It was a year ago today that Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO of Apple Inc. Feeling unable to fulfill his duties and expectations at the position, he sent a heartfelt resignation letter out to the Apple Community.
In the letter, Jobs recommended that the Board of Directors name Tim Cook as his replacement. Which, as you know, they did. So today, we thought we’d take a look back at Tim’s first year as Apple’s leader…
The above infographic comes from The San Jose Mercury News. It covers all of the major events and milestones in Cook’s short tenure as CEO. And as you can see, he’s done extremely well.
In his first 12 months, the company has added about $200 billion to its market cap, and has almost doubled its stock price per share. Oh, and it also recently became the most valuable publicly-traded company of all time.
Here’s what the publication had to say:
“Tim knows he’s not Steve Jobs and doesn’t try to be,” says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management. “He’s comfortable in his own skin, and he’s done a remarkable job of under-promising and over-delivering. When Jobs walked out the door last year, a lot of people figured much of Apple’s magic would disappear. It hasn’t.
Cook, whom Apple did not make available for this story, inherited much of that Jobs-induced magic, from Apple’s wildly successful iPhone and iPad to its burgeoning network of stores stuffed to the gills with the gadget-hungry masses. Yet many analysts say it is Cook’s trademark mastery of supply-chain efficiency, first tapped when Jobs hired him 14 years ago to run the manufacturing side of the business, that leaves the 51-year-old workaholic and fitness buff poised to take Apple to ever greater heights.”
Tim Cook’s accomplishments become even more astounding when you look around at other tech companies. Good CEOs are extremely hard to come by these days. Yahoo is on its fifth Chief Executive in as many years, and HP is on number four, in six years.
The truth is, when you look back at Tim Cook’s first 12 months as Apple’s leader, it doesn’t seem like there was anything that he could have done much better.
What do you think of Cook’s first year as CEO?