I am not a hater of Cook (personally, but I find it a rather dull and uninspiring guy) but I really despise the way he transformed Apple in a cashcow/streetfiller/etc. instead of the lean, innovative machine it once was. The way he lamented the computer company showed he is the betrayer of Steve's values.
Has it occured to you that perhaps this is simply the natural order of things?
There's a broader point to be made about the differences between Apple then and now. Whether it should be interpreted as Apple "losing their way" is a matter of perspective.
The simple fact of the matter is that Apple is a fundamentally different company than it used to be. The company can't help it. It's like if you went from paycheck-to-paycheck living, crashing on friend's couches, to a million-dollar a year job. You can claim to be the same person inside, but you're not. When your relationship with your surroundings changes dramatically, that filters down into your core, and it changes you. You can't help it, and you can't control it.
15 years ago, Apple was a company that living on the edge, metaphorically couch surfing. Its existence buoyed by a small population of die-hard fans that looked to it for technology and aesthetic leadership. It had a flock. That was its sustenance. That core group that was willing to follow where it led. Its investor pool was also similar - believers (and a few long-play speculators). You don't hold shares in a company teetering on the edge of non-existence unless you truly believe in it.
When the vast majority of the population that drives your existence are true believers, it gives you flexibility to bring that population with you as you navigate your challenges. If that population is small, then the small revenue limits your options, but their strong loyalty also lets you do things. You can change technology stacks quickly (OS9 => OSX). You can kill off entire classes of partnerships (clones). The population backs you, because they believe. Back in the late 90s, Mac users held a special pride. It took a certain about of personal conviction to stand the tide against "the default". You suffered, and struggled to be a mac user in the face of lack of software choice, and lack of hardware compatibility.. because it was worth it, and you "were a mac user”.
The proportion of Apple's userbase today that are true believers is far smaller. Likewise for their investor base. The current user base and investor loyalty is not based on conviction, or a personal identity-based affiliation
The current user base and investor loyalty is far more grounded in pragmatic self interest. For this user base, it’s a combination of their understanding of Apple products as “good products” and “cool products”, their understanding of the Apple brand as a trustworthy, fashionable, quality, desirable brand. For investors, it’s the typical investor mix - some mix of growth-oriented investment and revenue-oriented (i.e. dividend-oriented) investment.
This is the kind of loyalty most companies have to work with. It’s not as strong as the kind of identity and conviction-based loyalty that sustained the company through it’s dark days.
The problem is that this new, more pragmatically loyal user base and investor base is also what gives Apple its new identity as the most successful company in the world. If Apple’s product quality takes a stumble, some significant chunk of this user base moves on. If Apple’s brand is perceived as less fashionable than it used to be, or less fashionable than it used to be, some significant chunk of that user base moves on.
The user and investor base isn’t a flock anymore. It can’t “be led” like it used to. The company that could forge ahead with drastic decisions, relatively assured that its user base would follow, cannot make that assumption anymore.
Instead of leading a flock, it now has to cater to an audience. This is a drastically different relationship.
Their relationship with shareholders is likewise different. In this very forum, back in the 90s, people used to argue that Apple should just cash in the $4 billion they had in the bank, return it to investors, as that would be a bigger value than forging ahead with their products. Apple’s investors could certainly have forced that outcome, but they didn’t. They hung on, through dwindling marketshare and sales numbers, because they believed in the company.
Are the bulk of shareholders today just as likely to stick with them as those core shareholders from yore? If profits start dropping.. is this new shareholder population as willing to just go along with it? Or are they going to start thirstily eyeing those juicy hundreds of billion dollars sitting in the bank? How much would it take for this new population of shareholders to decide “hey, it was a good ride, let’s force the Apple directors to squeeze some of that juice out for us”?
In this new reality, that original core user and investor base.. those true believers.. they don’t matter anymore. They got to enjoy the ride from the start, but now their secluded island has been inundated by a population of visitors that outnumbers them by a couple of orders of magnitude.
This new population sets the tone for what kind of company Apple will be, because they have the power in this new relationship.
Has Apple “lost its way”? Apple will slowly transition into a much more traditional company (although I would argue that it already has), and its behaviour will start to match those of a traditional company’s behaviour. If you want to consider that as them “losing their way”, then yeah.
I wouldn’t call it “losing their way”, though. Circumstances changed, and the company changed, and that’s just the way she goes.
