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Apple CEO Succession Plans 'Very Detailed', Says Tim Cook

victorvictoria said:
Jobs was a visionary who almost drove Apple to the brink of financial ruin. Then when he was replaced, the successive CEO's almost finished Apple off. Then the board brought (bought) Jobs back, and he saved Apple from ruin. Then he died and Tim Cook took the reins, endorsed by none other than Jobs himself. And Cook, while not visionary or charismatic in any way, is one of the best businessmen ever. He took over when Apple's market cap was $350 billion. Today, it's $3 trillion. Almost tenfold increase in 12 years.
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Jobs taking Apple from a market cap of less than $3 billion to a $350-364 billion market cap (depending where you look) during his second tenure as CEO is far more impressive than increasing market cap less than ten fold over 12 years. The market cap in the 1990's when Jobs came back on board was approximately $2.3 billion. But you believe whatever you want to believe.
 
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I7guy said:
Correct. I meant to say first company to reach $1T.

Well no it isn’t, especially since what Tim Cook id was reinvent Apple.

Actually, not. Tim Cook taking the company to $1T and beyond is way more impressive than what Steve did. Doesn’t seem like we will likely agree on this, so for me, no use in getting into opinions.
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Actually, not. Jobs taking Apple, which was heading towards bankruptcy, from a market cap of less than $3 billion to a $350-364 billion market cap (depending where you look) during his second tenure as CEO is far more impressive than Cook increasing Apple's market cap when it was already on the rise less than ten fold over 12 years. This isn't opinion, this is fact. The numbers don't lie. Cook isn't even better at making money than Jobs was.
 
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Wizard_of_Woz said:
Jobs taking Apple from a market cap of less than $3 billion to a $350-364 billion market cap (depending where you look) during his second tenure as CEO is far more impressive than increasing market cap less than ten fold over 12 years. The market cap in the 1990's when Jobs came back on board was approximately $2.3 billion. But you believe whatever you want to believe.
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I certainly will. So will you. And if I want to believe it, it becomes true, doesn't it? Jobs first tenure was a disaster. Interim management almost finished Apple. Jobs return saved Apple. Tim Cook made me money. Lots of it. Nothing about that is untrue.
 
victorvictoria said:
I certainly will. So will you. And if I want to believe it, it becomes true, doesn't it? Jobs first tenure was a disaster. Interim management almost finished Apple. Jobs return saved Apple. Tim Cook made me money. Lots of it. Nothing about that is untrue.
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"Jobs first tenure was a disaster". He started a computer company in 1976 with almost no money from a garage to building it up to having a market cap of $1.8 billion by 1980. Before Jobs left Apple, he launched the original Macintosh. While it wasn't a huge commercial success, it was a revolutionary machine that changed personal computing forever. If you consider this to be disastrous, then I don't know what to tell you.
 
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ArtOfWarfare said:
Steve Jobs was Apple's CEO from 1997-2011. During that tenure we got:

- iMac
- MacBook
- MacBook Pro
- MacBook Air
- Mac Mini
- Mac Pro
- iPod
- iPod Nano (including one that could be worn on the wrist, a Mickey Mouse clock face, integration with Nike shoes and a step counter.)
- iPhone
- iPad
- Final Cut Pro
- Lightroom
- iWork (Pages/Keynote/Numbers)
- iLife (iPhoto/Garage Band/iWeb/iTunes/iMovie/iDVD)
- iCloud
- macOS
- iOS
- Transition from PPC to Intel
- Apple TV
- iOS App Store
- iOS In-App Purchases
- Siri

Tim Cook has been Apple's CEO for nearly as long - over 12 years. Surely he's got a list 80% as long and about as high quality, right?

- Mac Studio
- iMac Pro (no wait, that was already cancelled)
- AirPods
- Apple Watch (no wait, that's just a rebranding of the iPod Nano)
- Transition from Intel to ARM
- AirTag (stalkers rejoice!)
- Air Power (no wait - oops)
- Apple TV+
- Home Pod (basically Siri unchanged from 2011, but now without the benefit of a touchscreen!)
- Acquired Beats
- Apple Pencil (remember how firm Steve was about saying they'd never make a stylus? Tim Cook decided what Steve actually meant was that Apple wouldn't make a stylus that wasn't 20x as expensive as any other.)

