“When Tim Cook became Apple CEO, I, like so many other Apple fans, went through a period that stopped slightly shy of mourning. ,” Rocco Pendola writes for Seeking Alpha. “We didn’t know Jobs personally, but we love Apple. And the thought of somebody we perceived as the opposite of Jobs running the show scared us.”
“At times, I wasn’t sure Cook could weather the storm. But he held his own, and more than passed the test. Even though we have never communicated directly, Cook has taught me more about Apple than Steve Jobs ever did,” Pendola writes. “If the Apple Watch doesn’t parallel the success of the iPod, iPhone or iPad, it will be deemed a failure. The weight of the world will come down on Cook. At least from the perspective of tech know-it-alls and the stock market.”
“That doesn’t mean AAPL’s manipulated,” Pendola writes. “It just means the impossible standard critics have set for Apple impacts the stock’s performance. Even when AAPL performs strongly (as it has of late), it should, relative to its peers, be higher. But again, Apple’s peers get a free pass because, oddly, of their inferiority when held up alongside Apple. It’s a toxic cocktail.”
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