2023-08-19 13:30:00
Anyone with a good memory should remember that Steve Jobs’s last public appearance was not at the keynote of the WWDC11but the next day, to show the proposal of the Apple Park to the Cupertino City Council.
If you’ve never seen this video, it’s worth setting aside 20 minutes to watch it. I particularly like Jobs’ answer to the question about whether Apple Park could offer Free Wi-Fi for the whole city. ????
Jobs’s face at the end of the video is unmistakable: his legacy was complete. He knew he would never see Apple Park with his own eyes and he was at peace with that. His mission, accomplished, ended there.
The Beginning of the Tim Cook Era
Not everyone knows, but Tim Cook joined Apple in 1998 as Senior Vice President of Global Operations from IBM. Next Thursday, August 24, he will complete 12 years as CEOChief executive officeror executive director.”>1.
In 1998, as the world rediscovered Apple with the newly introduced iMac G3, Cook worked behind the scenes to completely overhaul the way the company handled its supply chain, and especially its customers. stocks.
Before, products spent months collecting dust in stocks around the world. This prevented Apple from having a more precise control over the demand in each region. Cook has reduced lead time to just five dayswhich was essential to balance the company’s financial health and pave the way for what would come next.
Tim Cook and Steve Jobs at the iPhone 4 antenna emergency event.
Over the past 12 years, Cook’s Apple has become the world’s most valuable brand, the technology The most valuable company in the world, the most profitable company in the world, entered with both feet into important markets — such as health — and, more recently, began to operate in previously unimaginable segments, such as the agency of football players.
On a personal level, Cook established himself as a respectful and civilized (imagine that!), yet demanding leader. Who never heard the anecdote of the executive who had to leave in the middle of a meeting in Cupertino to go straight to China and solve a problem with a supplier?
Also under Cook, Apple established an exemplary role in environmental and social programs, areas that Jobs never bothered to act on. All this without losing sight of the company’s expansion and consolidation in all your businesses, including new ones.
The question of innovation
Even with all this history, there is an adjective that will hardly be associated with Tim Cook: creative. The price of Apple’s success was giving up the adventurous spirit of the past.
And looking at it from a business point of view, it makes sense. It would be impossible, in 2023, to want Apple to operate according to the 2×2 matrix that Jobs established in 1997.
Apple’s four product quadrants: two notebooks, two desktops. Each with a professional option and an option for home consumers.
Apple is only this size today because it expanded all its product lines laterally (iPhone, iPhone mini, iPhone Plus, iPhone Pro, iPhone Pro Max, iPhone SE, iPad, iPad mini, iPad Air, iPad Pro, etc.). All this juggling only worked in these proportions because there was someone operations in leadership and not someone primarily creative.
In addition, Cook broke the tradition Apple’s decision to withdraw a model after the announcement of its successor. Today, on the eve of the launch of the “iPhone 15”it is still possible to officially buy a iPhone 12 it is a iPhone 13besides the iPhone SE (Only in configurations that maximize average profit per device sold). This decision, obviously, was very well accepted in markets like ours, India and China, where launch prices are prohibitive for most of the population.
Well then. But what about new product lines? O Apple Watch marked the debut of the Cook Apple in that area. At the time of its release, rumors were already circulating that the company was also working on a caran initiative whose codename would be “Project Titan”. Soon after, the first whispers involving virtual reality emerged.
For all intents and purposes, the Apple Watch is a success. It is common to say that, “if it were a separate company, it would be big enough to be on the Fortune 500”. Same thing with the AirPods, by the way. Still, no product conceived in the Cook era has proved big enough (until now) to make the same impact as virtually every product line Apple released between 1998 and 2010.
Already with the Apple Vision Pro, the thing is different. This is indeed one of those product categories that, if it succeeds the way Apple intends (despite the grande skepticism of the market), has the potential to change our relationship with the digital world in the same way that the iPhone changed our relationship with computers in 2007.
The beginning of the end
Two years ago, during an interview with the journalist Kara Swisher to the New York TimesCook said he probably won’t spend another 10 years at the helm of Apple.
Next year, the Vision Pro will hit the market, making this a perfect time for Cook to announce his retirement. On the other hand, obstinate as the executive is, it is quite possible that he will wait for the launch (or cancellation) of “Project Titan” to ask for the accounts.
It’s worth remembering that cars are not his passion. They are the passion of Eddy Cue, Jony Ive and Phil Schiller — the last two already distant or unrelated to the company’s operation. And the instability of the project makes its cancellation as or more likely than its launch, currently scheduled for 2026 (at best).
Phil Schiller at the Audi Sport e-tron event in Spain in 2019.
What’s more, even if Apple’s car is successful, it will be just another car on the streets, adding to the already insoluble problem of urban transport. A truly transformative and positive project for humanity would involve something collective and not just another luxury car stuck in traffic. But that is a topic for another day…
Tim Cook joined Apple on the brink of bankruptcy, took over when it was worth it $300 billion and, barring any catastrophe, it will start with a market value of at least $3 trillion. No other CEO has come close to doing something like this, let alone in a span of just 12 years.
As much as creativity was not Apple’s forte during this period, Cook seems to have made a record string of right decisions (apart from U2) to solidify the company’s presence in the technology market, and expand it to the from music. And from TV. And the automotive. And from the movies. And credit cards. And Chinese. It’s immersive. And signatures. And accessories. And Indian. And sporty.
One way or another, with or without a roster of revolutionary products, we are witnessing the last stage of one of the most brilliant careers in history for the CEO of a company in any segment. And if this isn’t one hell of a legacy, I don’t know what is.
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