I'm late to the discussion. And I don't have near the personal insight to offer that @diskzero does. But I think there's another aspect as well.
Apple came back.
I can think of no other company in recent history that has come back from such a long run on death row to periodically become the company with the world's highest market valuation. And we tend to associate that (for many good reasons) with Steve Jobs. Steve's persona and the admiration that follows I think derives in large part because it has been the ultimate come back story.
This "come back story" is one of the most classic and inspiring stories that has resonated through myth and fable throughout history. It's what makes us stand up and cheer in a theater when Daniel Laruso delivers the take down kick. It is Miracle when the US beats USSR in hockey. It's why we like to interpret David and Goliath as a little guy takes down big guy story (vs the kid with the rock gun kills the big lout https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_the_unheard_story...).
It's interesting to note that with Steve gone, Elon Musk has risen to the new Crazy Successful Celebrity Leader figure. Like Steve, you can see Elon from a variety of facets, some very flattering, and some very damning, what we would love about him is that he has had some success at defeating the status quo.
The comeback was amazing, wasn't it? It was cool to be there and I think about the dynamics a lot. What I really keep trying to figure out is how we were so effective with such small team sizes and why this can't scale. When I was at Amazon, the mobile application team three times larger than the OS X engineering team circa 2001.
Apple came back.
I can think of no other company in recent history that has come back from such a long run on death row to periodically become the company with the world's highest market valuation. And we tend to associate that (for many good reasons) with Steve Jobs. Steve's persona and the admiration that follows I think derives in large part because it has been the ultimate come back story.
This "come back story" is one of the most classic and inspiring stories that has resonated through myth and fable throughout history. It's what makes us stand up and cheer in a theater when Daniel Laruso delivers the take down kick. It is Miracle when the US beats USSR in hockey. It's why we like to interpret David and Goliath as a little guy takes down big guy story (vs the kid with the rock gun kills the big lout https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_the_unheard_story...).
It's interesting to note that with Steve gone, Elon Musk has risen to the new Crazy Successful Celebrity Leader figure. Like Steve, you can see Elon from a variety of facets, some very flattering, and some very damning, what we would love about him is that he has had some success at defeating the status quo.