Steve Jobs railed against Apple legacy, says Al Gore

Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder, never wanted to leave a legacy that would make the company second-guess what he would have done, former US vice-president Al Gore has revealed.

Gore, who was a friend of Jobs and is also an Apple board member, said that Jobs always insisted that his death should not leave behind a culture at Apple of 'what would Steve do?', reports AllthingsD.

Speaking at the All Things Digital Asia conference, Gore said: "He used to talk initially about how after Walt Disney died, the company always got in trouble about asking 'what would Walt do in this situation?'

"And he made it very clear - 'I don't want that at Apple'. He made it clear to Tim Cook and everyone else 'Don't ask what Steve would have done. Follow your own voice'."

Cook took over as Apple chief executive in August after Jobs decided that his state of ill health meant he could no longer lead the world's most valuable technology firm.

Jobs moved to the chairman position at the firm, but this month he lost his battle with pancreatic cancer and passed away at the age of 56.

Gore said that "there's no-one like Steve", describing the technology pioneer as someone who comes along once every 250 years.

He noted that Jobs brought some "tremendous breakthrough inventions" to the world, but denied that Apple would be hurt in the long term by losing its visionary leader.

"Steve was responsible for so many tremendous breakthrough inventions - iPod, iPad, iPhone, Pixar," Gore said.

"But of all of them, I think his greatest work was Apple itself. He created an organisation that creates technology that people love.

"It's really quite unique and extraordinary. And that's going to continue. There's a lot of stuff in the pipeline and the team he left behind is really firing on all cylinders."

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