Tim Cook Says Apple's $1 Trillion Value is a 'Significant Milestone' But 'Not the Most Important Measure of Success' in Employee Memo

[TaviDuprix]

"When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money."
-- Cree Indian Prophecy

Maybe we "can't touch 1 trillion", but we most certainly don't have to worship it like it was the one and only reason to live for.
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Yes, and as Bill Gates supposedly once said, "a smart person lets even smarter people work for him."


From the original post:
"[...] want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the late hours...[...]"

If your staff has to work overtime, you do not have enough staff. But why should a trillion dollar company invest in staff...

Perhaps you are on the wrong board. Maybe you should start a board for Exxon Mobil, Halliburton or Schluberger with your talk of poisoned streams etc. Apple is one of the most environmentally sound companies in the world and is consistently rated as so. As for your comment about OT, you must not understand business. Any business with fluctuating demand that does not require occasional overtime is overstaffed. Companies that are overstaffed are either not profitable or they must raise prices to cover the excess staffing costs. Furthermore, there is a law of diminishing returns that comes into play with employees. At some point each new employee will be less qualified than the one before which even further exacerbates the problem of over-staffing.

 

[timber]

Saying that you don't care about stock price and it is only a result of nice products and whatever (which is also true) while you run a hundread billion dollar stock buyback program is not that honest.

 

[thekeyring]

That’s exactly what someone who thought it was the most important measure of success, but was trying to convince the world he thought otherwise, would say! </s>

 

[Naraxus]

So why don’t they? Why do they choose to stay and rant?

Because many of us are long-time Apple fans/Mac users & professionals who can actively remember when the focus of the company wasn't on profits/sjw-ing and catering to the Snapchat crowd. Many of us remember a time when Apple actually cared about its users and actively went out of their way to make us feel like a member of a family. Tim Cook has done a complete 180 from all of that.

As my sig says, I didn't leave Apple Inc, Apple Inc left me. And that's sad.

 

[omihek]

Cook is coasting on what Jobs did. Also, Steve chose Scully. What does that tell you?

Steve chose Sculley because the board was pushing him to choose someone besides himself. Unless I'm remembering wrong? It's been a while since I read his biography.

But you are exactly right on your first point. Cook is coasting on what Jobs did. Which is exactly why Steve picked him.
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If by success you mean an unrelenting singular pursuit on the disposable gadget market, then I agree.

I mean the highest continual customer and shareholder satisfaction rate of any company ever, among other things.

 

[MessieKake]

"Slightly over 1,000,000,000,000"

It just came to my head that the only reason for the US to name big numbers differently is to make their sums sound bigger to the rest of the world... you see a trillion and the rest of the world sees a billion. It's still the highest value tho, I guess it's just a matter of perception.

 

[I7guy]

Because many of us are long-time Apple fans/Mac users & professionals who can actively remember when the focus of the company wasn't on profits/sjw-ing and catering to the Snapchat crowd. Many of us remember a time when Apple actually cared about its users and actively went out of their way to make us feel like a member of a family. Tim Cook has done a complete 180 from all of that.

As my sig says, I didn't leave Apple Inc, Apple Inc left me. And that's sad.

I still don’t see the focus of Apple being on profits. I see the medias’ focus being in profits. But Cook is doing what he should be doing, his fiduciary responsibility. And he is doing a great job at that.

 

[omihek]

All this is down to the five year plan from Steve. If you execute Steve's vision then of course you'll make money. It's when you need to think and plan on your own that you're in trouble. Cook is entering such waters now.

You are confusing plan with vision. Apple Watch wasn't planned by Steve; it was the first product conceptualized and developed totally without his personal input. And it has gone on to blast through the numbers of any other watch-maker and also be the highest in customer satisfaction.

But you are right about the vision. If you execute Steve's vision then Apple will stay on the right track. Good thing Steve chose a CEO that could follow his vision. Vision doesn't run out. It lasts forever. Let's just hope Apple will continue following it. So far under Tim Cook that's exactly what they've been doing, even though the products that Steve "planned" were finished years ago.

 

[simonmet]

Tim Cook is an amazing CEO.

The haters will keep crying, but they can't touch 1 trillion.

He is great at making money for Apple, but as a customer, so long as Apple is sustainable I don't care how rich they are. They could break even for all I care and pass on more to the customer with some lower prices, how about that?

 

[Rogifan]

I see Marco Arment is back to constant doom and gloom. Now fretting over Apple’s focus on services. And someone responded to one of his tweets with a comment about lightning cables getting more and more flimsy. One, I haven’t experienced that (they seem the same to me as they always have been). Two this theory makes no sense. Purposely skimping out on product quality makes no sense as it makes it more likely people will chose NOT to buy more of your products in the future. It’s not like Apple has a gun to people’s head forcing them to own Apple products. And I doubt most people are that invested in iOS ecosystem that they couldn’t leave if they wanted to. Macs might be a different story but even there my guess is the percentage of people who will never use anything but macOS (like John Gruber) is quite small.

 

[Duane Martin]

I think that’s just a cover to say “don’t expect any salary increases soon”, hahaha!!!

Earlier this year Apple gave just about ALL of it's employees a bonus of restricted stock units worth $2500. I would really appreciate that kind of bonus especially given the direction of Apple stock value; not many companies do this kind of thing. Haters gotta hate but you could at least make more of an effort than certain former world leaders when making up things to hate.

