[mombul]

So the fact that Apple's share price has increased 1,200% since he took over is just a coincidence?

[uuddlrlr]

To be fair Apple was already a giant rolling ball of success, and they have historically had an ingrained culture of caring deeply about their products above all else.

Any decisions that would affect their trajectory will get a ton of deliberation from a lot of smart people; i.e. there wouldn't need to be a ton of input or ingenuity from the CEO to see returns like those from Apple, imho.

Not to say that Cook isn't great or that it wouldn't be difficult to achieve that success.

[bohemian99]

So many companies have flatlined after a new CEO took over, think Microsoft after Ballmer took over. So I think there is some difficulty involve.

[Turing_Machine]

Apple was a giant rolling ball of success when John Sculley took over, too.

But that sure didn't last.

[adwww]

Were the shares previously nosediving before he took over?

[eptcyka]

I think it's laughable to assume that it was only Tim Cook who contributed to that. Indeed, where would we be if it wasn't for these handful of superhuman geniuses.

[bobcostas55]

During his tenure the market cap has increased by about $2 trillion. How much of that value has Cook captured? A very small %. Perhaps even smaller than his actual contribution! You could easily make the argument that Cook is being exploited by the shareholders.

[ubercore]

Maybe, maybe not, but I think the idea is that it's hard to say with certainty. Apple is large and complex enough that any number of factors could have lead to that share price increase. My personal opinion is that probably yeah he had a good chunk to do with it. But it's hard to say that with certainty, it's certainly worth discussing and not taking for granted.

[SantalBlush]

Apple's share price has increased more than 12,000% since Foxconn received its first order from Apple. Is that just a coincidence?

[Aeolun]

Well, the same thing has happened for Amazon and Google, so… yes?

Of course you can argue that the wrong leader would have torpedoed the company.