Apple thrived for a decade of Tim Cook as CEO. And after.

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Happy birthday, Tim.

It is now exactly a decade since the late Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO of

Apple,

hand over the reins to Tim Cook, then COO.

Apple has lost the world’s most admired CEO, and yet the company has never lost a step. Under Cook, Apple stock went from $ 12 per share to almost $ 150; incomes have more than tripled; and, more importantly, Apple has continued to innovate, rolling out everything from the Apple Watch and AirPods to an ever-improving succession of iPhones.

The announcement of Cook’s promotion to CEO ten years ago included a prophetic quote from then-president Art Levinson. “The board is totally confident that Tim is the right person to be our next CEO,” said Levinson. “Tim’s 13 years of service with Apple has been one of exceptional performance, and he has demonstrated remarkable talent and sound judgment in everything he does.

Those 13 years are now up to 23, of course. And the overwhelming proof is that Apple made the right choice in picking Cook to succeed Jobs in the first place.

Here’s a report on how Tim has performed so far in his tenure as CEO.

Investors have been rewarded: The day Apple announced the CEO change, the stock actually dropped a few cents. I hope it wasn’t you. Since that day, Apple shares have appreciated by nearly 1,200%. Another way to think about it: over 92% of Apple’s current market valuation was created with Cook in charge. Or to see it another way, Jobs provided the vision, and Cook went out and built the business.

The fundamental performance has been fantastic: According to Current Street estimates, Apple generated approximately $ 366 billion in revenue for the September 2021 fiscal year, an increase of about 240% from the $ 108 billion reported for fiscal 2011. Earnings per share over the same period more than increased tenfold, and free cash flow more than tripled. And Apple has returned heaps of money to shareholders through an aggressive share buyback program, reducing the number of shares over the past 10 years by nearly 10 billion shares, or about 37%.

The company continues to innovate: A common but ill-informed criticism of Apple is that the company hasn’t done anything new since the first iPhone launched in 2007. This is patently silly. The regular parade of new and improved products continues to be central to Apple’s history.

Under Cook’s leadership, for example, Apple introduced every generation of iPhones, from iPhone 4 to iPhone 12 (and soon to be iPhone 13), a period in which the device was completely transformed. with new designs, better processors, cameras, displays and significantly improved core apps and software, including the first 5G iPhones last year.

Apple launched the Apple Watch in 2015, the AirPods in 2016, the HomePod in 2018, a host of new services in 2019, including the Apple Card credit card, the Apple TV streaming service, Apple News + and Apple Arcade and the AirTags in 2021. There have been dramatic improvements in Macs and iPads, including the first Macs with processors designed by Apple. And that’s an abbreviated list.

Cook is a masterful politician: Let’s not forget that Cook has shown skill in directing the public image of Apple. Amid widespread hostility to tech giants under the last administration, Cook has forged a much better relationship with President Trump than other tech executives, while maintaining the company’s important ties to China. , where Apple has a huge customer base and crucial supplier relationships. Cook oversaw Apple’s largest-ever acquisition – the $ 3.2 billion acquisition of headphone company Beats in 2014 – and has managed to keep tight control over his personal history, including coming out as gay in a historical story from Time magazine, also in 2014.

And after: Ah, that’s still the big question for Apple. What else can I do? Well, in a few weeks we will have some new iPhones. But there will be more development after that, and not just new versions of Macs, iPads and other devices. It has been widely reported that the company is working on automotive technology, and an Apple Car is one possibility. The company used the Apple Watch as a starting point to expand its health and wellness offering. Apple is said to be working on augmented and virtual reality hardware. And without a doubt, there are other things in the hopper that even the rumor mill has yet to learn. Perhaps the most difficult question is how long Cook intends to stay at the helm. He will be 61 in November, the oldest CEO among the five tech megacaps. Cook didn’t say when he planned to step down, but he also said he probably wouldn’t be CEO at 70. Apple survived the transition from Jobs to Cook, and everything will likely be fine in the next succession.

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