9 ms·

Seems to me Tim Cook's legacy will be similar to Steve Ballmer at Microsoft. Great for shareholders, terrible for the company's long term competitiveness.

by nafizh 9y ago

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
As an aside, are there many examples of major (say Fortune 500) companies where more than one CEO was famous / respected / acclaimed? Maybe Sundar Pichhai but he is young in his CEO role so it's too early to decide.
- neurothustra 9y ago
  If I had to point to anyone, I'd say that Satya Nadella is being giving a lot of credit for a major turn around at Microsoft.
- Keyframe 9y ago
  In tech? How about Intel - Moore, Grove, Otellini. Nintendo - Yamauchi, Iwata. Microsoft, obviously.
- awad 9y ago
  Top of my head? Goldman Sachs, GE, Disney, Ford (maybe not as fair since the Ford last name gets you instant fame) In tech: Google before Alphabet, the former Yahoo, the former Sun. Twitter did their musical chairs act, as well.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
    Google before Alphabet was only Eric Schmidt right?
    - awad 9y ago
      Larry was the original CEO until 2001. He was then CEO after Eric Schmidt, starting in 2011, until the formation of Alphabet in 2015.
- on_and_off 9y ago
  I am deeply impressed by the tech that Google puts out but it seems that Pichai has not really improved Google's biggest issues : a complete lack of focus and over-reliance on ads.
TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
IMO there's a nasty undertone of money-grubbing accumulation for its own sake that wasn't there during the Jobs days. The iMac Pros are nice-ish machines, but I can't see Jobs trying to sell a >$10k BTO Mac as anything other than a very special edition with a whole marketing circus supporting it - not as a ludicrously expensive mainstream SKU with a "This is the price, you're going to buy it because it's a Mac, take it or leave it" attitude underlying the sales pitch. Apple seem to be becoming increasingly tone deaf. The money may keep rolling in, but sooner or later there's going to be an event - a competitor, a new technology, a software disaster - that makes the wheels fall off.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  I don't know about an event. I think people will just stop buying Apple because of all the frustration with their products. I think it'll be subtle and one day we'll just all realize that, "hey, Apple used to be worth $900 Billion, now it's worth half that."
- briandear 9y ago
  > I can't see Jobs trying to sell a >$10k BTO Mac as anything other than a very special edition with a whole marketing circus supporting it Remember Next or the Lisa or the original Mac? Jobs was pretty good at trying to sell very expensive computers. The original Mac was priced equivalent to $5,877 in today's dollars. The Lisa was priced equivalent to $24,600 of today's dollars.. and we all know how expensive Next was.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    That was a huge problem of his that he fixed the second go-around (mostly - the Cube was beautifully expensive and would fracture). But from like 2000 to 2013 or so Apple would put out stuff that was a little more expensive than the competition but usually had enough features and quality to make it easily worth it. Now they're selling $1,000 phones, gold watches, and machines that are way overpriced for what they offer. It's a noticeable shift.
    - 9y ago
valuearb 9y ago
When was Ballmer ever good for shareholders? Windows/Office was already a super profitable juggernaut, he misinvested every dime of their profits. Expedia/Zune/Windows Phone/Nokia/Original Surface, etc, etc, etc. Even the XBox was a money loser for its first decade. Tim Cook hasn’t incinerated shareholder funds. Most of the profits have been returned to shareholders as dividends, or saved overseas for them. His bad acquisitions have been relatively tiny, like Beats. And as far as competitiveness goes, the Mac market share is at all time highs, iphone sales are st all time highs, and iPad still dominates the tablet market. Plus their app store and apple music dominate as well. Oh and Apple watch is the biggest selling watch by revenues in history, both now and it’s launch year. Apple hasnt been wildly creative under Cook, but is still designing innovative new devices, Apple Watch, Airpods, the 5K iMac, HomePods, iMac Pro. Let’s just agree to ignore the touchbar macbooks;) He’s not Steve Jobs, but has done better than i ever thought possible.
- nemothekid 9y ago
  >When was Ballmer ever good for shareholders? For pretty much everything that wasn’t consumer facing. Office 365, Exchange, Azure, CRM and SQL Server all saw huge growth under Ballmer. He really killed it in Enterprise, but as you mentioned, consumer facing products had several missteps (and where a lot more public).

