@Virginia @Harold

re: Apple, I keep reading that Steve Jobs (somehow magically) makes all the decisions at Apple.

While I think he is formidably intelligent, and no doubt rigorous and demanding, Apple is arguably not a small company .. and so I suspect that there are any number of very intelligent, rigorous, demanding and forceful executives, senior managers and professional individual contributors that work there. I also suspect that work together in teams, probably very collaboratively at times.

If the people that worked at Apple did not work together well, or were not wicked smart, rigorous and demanding people, I doubt it would be the formidable company that it is.

Every company's culture is different .. necessarily, because it is formed from and by the interactions between people (whether top-down, always horizontal, or some combination(s) thereof) who choose or are chosen to work there.

When Jobs goes, I am not sure it's Apple who will panic most .. I suspect that it will be investors and brokers, because, well, you know, they will need something to talk about re: Apple's prospects.