These are not the same kind of character.
That's not maximizing shareholder return.
That's locally maximizing shareholder return.
As shareholders jump from ship to ship, there is nothing beyond short term shareholder return.
Apple smoked all of them.
Apple long term investors are a string of short term investors.
Of course there are people with a long term view or institutional investors who buy and keep their stock for years.
But most investors, if Apple stock drops enough will sell, and new investors will buy at the new level.
Yep. In fact, he was specifically chose to step in as CEO for his meekness : voted most likely to preserve brand value by best distracting folks from the evil turn the company had taken.
> while maximizing shareholder return.
Nope. He's a 100% static CEO, and he's therefore squandering huge amounts of capital and human resources.
That's not what I'd call "maximizing shareholder return".