Pretty much all of Apple's success during Tim Cook's tenure can be directly attributed to Steve Jobs. The only good things to come from Apple which arguably weren't part of Steve's plans were a few Apple TV+ shows and the transition of the Mac over to ARM. But even those arguably started under Steve.
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Perhaps a slightly overcritical interpretation of the Cook era, but not entirely off-base.

This is a problem everywhere right now. We're at a new generation of modern computing. The visionary founders of the previous generation are almost all retired or dead. This is one reason Apple generated this story when they did. Cook was about a half step from Jobs, he's only five years younger. The next CEO is going to be a fully new generation.
 
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Mr. Dee said:
Hopefully I get the position when the time comes. Collection of vintage Macs and Apple software should qualify me. I even have a 2007 iPhone with iPhone OS installed.
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Sounds good. Just one last question. On a scale of one to ten, how good would you say you are at negotiating with heads of state of rival nations in order to secure the supply chain?
 
Wizard_of_Woz said:
"Jobs first tenure was a disaster". He started a computer company in 1976 with almost no money from a garage to building it up to having a market cap of $1.8 billion by 1980. Before Jobs left Apple, he launched the original Macintosh. While it wasn't a huge commercial success, it was a revolutionary machine that changed personal computing forever. If you consider this to be disastrous, then I don't know what to tell you.
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No need to tell me anything. I didn't even ask, frankly…
 
gpat said:
It has to be Craig Federighi.
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Jesus god no. He can't even get Mac OS/iOS to work properly. What makes you think he could tie his shoelaces much less run a multibillion dollar company?
 
Look at apple's innovations before and after cook came. Apple need a jobs ore ive again...
 
Wizard_of_Woz said:
Yeah, it is a shame we only ever saw the original Macs, Mac OS X, the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, among other things because of Steve Jobs (and company). But hey, Tim Cook is a good bean counter so there's that.
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Yeah and upgradable Macs were nice too.
 
Wizard_of_Woz said:
Jobs taking Apple, which was heading towards bankruptcy, from a market cap of less than $3 billion to a $350-364 billion market cap (depending where you look) during his second tenure as CEO is far more impressive than Cook increasing Apple's market cap when it was already on the rise less than ten fold over 12 years. This isn't opinion, this is fact.
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"More impressive" is your reaction to Jobs' performance.

And while the existence of your reactions may fall under the general denotation of "fact", that is, your reaction is a real thing that happens in your head, many of us will not agree with you.

Any modest size company can become a moderately large company if they have one hit product or service.

That is different than steering a multinational corporation between international politics and global financial crises.
 
Seanm87 said:
It’s going to be Jeff Williams. The most boring man on the planet.
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I'd say Tim Cook gives him a run for his money. An insomniac's dream given the generic platitudes that spill forth especially in that lazy monotone Southern drawl. There's more spark in Siri's voice.
 
An interesting interview but Dua Lipa is not exactly a journalist who has the experience of knowing what are the right questions to ask. As others have mentioned, this was more of a Apple PR stunt to make their CEO appear more appealing to the masses.

I know Tim has done hundreds of interviews over the recent years but has there been one where he has faced some really tough questions about his role as CEO and the direction he has put Apple on (making them a trillion dollar company) and other questions about pricing, removal of tech features, lack of innovation in some products, stuff like that. Or does Apple make sure he avoids such type of interviews?
 
laptech said:
An interesting interview but Dua Lipa is not exactly a journalist who has the experience of knowing what are the right questions to ask. As others have mentioned, this was more of a Apple PR stunt to make their CEO appear more appealing to the masses.

I know Tim has done hundreds of interviews over the recent years but has there been one where he has faced some really tough questions about his role as CEO and the direction he has put Apple on (making them a trillion dollar company) and other questions about pricing, removal of tech features, lack of innovation in some products, stuff like that. Or does Apple make sure he avoids such type of interviews?
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Apple probably wouldn’t let him do those sort of interviews. Those topics are probably too subjective.
 
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