Tim Cook’s decade at Apple makes him the most successful “successor CEO” ever

THE TECHNOLOGY industry is littered with managers who have tried and failed to emulate successful founders. Think of Steve Ballmer, who succeeded Bill Gates at Microsoft, and Kevin Rollins, who took over from Michael Dell at Dell Technologies, who returned a few years later. Tim Cook heads the list of exceptions. Since he took the helm of Apple from Steve Jobs ten years ago, the firm’s market capitalisation has increased by more than $2trn. No chief executive in history has created as much total shareholder value. Mr Cook’s numbers beat the value generated by Jeff Bezos, who retired as Amazon’s chief executive in July, over his 24 years in charge. They also surpass the achievement of Warren Buffett, who has been running Berkshire Hathaway for nearly 45 years. During his second almost 14-year stint at Apple, Jobs added only $343.6bn to the firm’s market valuation, or $24.7bn a year

Apple’s success under Mr Cook stems from several forces that have powered the tech industry—and thus the global economy—in the past decade: globalisation, the mobile revolution and network effects. But Mr Cook has also succeeded because he did the opposite of what Jobs would have done in his position.

Rather than chasing the next big thing or rejigging the organisation, as Jobs did on his return to Apple in 1997, Mr Cook has pushed for constant improvement. At the helm Mr Cook has quietly continued the job he was first hired for in 1998: refining Apple’s supply chain and making the firm ever more efficient. Whereas Jobs regularly managed by tantrum, Mr Cook often has done so by spreadsheet and probing questions. Underlings know to have good answers at the ready.

The iPhone has been his main focus. Its processor is 5,000% more powerful than it was a decade ago. Even newer products such as Apple’s Watch and AirPods can be seen as extensions of the mighty iPhone, which still generates nearly half of the firm’s revenue. Apple devices now form an “ecosystem”, meaning that they work seamlessly together, inducing consumers to own several.

Mr Cook has not merely expanded upon Jobs’s innovations. Apple has doubled down on developing its own processors, for example. The latest, called “M1”, which now powers some of Apple’s laptops, is a technological marvel that appears to overcome the trade-off between speed and battery life. It is an open secret that Apple has been working on both “iGlasses” and an “iCar” for years. If successful, they too may come to define his legacy.

But Mr Cook’s biggest contribution may well be in how Apple interacts with the world. Unlike Jobs, Mr Cook sees beyond the firm. He has pushed Apple to take responsibility for its wider impact, from its carbon footprint to the protection of personal data. “Jobs wanted to make a dent in the universe; Cook wants to make the world a better place,” says Horace Dediu, a long-time Apple watcher. Whether or not Mr Cook is so motivated, the changes he has instigated have certainly been profitable for Apple.

If there is one lesson in his success thus far, it is that tech firms do not need to find a carbon-copy of their founder. That raises the interesting question of what kind of leader Apple will need after Mr Cook. He is not expected to leave for at least another four years. But when he does, it may again be time for a more Jobs-like figure.