90% of Apple's value was created under Tim Cook | Hacker News Reader

90% of Apple's value was created under Tim Cook

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21 pointsmg13 comments

90% of Apple's stock price was created under Tim Cook. That's what happens when you shift your effort from producing value to financializing

Also what happens when your predecessor starts multiple tidal waves that you get to ride on to shore and take credit for.

Apple would be just as big if jobs was alive, he just didn't live long enough for mega scale to happen

This is sensationalist crock because you can see other tech cos such as NVDA and MSFT with similar trajectories.

It's not unique to Tim Cook.

What does this even mean? What's "Apple's value" and how is it "created"?

Why are these common terms abused when talking about very specific concepts of shares and stock values that are, as we all know it, partially temporary and very volatile (one announcement can move the value 24% in a day!)?

    how is it "created"?

As YC puts it: Make something people want.

For the most part, Apple already had what people wanted even before Cook took over. They iterated on those and their market valuation grew.

My question is how is the "value" of 90% of Apple's market valuation "created"? How come a single day in any company can see their "value" rise by 24%? What of value is created with an announcement that wasn't there the day ago?

There’s only been incremental improvements to products launched by Steve Jobs under Tim Cook. The only vastly new product category that I can recall they’ve launched under Tim is the Apple Vision Pro. If that becomes a runway success like the iPhone then we can credit it as something launched during Tim’s reign but otherwise he seems to be a good operator not an innovator. The value created is Tim riding on Steve’s success.

Apple Watch? Tim Cook became CEO. The Apple Watch was released in 2015.

The last March End quarter before Tim Cook became CEO was Mar 2011.

Apple’s entire revenue for that quarter was about 24.5Bn (iPhone, mac, software, everything included).

Apple’s wearables alone brought them about $8.5Bn in Mar 2023.

Services, which have largely grown under Tim Cook, is up to $21Bn.

Sure they've grown, but that wasn't anything special that Tim Cook did. They were growing astronomically already. The apple watch was not a game changer at all, it was just an obvious progression and the apple watch literally makes up just over 2% of revenue.

The iPhone changed the world. The iPad changed the world.

Tim Cook just kept the company running and business as usual but they haven't done anything all that exciting.

TBH Microsoft has done way more interesting things in the last 10 years.

Trading brand goodwill for monetary value is akin to cannibalism. Apple is now a megacorp without vision other than increasing prices, ensuring repairs stay plentiful and expensive, and haphazardly dabbling in categories without really innovating forward.

SJ built Apple with ruthless vision. I don't foresee this magic recurring anytime soon except post TC with a leader who deeply appreciates both design and engineering.

Looking at it like this, let’s just discount the goodwill (prior company before cook) to what exactly? While the stock price might have risen, saying that he is responsible for 90% of the value is asinine.

What has been the iPhone’s price increase under Tim’s era? x2? x3?

An iPhone SE is 429. Cheaper than the original iPhone ($600) and far more powerful. That's not even accounting for inflation which would make the original iPhone ~$850 today.

An iPhone 14 starts at $800... so really the price has decreased while the capability is significantly larger...

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