“Weird.” That’s the one-word answer given by Apple chairman Arthur D. Levinson gives when asked to describe how it feels running the company’s board of directors after the passing of his colleague and close friend, Steve Jobs.
On Tuesday, he said that Jobs’s absence remains tough to ignore even as the company has continued introducing new products and making fresh announcements. “I’m still not to the point where I walk into that boardroom and don’t miss Steve,” said Levinson, who finally started but has so far failed to finish reading Jobs’s biography. “He was a one of a kind guy … The Steve Jobs that was in the public eye was not, for the most part, the Steve Jobs that I knew.”
Levinson spoke about Jobs, Apple’s earnings, and the board’s role in product creation on Tuesday at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. He was interviewed on stage by Stanford student Vicki Slavina, and took questions from the audience made up mostly of Stanford students.
During the conversation, Levinson stated that Apple’s short-term earnings mean little. “There [are] long-term signs of how a company is doing and whether or not Apple sells 47 or 48 million iPhones — let somebody else worry about that,” he said.
Levinson also said that Apple’s board has little to do with the creation of new products. New products are presented to the board 6 to 18 months prior to their launch. Some board insights are taken into account, and if a board member has expertise in an area related to the presented product, their opinion may be given some added weight, but individual product review is not a top priority.
“The board is not there to define product specs,” said Levinson. “It’s there as a sounding board. It’s there as a resource. And ultimately, the board is there to hire and fire the CEO.” Adding that if it’s a good board, it won’t get in the way of the CEO and executive team.
