Congrats to Tim Cook on his 15-year anniversary as CEO of Apple! Here are some balloons and a gift card to the Olive Garden. There will be cake in the break room.
It occurs to this furry observer that this is his last column before Tim Cook steps down as CEO of Apple. Hard to believe. The sad truth is that pretty soon we won’t have Tim Cook to kick around anymore. Other than the fact that he will still be working for the company, just in a different capacity, and we will absolutely still have him to kick around.
Still, it’s worth reviewing Cook’s tenure as Apple CEO. Apple loves it when you write reviews, right? So let’s get into it!
The Macalope’s not going to focus on politics. Apparently, there are some people who do not like it when the Macalope discusses politics. That wouldn’t stop the horny one in any way from talking about it (it might even encourage him), but he thinks he’s already been clear about his feelings on Cook’s recent forays into the political world and Cook hasn’t done anything of late to really get the antlers itching, if you know what the Macalope means (you don’t and you do not want to). The Macalope has no idea what Cook’s personal politics are. He suspects they probably pretty much align with his own. Cook’s business politics, however, would best be driven out to a rural town and gently tipped into an underground coal fire, never to be seen again.
So, it’s a little rich (allusion intended) when the Macalope sees things like this:
I hope that people say I was a good and decent man. And if they say that at the end of the day, I feel like I have achieved something.
Mmm. Sorry, Tim. You might need a time machine for that.
But let’s just look at Cook’s legacy as a simple CEO running a small business in downtown Cupertino.
If you’re an Apple investor, it’s hard not to think of Cook as one of the greatest CEOs of all time. The Macalope’s not going to bother to look it up and figure it out with stock splits and buybacks and all the free coffee distributed and t-shirts shot out of a canon at shareholders meetings, but if you invested 15 years ago when Cook took over, you have to be happy with the returns.
(Hilariously, 15 years ago is about exactly when the Macalope sold the two (2) shares of Apple stock he owned.)
As someone who regularly had to deal with nincompoops who continued to say Apple was going to go out of business long after it made a lick of sense, the Macalope owes Cook a personal debt of gratitude for finally making it clear that that was not a thing you could say anymore and be taken seriously by anyone.
Despite the insistence of many that Apple hasn’t released any truly great products since Steve Jobs died, Apple has actually released some truly great products since Steve Jobs died. Sure, none of them have been as world-changing as the iPhone, the greatest consumer electronics product of all time, but, you know, that’s a pretty high bar. The Apple Watch, loudly declared a flop for years, is everywhere, as are AirPods, and Apple TV continues to churn out hit shows and movies.
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Foundry
Other products, such as the Vision Pro, have not fared as well: Apple lays off 200 employees to focus on ‘new devices’ and AI.
Overall, however, the story of Apple’s growth in the last 15 years is astounding and Cook is largely the architect of that growth.
This is not to say everything has been hunky-dory. Honestly, who even says “hunky-dory” anymore? At all? How many of today’s youths have even heard the phrase?
All these old-timey aphorisms will be lost in time… like tears in the rain…
W-what was the Macalope saying? Oh, right, the bad stuff.
Apple’s relationship with developers can best be described by riffing on the old saw about Britain and the U.S. and describing it as “two business partners, separated by an app store”. This, however, seems like one of those areas where Jobs, who didn’t even want to have an app store in the first place, would have largely done exactly the same thing.
Like with developers, Cook has consistently made sure that Apple comes out on top in its relationship with customers as well. Everything is a subscription now. Used to be you could tie an onion to your belt and buy some gub-danged software. Not anymore. Apple gets revenue that’s as smooth as ice, and we get tithed more and more every year.
Indeed, Cook has not even been afraid to degrade Apple’s vaunted user experience in order to make a buck. Ads for junk apps not remotely related to what you’re interested in pop up over search results in the App Store; Apple News will show you AI-generated ad for products that don’t even exist, and–yay!–ads are coming to Maps! (Disclaimer: not “Yay!”) Again, if you’re an Apple investor, the services revenue generated by all this is great. If you’re a customer, it sucks.
If you want to judge Tim Cook as a businessman, well, he’s tops; there’s no denying it. In fact, he might just be a little too good. But if Cook really wanted to be remembered as “good” and “decent,” well, he might have read the notes we were giving him all along the way.
Three stars. Should be cheaper.
