Prior to last night's announcement that Apple (AAPL) cofounder Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO of the iconic tech company, Morningstar equity analyst Joseph Beaulieu wrote of the deep-seated relationship between Apple's success and the vision of its leader. Below is an excerpt from Beaulieu's Analyst Research Report on Apple.
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"Investors are right to be concerned about the potential for Steve Jobs' permanent departure from Apple. Although Apple has an abundance of talented developers, engineers, product managers, and marketers, we think Jobs' leadership has been instrumental to pull those people together and prevent any truly bad products from making it out the door.
"In our view, Apple's success during the past decade is largely attributable to the leadership of Steve Jobs, and his long-term absence could deal a heavy blow to the company. We think COO Tim Cook is an able manager and Apple has an extremely deep talent pool. But we also believe Jobs' product- and user-focused vision has been instrumental to Apple's renaissance and has served investors incredibly well. If Jobs were to leave the firm on a permanent basis, we would expect a couple of years of smooth sailing, but we'd worry about how long Apple's winning streak could continue after that.
"The other major risk for shareholders is the firm's heavy dependence on U.S. consumers and high-priced products. A downturn in the U.S. economy, or a worldwide economic downturn, would probably weigh on sales growth, as it did in fiscal 2009."