I don't mean to diminish Mr. Jobs' talents or the effects his stepping aside may have on Apple's employees, stockholders, or the Culture at Large. But what strikes me in the hurricane of media coverage (heavy on the wind) is a lack of any perspective on what it means that the story is getting so much coverage. What do you think accounts for it? I have a couple thoughts (more on the flip). . ..
It would be interesting to see what sort of coverage, say, the retirements (or deaths) of Rockefeller, Ford, or Vanderbilt received. I imagine it may have rivaled what we're seeing now with Jobs, so I don't mean to suggest that this phenomenon is new. I do some work in the history of economics, but mostly in eighteenth-century Britain (e. g., The South Sea Bubble), so I'm not an expert on this. Even if the level of coverage were the same, though, it is an obvious though still significant fact that what we have here is not a Captain of Industry in the older sense of the world but someone who is at the head of a new media gargantua and who is understood to not only make products but to alter the cultures of more 'advanced' nations in an intentional and profound way (perhaps there's an analogue to Ford and the rise of the motor car, but there are significant differences).
At play here is not only the emergence of the Brand as a master code but the way it is now imbricated with how we understand the value of our lives.
Another observation is that all the talk about Jobs' unique leadership is itself the artifact of the rise of business management as a central discourse in our culture. That is not exactly new, but I do think the coverage of this event signals a change not only in degree but kind. The rise, even dominance, of Business News, at the expense of other kinds of news with other perspectives, is very clearly in play here. What often comes with that change in focus is an unsavory sort of CEO-worship.
I could natter on, but I want to hear what you think. ..