Cook is 10 years into his tenure at Apple. Since Ballmer took over in 2000, we can look at the period between 2001 and 2011 for comparison.

During that time, their stock price fell at least 10%. The launch of Windows Vista was bungled (XP outlived Vista). They had a string of failures in the phone market, before finally abandoning it. They had a string of failed acquisitions, including Nokia. Remember the Microsoft Stores?

Azure was the only real lasting success acheived under Ballmer.

The M1 chip and moving Jony Ive on points towards Cook being in a different league to Ballmer.

Also Microsoft lost all relevance in being a mobile phone platform under Ballmer. I can't think of a similar blunder from Cook, maybe losing mindshare from creative professionals, but that's a much smaller market that Apple could be making a comeback in.

At the same time Azure was started under Ballmer, which was important in Microsoft's reinvention and repositioning.

Now if only Cook could reinvent the autocorrect feature.

Haha, in this case it was Sundar Pichai's fault ;)

Fixed the typo.

Not just Ive, but Forstall too. That's gotta have taken guts.

He made some bad exec hires too (Mark Papermaster and John Browett) but he also fired them quickly.

> I think it took a while for the Ballmer effect to kick in at Microsoft.

Tim Cook is about 2/3rds through of Ballmer's tenure. If you were to take a bet today, do you see Tim Cook doing the direction of Ballmer?