Things are dire at Apple, friends. Surely it will not be long before Tim Cook is asked to leave.
Wait. What?
Writing for the Forbes contributor network and open mic night at the Ikea ball pit, Jay Somaney notes that “All Excuses Aside, Apple’s Major Problem Is Tim Cook.” (Tip o’ the antlers to J.H.)
Now, normally when someone says something like this, you keep making eye contact while slowly backing toward the door. But let’s hear Somaney out because maybe he has perfectly rational reasons for why NO HE DOESN’T RUN FOR YOUR LIVES.
Yes, I have heard all the good guys (long only crowd) make excuses for Apple’s terrible performance this year to date.
It’s odd how many pundits seem to confuse Apple the company with AAPL the stock.
[Angela Ahrendts] got paid almost $75 million just for her first year alone and thus far, there has been nary a peep about what she has done in return for the company since May 2014 when she joined Apple except for the fact that she has been furiously selling her stock.
Unlike all those high-profile retail officers of other companies who have their own vlogs detailing their daily activities.
Can anyone even name the head of retail of another company? And, yes, the Macalope means literally anyone. No. No one can. It’s impossible.
The [CEOs of Amazon, Facebook and Google] under-promise and over-deliver aka UPOD…
[blink]
[blink]
Ooopod. Oookay.
Anyone remember Facebook Home? Or Google Glass? No? These weren’t things that happened in our timeline?
…while thus far Tim Cook has done the opposite-OPUD.
Amazon made the Fire Phone.
THE FIRE PHONE.
The others have made brilliant hires in the last year or so while Tim Cook has hired Angela Ahrendts (see above) who has certainly been very, very busy-selling her stock.
Angela Ahrendts has done nothing! This we can tell because we have seen no direct evidence of what she’s done and… and that’s it. That’s all we need to know.
Pundits have all the object permanence of newly born infants. “I CANNOT SEE IT SO IT DOES NOT EXIST.”
Google got Ruth Porat and recently promoted Sundar Pichai.
Luca Maestri, who is a CFO like Porat, joined Apple in 2013. Just how frequently does a company have to cycle through executives before it’s considered sufficiently forward-thinking for Somaney?
All these hires are seen as very shareholder- and Wall Street-friendly and that is what Tim Cook has been unable/unwilling to do. Of course, Tim Cook did give us Angela Ahrendts lest we forget.
Does Somaney have a Burberry jacket he waited to long to return or something? Seems like he’s got a pretty big bug up his butt about Ahrendts.
Look, Tim Cook might be an absolute Mahatma Gandhi of a human being but he does not seem to be the right person to lead the biggest and one of the most technological savvy companies in the world.
You do realize that it got to be the biggest and one of the most savvy in large part due to and under Cook’s leadership, right? Steve Jobs died four years ago and was sick for years prior to that.
Didn’t realize or didn’t care? Such is the perennial question with the Forbes contributor network (and Waffle House fry cook training facility).