It is rare that the direction, success, and fate of a company is so closely tied to one person. With Steve Jobs taking a medical leave, people will be wondering and bloggers will be speculating about how it will affect Apple.
It won't. His work there may not be done - he's still the CEO and will be involved in major decisions - but he has built a company that is amongst the elite "untouchables." It would take a catastrophic failure bigger than Steve Jobs to take the company down. They're embedded into our culture like few tech companies have ever been. The company's rise as well as the rise of Steve Jobs is depicted nicely in the graphic below by our friends at Online MBA.
The great leaders in the world are integral to their companies' survival. The best leaders in the world make sure their companies are strong enough to prosper without them.
Source: Online MBA
