Amazingly, today we are approaching the fifth anniversary of the fateful date that Steve Jobs finally left the position of Apple CEO and his friend and pupil Tim Cook took over the company's areas for good.
Quoting my boss Rafael Fischmann:
Jobs just announced the resignation of a job that requires a lot of work and that he is currently unwilling or unable to play. He did not leave the company and, fortunately, did not die either. () Therefore, even assuming that Jobs today cut off all his relationship with the company, it would not be an exaggeration to say that his finger would be on practically everything she did for at least five years ahead.
Well then. As time goes by, Steve's “finger” is certainly still present at Apple, but the company has undeniably changed a lot in the past 1,827 days. There are those who defend tooth and nail the “new” Ma administered by Cook; there are those who strongly criticize the directions chosen by the new CEO; there are still those who defend that the spirit of the company has not fundamentally changed and Apple is still the same company of the dreams of ureos days of the 2000s.
Enter into a discussion like how to play in Mary Poppins' stock market, but the fact that the numbers are to give a more concrete view of Cook's performance in charge of the Cupertino giant. Today, as a milestone for this five-year anniversary, several vehicles from the area of ​​technology and economics have published their analyzes on Cook's management in front of Ma, and below we will see some of the positive and negative highlights in this regard.
One of the most interesting catches of Cook's first five years directing Apple comes from the English newspaper Telegraph, which reminds us of all the records set by the CEO since he took over the company. From August 2011 to here, Apple became the largest publicly traded company in the world, and twice broke the historic quarterly earnings record.
THE Financial Times points out (exclusive to subscribers) that Apple's cashier almost doubled, growing from $ 121 billion at the time of his appointment to $ 232 billion today. In a quarter-on-quarter comparison, only the latter saw that cash drop slightly in all others, the number just went up. The newspaper also states that Cook and his team balanced this with an increasing number of stock purchases and dividend payments, as shown in the chart below:
THE FT also points out that Apple has practically doubled the number of employees in the last five years, with a special focus on the Research & Development (R&D) area, which, on the other hand, makes it more difficult to keep the characteristic secret aura that the company tries to keep its employees. projects until they are announced.
THE Fortune made a compilation of the main highlights of the Cook administration so far, starting with the negative points; namely, Apple Maps (in its early years, at least), the warm reception to the iPhone 5c, the criticisms of Apple Music and the recent drop in sales of the iPhone, the company's main product, were cited as mismanagement even though Cook claims that the smartphone still sells very, very well and is not a cause for concern.
Despite this, the publication claims that, financially, Cook's Apple is a resounding success. One of the great successes of the CEO, according to them, is the explicit focus on services, with the profit from them growing considerably year on year in the company.
In this sense, Asymco analyst Horace Dediu says that Apple is no longer “an electronics company based on hits, which could go the same way as Nokia or BlackBerry ”to Ma, in fact, a luxury brand with recurring revenue from an ever-growing base of loyal consumers.
THE CNN Money published a very interesting video report analyzing financially the last five years of Apple, as well as highlighting the social actions and political disputes faced by Ma in the undeniable period, Cupertino is much more engaged in global issues in the Cook era than it was with Jobs.
THE USA Today it also tries to incorporate a more qualitative analysis, stating:
Apple of the rebellious, innovative and very cool now a different place. With Cook, she is bigger, more profitable, more careful and more inclined to minimally update established products than to introduce new ones hits cultural.
The publication also talks about how Cook's more “down-to-earth” and realistic style may have helped Apple become a more accessible, more “friendly” company in the eyes of consumers.
While Jobs was focused on product, product, product, Cook has based himself more on issues bringing up the discussion of LGBTQ + rights and gaining the support of several names of technology in his fight against the government for cryptography.
What everyone agrees, however, on the main negative point of the Cook gesture: Apple lost a certain spark, the verve for innovation has quieted down. In the past five years, no new revolution has been presented by the company, such as the Mac or iPod or iPhone, the closest thing to that, the Apple Watch, still suffers a series of criticisms and has nowhere near reached the level of influence of its ancestors. .
This apparent drop also reached, although not deadly, the shares of Ma: from April 2015 until now, they have lost almost a fifth of their market value.
THE USA Today says that, even with some occasional successes, such as Apple Pay, Apple will have to run after competitors that have innovation at the tip of the tongue, such as Google, Facebook and Amazon companies focused on technologies of the future, as a reality virtual, 360 cameras and self-guided cars.
Obviously, everything leads us to believe that Cook's period at Apple is just beginning and, therefore, he still has plenty of time to apply more changes to Ma's philosophy and, who knows, maybe make it the most innovative company on the planet again. In your own way, of course.
There is certainly no lack of motivation for this: with the five-year anniversary as CEO, Apple gave Cook 980,000 of its shares, which, based on the $ 108.85 they are in today, means the medical total. in $ 106.7 million on the businessman’s account. With that, he certainly won the n1 in the ranking of the highest paid CEOs in the world in 2016 list that he didn't even come close to last year.
And let's go, Tim.
