran Pixar Animation (Toy Story, Up, Ratatouille) until 2006.
• But Steve’s prickly personality has been problematic (that’s part of the reason he was forced to leave Apple in 1985), and there are some serious questions about Apple’s corporate compensation and governance practices.
• The most important question on investors’ minds is this: Can anyone possibly fill Jobs’ “rockstar CEO” shoes when he’s gone?

Facts & Figures

• $1,000 of Apple stock purchased in 2000 is worth almost $43,000 today
• Apple has earned $47.7 billion in iPod sales alone
• Apple is currently valued at $285 billion; Microsoft is $220 billion

Best Quotes

“He is not somebody [who] any one of us would want watching our kids, but, in terms of running the company, he’s excellent.” – Rob Enderle, President, Enderle Group

“The resurrection of Apple is just the most astounding story that’s probably happened in business in at least a decade — you might be able to go further and say it’s a half-century. It’s on par with Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell in terms of its total impact.” – Roger Kay, President of Endpoint Technologies

Tags: Apple, CEO, Steve Jobs