It is hard to argue with success when you measure it in the trillions of dollars. Tim Cook’s 15-year tenure as Apple chief executive will, rightly, go down as one of the greatest runs in business history. But the figures alone don’t give the full picture or help to explain the scale of the task that lies before John Ternus, who will succeed him later this year.
First, consider the numbers. Apple’s after-tax profits this year are forecast to top $125bn, nearly five times what they were when Cook took over. Hugely impressive, to be sure, but that doesn’t explain the 20-fold jump in its share price, or the $3.6tn of stock market value amassed during Cook’s run.
The company ploughing its spare cash into buying back more than 40 per cent of its stock helps to explain some of the outperformance. The stock has also undergone a massive re-rating on Wall Street: the shares traded at 14 times earnings when Cook took over, they now change hands at a multiple of around 32.