So I rang up our own Adam Lashinsky, who last year wrote a book about Apple’s inner workings (and who was in transit when today’s news broke). Basically just to get his gut take on Johnson’s theoretical return to Infinite Loop:

“I really don’t see it happening. It would be highly unusual for Apple to ask the previous guy back, and those motivations work in both directions. Johnson created something entirely new when Steve Jobs asked him to create Apple retail, and it was the prospect of creating something new that also caused Johnson to go to JC Penney — although in that case it was building something new out of something broken. Apple retail is not broken and it’s not new. I don’t think he’d be up for the challenge of taking back over something he already built successfully. Been there, done that.”

Lashinsky also said that he still could see some other company hiring Johnson as CEO, particularly if it’s looking to make a big bet. “It’s really hard to emulate Apple, and Ron Johnson has shown that by trying and failing at JC Penney. But that doesn’t mean that other people don’t want to try, and maybe think they’ve got a situation where Johnson could be the right leader since he still understands that big bet mentality better than most.”

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