It isn't innovation if you don't get 99 Vision Pro's per iPhone.

Exactly - Apple needs to be making MORE bets, not LESS.

Apple VisionPro may turn out to be an iPod HiFi, iTunes Ping, eMate, Pippin, Newton, Macintosh Portable, Lisa.. etc.

Or it may turn out in 5-10 years to be a contributor like AppleTV, Watches, etc.

I don't even care which it turns out to be, I want to see them taking bets like this every year or two, not once per decade.

The fact that the list of "Failed Apple Products" returns a lot more stuff from 80s/90s/00s and very little from 10s/20s tells you how little they make bets anymore.

Most of the post-2010 "failures" are accessories/parts/iterations rather than completely new product categories.

I don't. That's how you get Google's graveyard. I want them to make a bet and nurture it, like they already do.

The current mature tech company scene doesn't nurture this. If you're worried about performance reviews, layoffs and a 5k mortgage bill each month, that doesn't exactly put you in an innovative mood.

To get that 90s, early 2000's innovation, Apple needs to somehow think like a small company (this is near impossible) or actually be multiple smaller companies.

If the new CEO is smart, he could start in-house startups with Apple funding and infrastructure.

Having worked at companies with 200 to 100,000 employees.. I agree some of it must be organizational big-co thinking/kpis/perf/politics.

Creating some sort of internal incubator that encourages experimentation enough to innovate but with enough accountability to not be a purely academic R&D lab is difficult I'm sure.

This is why I mentioned elsewhere in thread - Maybe an Alphabet "other bets" type setup?

Not sure if people with closer experience has an opinion on if that model actually works our not. I suppose we have gotten some real world output from it right?

You can choose not to ship the 99.

Shipping is part of the process.

Stated preferences vs revealed preferences.

Polling / focus groups vs sales.

You never really know what works until it works.

You choose not to ship maybe 90 of those 99, because it's obvious before shipping that they won't work. The rest you have to ship before it becomes obvious they're not that last blessed one.