Cook turned Apple into a $4T giant by not trying to be Steve Jobs

According to Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management, Tim Cook was more like “the president of a country, not a company” when he ran Apple.

Cook’s predecessor, Steve Jobs, is considered one of the greatest product innovators in modern American history. But the role has been very different since Jobs resigned shortly before he died of cancer in 2011 and handed over the job to Cook.

When his tenure as CEO ends on September 1, Cook’s legacy will be one of tremendous value creation – Apple’s market capitalization grew from about $350 billion to $4 trillion during his term, even if the company’s products were evolutionary rather than revolutionary during his 15-year period.

It’s no surprise that Cook, 65, handed over the reins to longtime hardware boss John Ternus. Multiple news outlets have profiled Ternus in The New York Times in recent months run a story In January it was titled “The Man Who Could Be Apple’s Next CEO”

Still, the move happened “about two years earlier than I expected,” Munster, Deepwater’s managing partner, told CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” after the news broke Monday.

Munster said Cook has wisely navigated the Trump administration’s tariff policies, which pose a particular threat to Apple because of how much the company relies on China to manufacture its devices.

Far from suffering, Apple’s shares have risen nearly 20% since January 2025, when Trump’s second term in the White House began, and Cook has had no qualms about cozying up to the president in an attempt to impress the commander in chief.

In August, Cook joined Trump at an event in the Oval Office announcing Apple’s new commitment to invest $100 billion in American manufacturing and presented the president with a gold and glass plaque.

“Thank you to all of you and thank you to President Trump for putting American innovation and American jobs first,” Cook said at the event, which brings Apple’s total planned spending in the United States over the next five years to $600 billion.

Investors were handsomely rewarded for remaining loyal to Cook.

Apple’s shares are nearly 20 times higher than when Apple took over, while the S&P 500 is up nearly six times during that period. Most company analysts and industry experts attribute Cook’s success to his diligence and financial discipline rather than to product innovation.

“Building on Steve Jobs’ visionary product leadership, Tim will likely be remembered for his operational leadership, transforming and scaling Apple globally, deepening its services platform, strengthening its supply chain, and making the company more operationally resilient and shareholder-focused,” said Rick Wargo, managing partner of executive search and leadership consultancy Boyden.

Under Cook, revenue nearly quadrupled to more than $400 billion in the last fiscal year. Cook is known in Silicon Valley as an operations guru, innovating Apple’s supply chain after joining in 1998 as vice president of worldwide sales and operations.

When he arrived, Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy. Years later, he became one of Jobs’ top aides and rose to the position of chief operating officer in 2005, two years before the iPhone was introduced.

Cook continued to capitalize on the popularity of the iPhone, which has maintained its dominance in the growing smartphone market for nearly two decades. It is also known that Apple has made some significant moves to diversify its business and take advantage of the company’s massive user base, which currently stands at 2.5 billion active devices worldwide.

Cook introduced the Apple Watch in 2014, calling it “the most personal product we’ve ever built.” Then in 2016 came AirPods.

In both cases, Apple was jumping into a very familiar category, but it was able to charge a premium for a product that was primarily aimed at iPhone users and offered rich enhancements to existing offerings.

Annual revenue for Apple’s wearables category exceeded $41 billion in fiscal 2022, accounting for more than 10% of total sales that year; This figure was 25 billion dollars three years ago.

However, it was a difficult market to maintain momentum as competition increased and new features increased. The company also failed to make a comeback. The higher-priced Vision Pro was introduced to consumers as virtual reality remains a niche market. The base Vision Pro retails for $3,500. Meta’s Mission 3S begins From $350.

Apple’s wearable technology business is currently in a multi-year decline, with revenues down 4% in 2015 fiscal 2025 It reached 35.7 billion dollars, accounting for 8.6% of the total revenue.

Reports are swirling about what the next wearable device for Apple could be; smart glasses, pendant or something else? In any case, the company is competing on the device front with legendary designer Jony Ive, who joined OpenAI last year when the ChatGPT maker acquired the startup for more than $6 billion.

I designed the iPod, iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air. He left Apple in 2019.

Profit-hungry investors are big fans of Cook’s move away from hardware into services that carry much higher profit margins. Apple’s gross profit margin has been stuck at 38% for a long time It has increased in recent years and reached 48% in the last quarter.

US government pauses several draconian China tariffs, smartphones It received waivers from tariffs, and Cook told investors in mid-2025 that the company could rearrange its supply chain to import iPhones to the U.S. from India, where tariffs are lower.