Cook and Apple's best ten years

On August 24th, Tim Cook served as Apple's CEO for the tenth year.

Two months ago, Apple released its financial report. From 2010, a company with a value of less than US$200 billion has achieved a market value of 2.5 trillion. No one can question Cook's performance.

But "Cook is a businessman", "the current Apple is only for profit"... Even if Cook turns Apple into "the world's most valuable company", this kind of evaluation still hasn't disappeared.

As a consumer, looking at the increasingly expensive but less revolutionary iPhone, and the "one more thing" moments that have become more and more distant in memory, those emotions must exist.

But as the CEO, and even the "next thing" that Steve Jobs personally asked for, Cook's story is worthy of another round of conclusions.

The beginning of "not so peaceful"

The first year of being a CEO may be the time when Cook encountered the most doubts in his life.

One day in August 2011, Cook suddenly received a call from Jobs and rushed to his home. In the conversation that day, Jobs entrusted the future Apple to Cook and let him serve as Apple's future CEO.

And only six weeks later, Jobs left Apple forever.

In March of the following year, less than a year after Cook took over the position of Apple CEO from Steve Jobs, his first official appearance at the Apple conference seemed a little nervous. Although Cook said "I am very excited to be here", it is difficult for you to feel the word "excited" in his speech. Wearing a straight shirt and explaining the PPT page by page, everyone You can see the difference between him and Jobs intuitively: Cook doesn't have the charm of Steve Jobs.

In the following April, the US Department of Justice accused Apple of cooperating with several book publishers to manipulate the price of e-books. The lawsuit lasted for a long time and ended in an apology from Apple.

In July, Apple released its third-quarter financial report. Previously, some analysts predicted that iPhone shipments would reach 28.9 million units, but only 26 million units were reported in the financial report. Although an increase of 30% year-on-year, the problem is that this is nearly 10 million units. For the second time this year, Apple has not met Wall Street's expectations.

Also in 2012, the senior vice president of retail stores, John Brauyt, was fired because he was incompatible with the leisurely, meticulous and patient business philosophy of Apple's retail stores. Scott, who was once a popular candidate for CEO after Steve Jobs's death Fausto also left Apple due to the failure of the two products Siri and Apple Maps in charge.

This is Cook's first year as CEO.

Whether it was a rigid press conference, a mediocre product update, or the resignation of two Apple executives, Cook was questioned, and people were not optimistic about Apple's future. "Apple's peak period has passed, and it is now going downhill" seems to be the consensus of the outside world at that time. People believed that Cooks could not compare with Jobs, and worried that Cook would lead Apple to its demise.

Everyone cares whether Apple is still as beautiful as before, but no one cares what Jobs wants Cook to solve Apple's problems.

Looking back at the beginning, when Cook first joined Apple in 1998, Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy and low morale. It was not a fascinating company. Although Jobs' return gave Apple a glimmer of hope, he has not actually sold any products. As Microsoft quickly occupied the computer market with Windows95 in 1995, Apple computers began to decline.

Jobs was determined to make up for Apple's biggest weakness at the time-the management of the supply chain. Cook, who was very good at supply chain management, was introduced to Jobs. Five minutes after the two met, Cook decided to abandon all his caution and logic and join Apple.

More than 20 years later, even after suffering many questions and ridicules, Cook still felt that this was the most correct decision he had ever made. So does Jobs think that appointing Cook as CEO is the right decision?

We obviously cannot get an accurate answer to this question. But when Jobs decided to choose Cook, he chose not a pioneer who explored a new blueprint, but a promoter who could extend the blueprint he created to the end and to the extreme.

Cook obviously did this. Jobs' great innovation brought about an era and finally created a valuable company in the world in Cook's hands.

Is there "innovation"?

"I hope you are brave and don't have to be afraid of the feeling of falling... I hope the crowd shouts, calling your name", at the 2014 new product launch event, Cook listened to OneRepublic's "I Lived" in the backstage of the Flint Center Come to encourage yourself. On this day, Apple Watch and iPhone6, which are very important to Cook, came out.

Apple Watch was released as a "One more thing" product. This phrase created by Jobs is only used to mark a major revolutionary product. It is also the "next chapter of the Apple story" in Cook's words.

This is the first important product without Steve Jobs' involvement, and it sold about 270,000 yuan less than 24 hours after its release.

According to the latest data, Apple Watch's global shipments have reached nearly 100 million units. According to statistics from American research companies, in the US market, about 35% of iPhone users own Apple Watch, and this number is still growing. At present, Apple Watch's share of the global wearable device market has accounted for 55%, which is actually much higher than the iPhone's market share.

