Apple has made several strategic acquisitions over the last decade that put them in this position, and has a fairly unique advantage in their relationship with shareholders—basically, that they can take what would be massive risks to other companies, rather than chasing short-term quarterly profit increases, and not suffer massive backlash for it. Also note that Apple didn't just come out with the M1 out of nowhere: it's the result of iterative improvements on the A-series chips for over a decade.

That's not to say it would be impossible for another company to try to get themselves to where Apple is today—but it would be far from trivial.

It's kind of weird that one of the most valuable companies in the world has this "we're doing our own thing and we're gonna do it well, invest if you want, or don't" attitude, but that same attitude is decried by pretty much anyone else.

It's not like they're an example or anything... I mean, it obviously doesn't work for every market, but I just see it as kind of strange that someone hasn't taken a page from Apple's playbook over the years when it would suit them.

I think the reason it works is because except for their brief—and very obviously catastrophic—period in the '90s under traditional suits, Apple's management made it clear from the start that that's how they would operate.

When Steve Jobs came back as "iCEO" in the late '90s, Apple stock was roughly $8/share (pre-splits). They weren't a total nobody, but they certainly weren't interesting enough to any big fish that there was any push to put pressure on them to act like a more "traditional" company. And Jobs kept doing things his way for the next 15 years, until his medical retirement and untimely death, and those things increased Apple's stock price fairly steadily. Until the iPhone came out, of course, at which point it increased dramatically.

But by then, people were already used to the idea that Apple would do things Apple's way. (And some people were so used to the idea that Apple was Doomed that they still preach it every time there's any new Apple news.) And it's so utterly clear that Apple doing things Apple's way works—for Apple.

Any other company trying to do things Apple's way—or even its own unique way, rather than the way the markets want—would be fighting an incredibly strong current.

"Mr CEO, the board has heard word that you are working on some sort of "insanely great" product, and requires clarity on whether you're booking the revenue from this thing, whatever it is, into the current quarter, or next quarter -- and also how many quarters it will then take to invent the next insanely great product to follow. One insanely great product per year remains an acceptable cadence at least through 2022. Note that we require a launch in time for CES and we are under increasing pressure with our WalMart deal -- kindly recall your incentive package structure. Please advise."

I mean, you jest, but look at how the tech press covered Apple for years, especially after Jobs' death: "Tim Cook should be fired, he hasn't brought out anything as world-changing as the iPhone in the two/five/eight years he's been CEO!" Not to mention "The iPad doesn't do these five incredibly specific things that Android tablets do, and one Android tablet maker says they'll be making one next year that's faster than the current model iPad!"

So many people, even those who should absolutely know better, seemed to get caught in the trap of believing that a company—any company—can only be "viable" if it can constantly outdo itself and all its competitors.

> brief

1985 - 1997

Huh; for some reason, my brain always tells me that he didn't get fired till 1989. Not sure why; maybe it's because it wasn't until a few years after that that the product lines started to metastasize in a way that only a corporate suit could love (Quadra, Performa, LC, etc).

Anyway, thanks for the reminder that the period without Steve Jobs was less brief than I tend to think.

Ironically (coincidentally?) another of the most valuable companies in the world, Amazon, has been saying exactly the same thing - and acting the same way - for more than 20 years[1]:

"We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be the shareholder value we create over the long term...

Because of our emphasis on the long term, we may make decisions and weigh tradeoffs differently than some companies...

We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-term market leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or short-term Wall Street reactions..."

Maybe there's something to this approach?

[1] Bezos letter to shareholders, 1997 - https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/amzn_shar...

I hadn't thought of Amazon that way. Good point :)

It takes time. It took Apple 10 years to get from their first chip, the A4, to the M1.

For one Apple hasn't just gotten good, they've been working towards this for over 10 years. Secondly AMD is doing pretty well competing with Apple on performance.

Vertical Integration of products, culture and functional organization. Intel, QC, AMD will never be a holistic consumer solution. MSFT or Amazon might be able to to technically and financially, but I don't know about organizationally. Perhaps if Surface/Kindle were spun off completely and had $10B and more to buy a next-gen node for a year. Google claims to be some functional matrix but the pieces just never come together that elegantly.