Steve Jobs is one of the great business icons of our time, and he steps down from the reins of Apple after it fleetingly became the world’s biggest company this month. Yet in the world of corporate venturing he is arguably the man who wasn’t there.
Apple products, perhaps most notably the iPad, the iPhone and the Mac, have provided some of the biggest opportunities for companies generally to piggyback off great corporate product design. In the world of technology there has been a symbiotic relationship between providers of content for such mother ships, firstly personal computers, then the internet itself and now portable devices such as smart phones and tablets. Yet unlike some other key technology players, Apple has steered clear of intertwining itself through equity ownership with many of the companies which live off the ecosystems it has created.
This of course puts it at odds with US-based chip manufacturer Intel, which through corporate venturing unit Intel Capital has become a powerful player in the venture world. Perhaps most interestingly it also sets it against key Apple rival Google, which through Google Ventures is now reportedly looking to deploy $200m a year in venture, according to VentureWire. This is especially notable, as Google’s agreed acquisition of US-based handset maker Motorola Mobility this month, puts it even more squarely in competition with Apple.
A key question is how much was this decision to ignore the corporate venturing strategy, which key rivals appear to be using to some effect, to do with the top-down decision making of Jobs? Popular perception has it Jobs was keen on control. If the following articles respectively, from news providers the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and Gawker are correct, this was true of his attitude to controlling his board, his succession, and the flexibility he allowed users of his devices to have. This control over users meant Apple devices have reportedly blocked fairly ubiquitous content elsewhere, including Adobe products and even pornography. You can understand his aversion to minority stake ownership of fast-growth companies, which might well do things not in keeping with the perfection Apple so stridently tries to sell through its strong brand.
Of course, it also has a powerful collaborator doing the venturing for it, in the shape of US venture firm Kleiner Perkins, which doubled the size of its fund to invest in Apple products to $200m last year. Perhaps it is felt with such focus from one of the best known venture capital firms on Apple products there is no strategic need to fuel its own ecosystem, and its resources are better spent elsewhere.
My hunch is that the future heralds more of the same from Apple for a while. The command and control approach appears to be deeply ingrained in Apple’s highly perfectionist corporate culture. Yet should the stellar company ever hit a bump in its impressive growth trajectory, perhaps it will alter its ways, especially without such a seemingly strong character as Jobs controlling the show. In ten years’ time we may well see the advent of an Apple Ventures.