Steve Jobs resigns…

Apple CEO Steve Jobs resigned last night.  Let’s discuss.

I’ll reprint the entirety of what Steve Jobs, the now ex-CEO of Apple, wrote in the letter he sent out at 4:40pm, two minutes before Apple itself followed his email blast up, with the formal announcement of their own:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

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First, as a human being, I wish Mr. Jobs well and hope his health returns.

As investors in this company, this might actually remove one of the largest overhangs on this stock — the concern that Steve Jobs would leave at some point.  If you think about it, it’s likely that one of the reasons Apple has continually traded at a discount to the S&P 500 despite growing so much faster than just about any other company in that index for the last seven or eight years at least, is because of the concerns about Steve Jobs’ health. His departure, ironically perhaps, removes that overhang and might actually let this stock’s multiple expand to something more closely resembling the rest of the stocks in the S&P 500, who don’t have Steve Jobs running them either.

Meanwhile, the iOS/iPhone/iPad platforms have become de facto standards in the marketplace and the virtuous cycle of developers creating apps and hardware that work for those products driving more consumers to those products driving more developers to create more apps…the Apple eco-system is unaffected.

The stock was down 5% last night after this announcement, but is now down less than 2% this morning in the pre-market action.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see this stock swing to both the down and upside during the intraday action today, and whether it closes higher today or not, I plan on holding my common and calls in this name or even buying more if the stock does get back down 5% lower or more today.