This is just silly. Firstly, when Jobs was in charge Apple brought out the iPhone which is basically what drove Apple's value even to this day. On the flipside when Steve Jobs was in charge a plucky young man name Tim Apple became SVP for Worldwide Operations and built out Apple's supply chain in such a way that it became an enormous competitive advantage for them and that's drove a massive portion of Apple's value even to this day.
Like... we just don't have to attribute value to individuals...
More than 90% of modern civilization's economic output per capita was created after the industrial revolution, but everyone would agree that without the industrial revolution, we wouldn't have modern economies. Similarly, I think everyone agrees that without Jobs, we wouldn't have today's Apple.
No disrespect to Mr. Cook and his formidable achievements, but A LOT of the „value“ increase comes from the monetary policies in the zero interest rate economy.
Companies with big moats (OS) gets bigger. You could increase the dark patterns and Apple would earn way more because there aren't many alternatives.
As others already said, taking a company from close to bankruptcy to one of the most profitable companies in the world, now THAT is impressive.
If Cook succeeds to make a completely new moat with visionOS then that is quite impressive too but he is going to use the moats already in place so it’s still less impressive than Jobs.
Cook has been amazing at scaling the company and sailing Apple thru some very difficult times that would have derailed other companies. Apple is a gigantic company yet people buy it's products to feel unique. It's an amazing dichotomy. He is an amazing CEO. Jobs not only picked great products but people too.
Apple's advertising is all about being unique. The famous 1984 commercial was all about a rebel that fights the status quo. They have followed that idea in their advertising campaigns continuously. It's a falsehood since they are trying to sell their products to the masses but that does not matter. It's all about how people feel not necessarily the reality.
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Like... we just don't have to attribute value to individuals...
We’re at higher rates than when Cook took over.
As others already said, taking a company from close to bankruptcy to one of the most profitable companies in the world, now THAT is impressive.
If Cook succeeds to make a completely new moat with visionOS then that is quite impressive too but he is going to use the moats already in place so it’s still less impressive than Jobs.
Nearly 12 years later most of the Apple top executives are repeating words spoken by Steve in public interviews.
Giant iPhone, aka iPhone 6 was actually approved by Steve Jobs before he passed away. From that onwards an insane amount of iteration.