Tim Cook is recognizing the milestone and reminding employees this is not why Apple is in business. That's what a really good CEO should do.

 

[I7guy]

All this is down to the five year plan from Steve. If you execute Steve's vision then of course you'll make money. It's when you need to think and plan on your own that you're in trouble. Cook is entering such waters now.

Are you saying Cook is doomed due to apples’ valuation being $1T?

But this is how they made all that money; by duping their consumers with expensive garbage products over the last 6+ years.

For whatever reason, Apple consumers still buy their devices. Total mystery to me..

And it should be a mystery to you.

You know nothing about me or my likes, wants or needs.

 

[fathergll]

Yes, but you can use another more expensive Mac to solve most of the problems you solve with a Mac Mini. It is just going to cost you more money.

As I said before there is no other stand alone desktop Apple computer. Buying an iMac does not solve the issue of lack of a proper up to date standalone desktop. If you want an all-in-one with a glossy screen then the iMac works.

Also you forgot the Mac Pro, which is also a standalone desktop.

It's not a desktop computer, its a workstation computer by definition.

https://www.macworld.com/article/3208028/macs/mac-pro-features-specifications-prices-faq.html

To be even more accurate its an outdated workstation at best and Apple has scrapped the entire design.

 

[bluespark]

Who would you like as the CEO of Apple? Someone like John Sculley perhaps? Like it or not, Tim has continued the success that Steve Jobs was known for creating within Apple. I'm not sure that just anyone could pull that off. And wasn't it Steve himself that chose Tim as his successor? If everyone on this forum really idolizes Steve as much as they claim to, maybe you should respect his last act as CEO, trusting Tim to take the helm.

Satya Nadella. Think about where Microsoft was when he took over and where they are now. Now imagine what he could accomplish at Apple.

 

[pipis2010]

Earlier this year Apple gave just about ALL of it's employees a bonus of restricted stock units worth $2500. I would really appreciate that kind of bonus especially given the direction of Apple stock value; not many companies do this kind of thing. Haters gotta hate but you could at least make more of an effort than certain former world leaders when making up things to hate.

Tim Cook is recognizing the milestone and reminding employees this is not why Apple is in business. That's what a really good CEO should do.

My comment was ironic fyi

 

[naujoks]

Too bad they're just sitting on their money and don't do anything with it.
Like, update the Macs for example. Just one little boring thing one could easily do.

 

[mi7chy]

It's more of a testament to the strong branding that the original Apple founders created. Tim Cook loves to take credit and Pat himself on the back though. Slowly he will turn out to be another John Sculley.

 

[Ramchi]

They are growing in the double digits, what are you talking about?

Double digits ? Probably their revenue. But customer growth and market share, most likely not. My point was related to that. Hence high price Apple products to off-set lesser market share.

 

[hasanahmad]

I knew Tim commenting on the $1 trillion number will trigger the trolls and I was right

 

[andreiru]

Your company's products are overpriced, Mr. Cook.

 

[Pootie Tang]

Too bad they're just sitting on their money and don't do anything with it.
Like, update the Macs for example. Just one little boring thing one could easily do.

Apple is not sitting on its money. Apple is giving $300 billion back to its investors in the form of stock buy backs and dividend payments. $300 billion is the most returned to investors by any corporation, ever. Mac updates are coming soon; I am awaiting them. Patience, grasshopper!
"Apple has $163 billion to burn and Tim Cook plans to spend it."
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a...urn-and-tim-cook-plans-to-spend-it-2018-02-01

 

[citysnaps]

I knew Tim commenting on the $1 trillion number will trigger the trolls and I was right

Yeah, expected... People who don't have much success in their lives hate it when another person or company does.

 

[davie18]

Tim Cook is the best CEO in tech.

Look at who the rest have. Thiel is a delusional vampire. Musk is always three seconds away from a Twitter meltdown. Zuck, Jack and other social media CEOs have been data abusing Kremlin assets or creepto scam shills.

It's as if there is a trend towards dystopian sociopaths in tech and only Apple have maintained sane leadership, probably because their success has been building for many years while the others above have tried to get rich fast at the expense of security and society.

Lol what Elon Musk made his millions 20 years ago. And both Tesla and Space X were being developed for a good decade or longer until they made good progress and people tooo them seriously.

You seriously think if musk wanted to get rich quick he’d start a rocket and car company lol? That’s totally illogical

I think your tongue is too far up Cook’s rear end if you think he’s the ONLY ‘sane’ CEO in tech...

Look at after jobs joined, Apple came out with the much updated iMacs, the MacBooks, the iPod, the iPhone, the unibody MacBook and more all within 10 years. Even smaller innovations like MagSafe and the MacBook Air and getting rid of dvd drives were happening. Innovation was just part of apple’s DNA when Steve returned.

Under Tim Cook what innovations have happened?? Oh they had the courage to kill the headphone jack.

SO INNOVATIVE!!

 

[oldhifi]

pay your taxes Timmy

 

[omihek]

Satya Nadella. Think about where Microsoft was when he took over and where they are now. Now imagine what he could accomplish at Apple.

IMO Satya Nadella is more like Steve Jobs than Tim Cook is, but the thing is, Tim Cook is still sticking to Steve's vision for the company. Competition is good, and I'd much rather have Satya Nadella stay where he is so there can be at least two companies with a great visionary at the helm (Tim Cook following Steve Jobs vision at Apple; Satya's vision at Microsoft).