Good points you makes about STEVE and Apple. I would say a designer type person is more appropriate for Apple. I think Mark Cuban would not be an appropriate fit. Reasons — just see him on Dallas sideline. :-)

If SJ were to resign, wouldn’t the valuation of the business go down, at least temporarily?

Moto, Palm, Dell are all flailing, and their leaders seem to have lost almost all capacity to recognize (let alone incubate) relevant innovation — meaning innovation that meets the desires of a market ready to emerge. Even when presented with terrific new ideas, they’re too gutless to get out front with those ideas, and too dumb or timid to try to create complete ecosystems around the resulting products.

No other top executive has demonstrated anything close to Steve’s combination of ability to recognize relevant innovation (like a great athlete’s “field vision”), strategic boldness (witness the iTunes and iPhone ecosystems), design aesthetics, perfectionism, maniacal “take the hill!” leadership capabilities (often stressful for the troops, but very effective), and, of course, showmanship.

The ultimate disaster for Apple would be to lose Steve and then replace him with some random marketing, sales, or engineering executive. (Remember John Scully? Gil Amelio?)

It will be tempting to replace him with one of Apple’s amazing product designers — a better choice than a random executive from another company, but it will be nearly impossible to fill Steve’s shoes.

I don’t know the solution. Maybe go for broke and try to recruit another larger-than-life billionaire — like Mark Cuban — to at least keep Apple’s go-for-broke spirit alive?

When you say 24.5 million you mean 24.5 billion right? Jobs undeniably is the face of APPLE. But i think greatness comes from being able to find a successor , who if not that charismatic could at least lead the company with great vision.