Also released along with Apple Watch is the new iPhone model iPhone6.

If Apple Watch created a new category of Apple products in the Cook era, then iPhone6 ​​has made Apple's sales and profitability a huge breakthrough.

Apple previously believed that the screen should be small enough to be able to operate the phone with one hand. It was not until the large-screen Android phones began to snatch customers from Apple that Apple finally heard customers' calls for a larger screen. iPhone6 ​​and iPhone 6 Plus are Apple's first large-screen mobile phones, and also bring Apple Pay function, which allows iPhone users to pay through the NFC function for the first time. The new mobile phone sold 4 million units within 24 hours after its release. During the weekend of the week of release, its sales exceeded 10 million units. This product quickly became the most successful Apple product under the leadership of Cook at the time.

Obviously, whether it is a smart watch or a large-screen mobile phone, it is not the kind of ground-breaking innovation of Apple in the Jobs era. After being in the market for a period of time, they were recognized by Apple, and then used to make them truly "the best". This opened the Cook-style Apple innovation model.

This year is 2014. At the end of the year, Apple's market value exceeded US$700 billion for the first time, becoming the world's largest company by market value. At this time, the market value of the company that makes the iPhone is twice that of Google, which is $300 billion more than ExxonMobil, the world's second-largest company by market value.

When Apple still maintained its leading position, and when Apple's commercial value continued to rise, all doubts about whether Cook could succeed Jobs and lead Apple to create new glory were severely stepped into the soil.

Apple Pay, which changed the payment method, single-handedly promoted the global earphone market into the "TWS era" AirPods, Apple's self-developed M1 chip released last year... Apple under the leadership of Cook has no new "open world" and transcend the era It’s innovative, but it does achieve ethics and inclusiveness, providing the best products and experience of this era.

People always compare Cook with Jobs, but Cook probably knows better than anyone that he is not Jobs. His mission is not to create a new era, but to truly win this era in the new era created by Jobs.

Is it a businessman?

In 2020, when Cook said at Apple’s first press conference, "Today we are going to focus on two products, Apple Watch and iPad", the audience watching the live broadcast was once again inevitable disappointment: there is no new generation iPhone.

This is not the first time that a new mobile phone has been absent from an Apple conference. In 2019, Apple did not even update any new hardware products at the spring conference held in the Jobs Theater in California. At that conference, Apple launched four subscription services one after another: Apple News+ (content subscription), Apple Card (credit card), Apple Arcade (game subscription), Apple TV+ (video service), plus iCloud and Apple Music Such as the products that have been launched before, Apple's service business basically covers various usage scenarios of mobile phones.

Many netizens don’t buy it. “Every time the phone is only a price increase, a shell replacement, a toothpaste upgrade”, “Since Steve Jobs passed away, the iPhone has not been as shocked as it was when it was born.” There are always many similar comments. . Apple's halo is too strong, and people think it should not stop and rely on software and services to make money. A former Apple employee said of Cook: "He is a businessman."

This is obviously the most unpleasant definition of a character compared with other important figures in Apple's history. Wozniak, Jobs's early partner, was a lovely and great engineer. Jobs was a revolutionary full of vision and charisma. But when he arrived at Cook, he seemed to have only reason left behind.

This is Cook’s character, but it may also be the choice of the times. In 2016, the global smartphone market's shipment rate gradually declined after reaching its peak. With the rapid increase in the penetration rate of smartphones in the past two years, market users' demand for replacement of mobile phones began to decrease. This year, iPhone sales fell for the first time.

Is it because of product innovation? From an objective point of view, Apple’s opponents are all working extremely hard to innovate. In addition to the arms race of the camera, the screen has been refurbished in various ways, enlarged, folded, pixelated, curved, and forehead size. It is difficult to dig without digging. ...This is indeed innovation, but no one creates a new era in such innovation. No one can surpass Apple's sales in the same position as Apple, and everyone is more vying for the market under Apple.

Cook also thought about going down to grab this market, but it quickly shrank back. Because this market is fighting for "new" rather than "good", it is cost-effective rather than user experience. This is not Apple's battlefield.

But the challenge is real, and the iPhone cannot avoid changes in market demand, leaving Cook not much time to find the "road" for the future. But it was precisely when the iPhone, iPad and other hardware devices were in a demanding situation, the service industry stood out like a star in the night sky and became the only business that Apple grew that year, and the increase was quite large.

