Tim Cook arguably made Apple what it is today. Without him, Apple might've had great products but failed miserably in the supply chain management side of the business. It's telling that after Jobs, Apple didn't slide into irrelevance but instead continued to thrive.

Tech aficionados (myself included) might have qualms about their product strategy, but overall the business continues to be wildly successful with regular consumers.

"It's telling that after Jobs, Apple didn't slide into irrelevance but instead continued to thrive."

Tim Cook is clearly incredibly important to the success of Apple, but from a product perspective it is a refinement of all the products Steve Jobs launched that still carry the company. Those products are faster and slicker and have better cameras -- the innovations afforded to a hyper-profitable company -- but it isn't like Apple has done a 90 degree turn or anything. They aren't a smartphone/pad/computer company that turned into a smartcar/massage chair company.

Apple Watch and AirPods both launched after the Jobs era, and they're doing pretty well in their respective categories. I wouldn't bet against Apple on their product strategy with Cook running things, they're a lot doing more than just adding polish to what Jobs left them with.

> it is a refinement of all the products Steve Jobs launched that still carry the company

Not really. You could say that the iPhone still carries the company, but with the exception of that outlier newer initiatives like Services and Wearables/Home/Accessories bring in way more money than products that Steve Jobs launched (Mac and iPad).

Not really? Then you casually say "if you exclude the iPhone" which kind of undercuts the entire argument, doesn't it?

70% of Apple revenue comes from the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Services revenue is entirely and absolutely based upon that, and certainly didn't originate post Jobs.

Even the Watch -- have one and love it -- exists on the back of the iPhone.

So, yeah, really.

Everything Apple has done that has been successful since Jobs is entirely in the halo of the iPhone, which of course still accounts for the vast bulk of Apple's profits.

How much of that is staying power because of the ecosystem and just enough incremental improvements to keep consumers happy? I agree that Tim Cook made all of the logistics work to turn the dream into reality but now that Jobs is gone it just feels like the dream stopped evolving and lots of blemishes and complexity are slipping into the operating systems that Jobs wouldn't have allowed.

Blackberry also had tons of brand loyalty as did Nokia, Motorola. I don't know that, ecosystem, and incremental improvements are enough to keep going with how competitive the space is, or they'd be eaten alive by samsung, Microsoft, etc that are also slowly but surely building those same things. And the apple watch is a huge success - and sure, year to hear iPhones are iterative, but look back a few years and it's amazing how far tech has come

I wondered that, but they've made at least a couple of good product decisions in the post-jobs era. Most notably in my mind: the AirPods, and the iPad Pro (with pencil, and more powerful iOS).

Nadella has been amazing and Huang underrated. Bezos should be on that list?

Grove vs. Jobs is interesting (for discussion; not that we can't just put them both in the same very small group at the top). For example, difficult to envision anyone being a better CEO for Apple than Jobs was. On other hand, if you take any_random_company, and put either Grove or Jobs at the helm, then Grove is likely the better fit for a much higher percentage?

Definitely would add Bezos and Musk. Bezos is one of the most managerially/business astute CEOs and Musk is able to will futuristic companies basically out of thin air.

I think bezos has to show continued dominance - but he's obviously up there. I don't know I'd you can call it for muak without a few decades to see whether his companies stick. Sure, he's changed the conception of electric cars and made low earth orbit really accessible, but as a CEO and leader it's still not clear whether he can lead that revolution long term or if some of his more erratic tendencies will bring things down. Tesla still isn't a stable, well functioning business (and as he veo he just put an awful lot of people at risk with his behavior during the pandemic - look at what's happening in Italy - he defied the rules meant to prevent that. I dont think that sounds like leadership). But in the long run he very could be.

”Bezos has to show continued dominance”....?

Please say that is a typo, surely it should say...

Bezos has shown continued dominance

Amazon is a huge conglomerate on a huge scope and scale. Bezos has built a book store into a Japanese style mega-corp.

AWS is killing it, Amazon.com is killing it, Prime is killing it, A9 is killing it, Whole is killing in....

So many subsidiaries: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)

It takes a while to become a legend. He's well on his way, but it's not something you really want to call till the end if their careers. Even then, might be too soon, look at how people viewed jack Welch at the end of his career versus now.

Cook deserves more credit. iPhone survived the onslaught of Android and remained the most profitable smartphone. That alone is a minor miracle.

I would submit that Rob Mee (founder of Pivotal Labs, former CEO of Pivotal) is one of the greatest unsung heroes of Silicon Valley. So many of the biggest success stories in tech today were either advised by him or worked with Pivotal Labs in their early stages.

Both Twitter and Square are notable examples, but it is a very, very long list. Google also worked with Pivotal Labs in their early days.

Why VMWare/Patrick?

(The rest make sense to me because of all the hullabaloo around the company comebacks...)

Steve Ballmer was pretty good. He couldn't evolve the company to a changing world, but he made shit tons of money for Microsoft. Also I think Nadella has done a really good job: I think they both kind of needed each other to turn Microsoft into what it is today.

Elon.