As has been argued around the business web, Jobs' absence/incapacity for better part of a year - while Apple continued to develop dramatically better than the rest of the industry - may have been helpful as a demonstration of what the organization can do on its own.
Maybe, but one year you might not need the kind of complete change of direction that he managed to pull off earlier and which made the company what it is today.
While Apple could probably be very successful with their current direction for quite some time, if the market changes under them the lack of Jobs might become more apparent.
Sure, that requires Jobs. However, Apple has a pretty clear direction that Jobs established and If all that Apple does from now on is to keep the direction calibrated and keep the pace that he set then Apple will do very very well in the long run.
Another data point is Jobs' absence from 1985 to 1997. The stock rose incredibly for 2 years ($2 to $14), then flat for 6 years, then fell for 4 years (to $3.4).
It's utterly ridiculous to extrapolate from this, because so many other factors influence stock price and business performance - but it's more or less what you would expect of an organization supporting a brilliant leader, and is a tantalizingly similar data point with respect to Jobs presence.
This has surely been discussed endlessly elsewhere, but I think it's impossible for an autocrat to cultivate an autocratic successor - why would Jobs put up with another autocrat (and why would the autocratic successor put up with him?) I think this is a slightly different angle from the "cult of personality" aspect.