The development of mobile phones is no longer as full of vitality as in the Jobs era. Cook's choice is to strengthen the software service business in exchange for Apple's future.

In fact, as early as 2012, Cook stated in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek that “there is one thing that we are trying hard to do, and that others have not done yet, is to integrate hardware, software, and services so that Most users no longer distinguish between them."

Cook's investment in Apple's ecology has achieved revenue success.

Let different products form a complete set of systematic experience, Apple has always been good at. At the autumn conference last year, Apple launched a bundled product, Apple One, which includes content services such as iCloud, Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple News+, Apple Arcade, etc. Users can choose from three different combinations according to their needs. .

According to relevant information, Apple’s current strong service revenue has become the second largest source of revenue after iPhone revenue. In 2020, Apple’s service revenue will exceed $53 billion. Analysts at Wedbush estimate that Apple’s service department is worth approximately 750 billion US dollars, which is roughly equivalent to the overall value of Facebook.

So no matter how extreme fans don’t want to see Cook, investors will continue to be optimistic about Apple.

Do the "right" thing

In addition to enhancing Apple's commercial value, Cook brings more of a "sense of morality" to Apple. And it turned the maverick sharpness of the Jobs era into the "universal" style of the Cook era.

Just five months after taking over Apple, Cook announced to his employees that he would discuss several "new and exciting things", one of which was Apple's participation in charity. He developed a matching donation plan for employees. According to the plan, as long as employees make charity donations, Apple will also donate a sum of money. Apple will provide each employee with a matching donation amount of up to 10,000 US dollars each year. In addition, if Apple employees volunteer for charitable organizations, the company will also donate to charitable organizations at a certain amount of wages per hour.

In addition, today's Apple is recognized as one of the world's most environmentally friendly technology companies, but Apple's real and practical environmental actions began with Cook. When Cook was appointed as CEO, the average carbon emissions of each product of Apple reached the highest level in history. However, since 2015, the total amount of waste that has been converted from landfills has been 1.65 million tons. By 2030, Apple promises that every Apple product will be carbon neutral.

In order to protect user privacy, in 2016 Apple refused to unlock the iPhone of the San Bernardino shooting murderer for the FBI. In iOS14.5 released this year, Apple launched the AppTrackingTransparency policy and made changes to IDFA (Identifier for Advertising)—— The IDFA sharing function will change from the default enabled state to the default disabled. Developers who want to obtain the consumer's IDFA need to clearly indicate to the consumer and request permission. "Future technology should be open, creative and guaranteed, but it must be based on protecting users while providing privacy and dignity." This is Cook's consistent insistence.

Engaged in environmental protection and charity, focusing on privacy protection, opposing apartheid, and advocating a diverse and inclusive corporate culture, Cook, who has a strong sense of morality since childhood, has gradually shaped Apple's new social image.

In the global market, Cook is the most successful "commercial diplomat." For example, Cook has visited China 15 times in 10 years.

Under Cook’s leadership, Apple began to increase investment in China, including the establishment of new online shopping malls, agreements with Chinese operators, and the opening of new retail stores: ten years ago, Apple had only Beijing and China With two stores in Shanghai, ten years later, there will be 53 Apple Stores in Greater China.

What China gives back to Apple is a huge return. In 2010, Apple's revenue in China only accounted for 2% of the company's total revenue. Under the leadership of Cook, it has achieved explosive growth in two years. By 2021, according to the third quarter financial report, the net sales in Greater China reached 147.62. Billion US dollars, more than 50% of all net income.

In ten years, he was not so much the "successor" of Steve Jobs as he was the "second rod" of the Apple Relay. Cook realized that while finishing the blue picture Steve Jobs drew to the end, he steadily held the word and made progress while steadily. For all founders, this "second rod" is a dream.

But as the "second bar", Cook is just one link in Apple's long business relay race. In the face of the changes in the next era, Cook may not be able to do better. For example, it is precisely because of his characteristics that Apple's betting and determination are obviously insufficient in a series of fields such as VR, AR, smart cars, and AI. This is a kind of soundness, but it is also a kind of strategic risk.

Perhaps, the problems of each era need to be solved by the successor of each era. Is Cook a good CEO? It also needs to see how he passes the baton.

So what would Jobs think of Cook if he was alive in the sky? In fact, when Jobs chose to let Cook take over as CEO, he warned him:

"Never ask what he would do if he changed to Jobs, just do what you think is right."