Today Marks 10 Years Since Tim Cook Became Apple's CEO

[cmaier]

Look Who Zoomed Past Apple Since It Lost Steve Jobs

It's been exactly 10 years since Steve Jobs resigned as Apple's CEO. And Apple stock lost its wow factor in the S&P 500.

www.investors.com

Shares of the technology giant are up 1,022% since Tim Cook replaced Jobs as the Apple CEO on Aug. 24, 2010.

But it ranks Apple stock just 45th for stock gains in that time in the S&P 500.

What's the top S&P 500 stock since Jobs' stepped down? Elon Musk's Tesla (TSLA). It's up 15,281% in that time, running circles around Apple stock's 1,022% gain. And it's not just stock market speculation. Tesla's revenue since 2010 is up nearly 27,000% from 2011 — making Apple's 320% top-line growth look pedestrian.

Yes, when you start at 0, it’s a lot easier to increase 1000%.

 

[cmaier]

If Steve was alive, we had so many more innovative products we cannot even imagine. That was his power. RIP

Steve didn’t come up with any of these products. He just polished them, and chose which things were duds and which were good. There’s no evidence Apple has great stuff that didn’t make it to final product because Steve isn’t around.

 

[0924487]

We all know who's gonna be the next to the throne.

 

[chr1s60]

He's been there for 10 years, and actually ran the operations of the company for years before that. The entire time I've read complaints here, and predictions of doom.

Still waiting for the doom.

You say he has left a lot to be desired in the product category - yet Apple sells more than it ever has before, by a ton. His genius is ignoring what the loudest and most obnoxious voices on macrumors forums, want and focussing on what the rest of us - the majority - want.

I didn't predict doom. Continued mediocrity rarely kills a large company but it can absolutely hurt their standing as a pioneer or innovator in the industry. Consumer electronics have continually gone up in sales over the last decade so "selling more" doesn't mean you have better products than in the past, it often times means more people are buying products in general.

Imagine if Steve had seen the success of the iPod and didn't introduce the iPhone because the iPod was selling so well and instead only continued yearly updates of the iPod. That is the path Tim is on.

 

[Digital Dude]

Best CEO alive, the results speak for themselves.

In terms of increasing profits, I agree.

 

[allan.nyholm]

Not to turn this into a debate about Tim Cook's way of handling Apple as its CEO - however, when are we going to see a woman as CEO of Apple..

Tim is woke enough to get this done on a whim - and he will; A hefty lesbian woman with half black & half chinese parents who were also gay and struggled to put food on the table and each had to turn tricks for a living - going against their own sexuality; being gay vs having sex with men who were mostly straight and then would come home crying to the supposed new(coming) CEO of Apple.

Several months later the new CEO would appear on Oprah's deathbed where Oprah will conduct her very last interview, in which Oprah tells the now female CEO of Apple that "I ... (coughs) always knew it ... (more coughs) would be ..... (cough-this time with a small amount of unicorn blood drips on Oprah's chin) you..... (breathes out)" Everyone claps... Aannnd it's a wrap.. great work Ghosts of Ye Old Pubics.

Say no more, say no more.. I can see how this will benefit Apple in a major way. Now there's not much more to talk about.

 

[I7guy]

I didn't predict doom. Continued mediocrity rarely kills a large company but it can absolutely hurt their standing as a pioneer or innovator in the industry. Consumer electronics have continually gone up in sales over the last decade so "selling more" doesn't mean you have better products than in the past, it often times means more people are buying products in general.

Imagine if Steve had seen the success of the iPod and didn't introduce the iPhone because the iPod was selling so well and instead only continued yearly updates of the iPod. That is the path Tim is on.

I agree. But then Apple does not have continued mediocrity at least in my opinion. YMMV.

 

[giggles]

Apple’s competition craps the bed every time they try to go “beyond the smartphone”
- tablets are sad one-shot browser-machines compared to the iPad
- smart watches are 5 years behind the Apple Watch
- true wireless earbuds just recently caught up with 2016 Airpods
- PCs are spaces heaters with undependable battery life compared to M1 Macs, Chromebooks are popular but more limited in scope
- exotic format (foldable, etc.) smartphones are sold in the single digit millions worldwide, they’re more halo devices than mainstream for the time being

But somehow some people here are convinced Apple is the one stuck on the iPhone…meanwhile Airpods are a huge pop culture phenomenon and bigger than half of the Fortune 500, the Watch is bigger than the Swiss watch industry, M1X Macs are about to melt faces and switch switchers, AppleTV+ gets Emmy nominations left and right, the mini-LED and OLED supply chains are about to be hugely expanded by Apple orders, Apple was the last to be impacted by the global chip shortage, Apple is one of the most successful silicon designers on the planet, and anyone not living under a rock by now has got wind that something big is brewing at Cupertino in the face-mounted wearable space.
(not to mention the car thing..)

But sure, Tim is just riding the iPhone ride Steve had set for him…

 

[MacBH928]

It's a company, not a religion.

Apple doesn't operate as a charity, and people don't treat it as a charity case. People didn't buy their products to keep Apple afloat, Apple stayed afloat because people bought their products. Jobs introduced the iMac because he knew Profit=Revenue-Costs and he desperately needed profits to survive-- people bought it not because they believed in something bigger, but because it offered an experience people wanted.

In most cases its just an exchange of benefit, but in other cases people want a specific company to continue because it carries more than just an exchange of benefit but a philosophy and a cause.

Example : British people might choose to travel on British Airways to support their country and their own economy. I choose to use ProtonMail because I believe in supporting a business that respects email privacy. I could easily choose Gmail it does the same thing, also free. Similarly I can buy from small grocery stores instead from buying big corporate supermarkets, although the same product can be found cheaper but in support of the smaller families. I can also purchase from a smaller company like Affinity Photo instead of paying Adobe Photoshop because I want to encourage competition and break monopoly.

 

[Abazigal]

Apple’s competition craps the bed every time they try to go “beyond the smartphone”
- tablets are sad one-shot browser-machines compared to the iPad
- smart watches are 5 years behind the Apple Watch
- true wireless earbuds just recently caught up with 2016 Airpods
- PCs are spaces heaters with undependable battery life compared to M1 Macs, Chromebooks are popular but more limited in scope
- exotic format (foldable, etc.) smartphones are sold in the single digit millions worldwide, they’re more halo devices than mainstream for the time being

But somehow some people here are convinced Apple is the one stuck on the iPhone…meanwhile Airpods are a huge pop culture phenomenon and bigger than half of the Fortune 500, the Watch is bigger than the Swiss watch industry, M1X Macs are about to melt faces and switch switchers, AppleTV+ gets Emmy nominations left and right, the mini-LED and OLED supply chains are about to be hugely expanded by Apple orders, Apple was the last to be impacted by the global chip shortage, Apple is one of the most successful silicon designers on the planet, and anyone not living under a rock by now has got wind that something big is brewing at Cupertino in the face-mounted wearable space.
(not to mention the car thing..)

But sure, Tim is just riding the iPhone ride Steve had set for him…

Don’t forget smart speakers as well. The tech industry hyped them up to the next big computing interface, only to see smart assistants being used for little less than music playback.

There seems to be this desire to have someone or something displace the smartphone (and more specifically, the iphone), and so far, nobody’s coming close.

My personal bet is on wearables, and guess who has the edge in the wearables market? Apple.

 

[Naraxus]

You almost had me until you put in MobileMe. It's not an OS. Try again

 

[Pasha Rodionov]

I wonder what is the best product Apple made under Tim’s leadership.

AirPods Pro