Seems to me Tim Cook's legacy will be similar to Steve Ballmer at Microsoft. Great for shareholders, terrible for the company's long term competitiveness.

by nafizh 9y ago

Seems to me Tim Cook's legacy will be similar to Steve Ballmer at Microsoft. Great for shareholders, terrible for the company's long term competitiveness.

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago

As an aside, are there many examples of major (say Fortune 500) companies where more than one CEO was famous / respected / acclaimed? Maybe Sundar Pichhai but he is young in his CEO role so it's too early to decide.

neurothustra 9y ago
If I had to point to anyone, I'd say that Satya Nadella is being giving a lot of credit for a major turn around at Microsoft.
Keyframe 9y ago
In tech? How about Intel - Moore, Grove, Otellini. Nintendo - Yamauchi, Iwata. Microsoft, obviously.
awad 9y ago
Top of my head? Goldman Sachs, GE, Disney, Ford (maybe not as fair since the Ford last name gets you instant fame) In tech: Google before Alphabet, the former Yahoo, the former Sun. Twitter did their musical chairs act, as well.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  Google before Alphabet was only Eric Schmidt right?
  - awad 9y ago
    Larry was the original CEO until 2001. He was then CEO after Eric Schmidt, starting in 2011, until the formation of Alphabet in 2015.
on_and_off 9y ago
I am deeply impressed by the tech that Google puts out but it seems that Pichai has not really improved Google's biggest issues : a complete lack of focus and over-reliance on ads.

TheOtherHobbes 9y ago

IMO there's a nasty undertone of money-grubbing accumulation for its own sake that wasn't there during the Jobs days. The iMac Pros are nice-ish machines, but I can't see Jobs trying to sell a >$10k BTO Mac as anything other than a very special edition with a whole marketing circus supporting it - not as a ludicrously expensive mainstream SKU with a "This is the price, you're going to buy it because it's a Mac, take it or leave it" attitude underlying the sales pitch. Apple seem to be becoming increasingly tone deaf. The money may keep rolling in, but sooner or later there's going to be an event - a competitor, a new technology, a software disaster - that makes the wheels fall off.

JustSomeNobody 9y ago
I don't know about an event. I think people will just stop buying Apple because of all the frustration with their products. I think it'll be subtle and one day we'll just all realize that, "hey, Apple used to be worth $900 Billion, now it's worth half that."
briandear 9y ago
> I can't see Jobs trying to sell a >$10k BTO Mac as anything other than a very special edition with a whole marketing circus supporting it Remember Next or the Lisa or the original Mac? Jobs was pretty good at trying to sell very expensive computers. The original Mac was priced equivalent to $5,877 in today's dollars. The Lisa was priced equivalent to $24,600 of today's dollars.. and we all know how expensive Next was.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  That was a huge problem of his that he fixed the second go-around (mostly - the Cube was beautifully expensive and would fracture). But from like 2000 to 2013 or so Apple would put out stuff that was a little more expensive than the competition but usually had enough features and quality to make it easily worth it. Now they're selling $1,000 phones, gold watches, and machines that are way overpriced for what they offer. It's a noticeable shift.
  - 9y ago

valuearb 9y ago

When was Ballmer ever good for shareholders? Windows/Office was already a super profitable juggernaut, he misinvested every dime of their profits. Expedia/Zune/Windows Phone/Nokia/Original Surface, etc, etc, etc. Even the XBox was a money loser for its first decade. Tim Cook hasn’t incinerated shareholder funds. Most of the profits have been returned to shareholders as dividends, or saved overseas for them. His bad acquisitions have been relatively tiny, like Beats. And as far as competitiveness goes, the Mac market share is at all time highs, iphone sales are st all time highs, and iPad still dominates the tablet market. Plus their app store and apple music dominate as well. Oh and Apple watch is the biggest selling watch by revenues in history, both now and it’s launch year. Apple hasnt been wildly creative under Cook, but is still designing innovative new devices, Apple Watch, Airpods, the 5K iMac, HomePods, iMac Pro. Let’s just agree to ignore the touchbar macbooks;) He’s not Steve Jobs, but has done better than i ever thought possible.

nemothekid 9y ago
>When was Ballmer ever good for shareholders? For pretty much everything that wasn’t consumer facing. Office 365, Exchange, Azure, CRM and SQL Server all saw huge growth under Ballmer. He really killed it in Enterprise, but as you mentioned, consumer facing products had several missteps (and where a lot more public).