‘Caretaker’ Cook Pushes Apple Past $3trn

Apple has become the first publicly-traded company to be valued at $3,000,000,000,000. At the close of play on Friday, the share price of the company had risen to $193.97. It had crossed the $3 trillion mark before – twice actually, but was not able to sustain that value by market closure each time. The recent launch of the Vision Pro headset no doubt helping in bumping the share price up.

The Apple brand and its co-founder Steve Jobs have long been synonymous. But this latest milestone is credited to a man whom the media once all but dismissed as a caretaker, Tim Cook. When Cook took the helm in 2011, the company was valued at around $350bn. To give you a sense of scale and accomplishment, $350bn is 11.66% of $3trn. So I’m not sure the reputation of caretaker is either fair or accurate with Apple past $3trn.

The ultimate fairytale brand of the information age was founded on April Fool’s day in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne. The company’s headquarters were a garage in Los Altos, California. Wayne didn’t last the month, however. Wozniak hung on for a bit longer, seven years to be exact. And It’s well-documented history that Jobs was fired and Apple came within a whisker of bankruptcy. The fairytale really did take on a happily ever after character after Jobs was rehired and, well, you know the rest.

Technology for the Rest of Us

Tim Cook was head of sales and operations globally and had been chosen by Jobs himself for the top job. Since 2011 his mission had been to change Apple’s image as a manufacturer and marketer of easy-to-use tech products to an ecosystem supporting business, creativity and lifestyle. The information era was becoming democratised and Apple probably played the highest profile role in this transformative era.

So with Apple past $3trn, what of other companies approaching the mark. Although this could hardly be construed as a race, except to Messrs. Cook and Gates, Microsoft is now valued at $2.5trn. Alphabet (Google), Amazon and Nvidia are northwards of $1trn. Interestingly, energy giant Aramco is wedged firmly between Apple and Microsoft at $2.8trn.