Longtime Apple analyst Gene Munster has obsessed about all things Apple for more than 20 years. When asked for Apple’s defining achievement, he is tempted to talk about the iPhone. In reality, the answer is much deeper than a single product. Apple’s true achievement is the culture Steve Jobs instilled that made the Mac and iPhone possible and has sustained the business long after those launches, Munster writes. As Apple looks toward the decades ahead, investors can rest easy knowing that Jobs’ product discipline remains embedded in the culture, and that culture will be the foundation for future hit products.
Gene Munster via GeneMunster.com:
The clearest evidence of what Jobs and the culture he built brought to Apple is found by looking back at AAPL’s performance during the years he was gone. From 1985 to 1996, AAPL shares were up 30%, while the Nasdaq rose 310%. That underperformance reflected some product quality issues, but more importantly, it reflected a weak product vision that translated into underwhelming revenue growth. During that period, the company grew by an average of 13% a year.
Jobs’ return in late 1996 changed that trajectory. Since then, revenue growth averaged 28% from 2000–2015 and 19% from 2000–2025. Even more staggering, during that period AAPL shares have risen roughly 176,000%, versus approximately 1,700% for the Nasdaq. While the iPhone was the most visible outcome of that era, the core reason it all came together is that Jobs rebuilt Apple around a philosophy, not a product. He believed winning companies shouldn’t ask consumers what they want, but rather build something they couldn’t live without.
What makes that culture lasting is that Jobs knew it was their defining advantage, so he built a system to maintain it. Even after learning in 2003 that he had a rare form of pancreatic cancer, he remained deeply engaged when most CEOs would have stepped down. In 2008, he founded Apple University to institutionalize Apple’s way of thinking, ensuring employees understood the principles behind its best decisions.
MacDailyNews Take: As long as Apple steadfastly preserves the extraordinary culture that Steve Jobs built (the very culture that has defined the company for most of the last 50 years) the company will continue to win over consumers decade after decade. Continuing to adhere to its unique Jobsian culture, Apple’s future isn’t just bright; it’s inevitable.
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When he came back he realized the biggest asset the company had were the fervent 25M think different enthusiasts. Apple killed the Mac Pro and doesnt care about those users anymore. Even MDN has forgotten that.
That culture is dead.
Culture is almost impossible to maintain, or to make primary when Wall St and therefore China, drive one’s bus.
Many AAPL shareholders have reveled in the gains, with little awareness or appreciation of the culture or history. Wall Street-ification denudes the possibility of a culture that’s worthy of rich history…worthy of record.
Based on Zombie and Hank’s posts I guess we should just give up and ask Microsoft to make us a Zoom Phone, since Apple is just waiting for the fork to be stuck in it…
Or maybe, just maybe, they kept the Jobsian philosophy of his pride to say “no” to more things to be and stay focused.
When they were struggling in the late 90’s the highest end Macs were significant to Apples revenue. However, if they tomorrow released the Mac Pro Ultra with quad M5 Ultra Processors and the fastest internal expansion card options (sure I’d love one of those myself) and up to 4TB or RAM and 500TB of internal storage. How many would they sell of these $100k + systems vs the engineering resources they could put into other parts of the business.
A Mac Studio with an M5 Ultra and it would be nice to have 512GB RAM option, with cloud infrastructure backend, the Mac Pro above would not move Apples needle enough in software innovation or hardware innovation in all likelihood.
Lame false dichotomy rhetoric. Just because apple is still the least worst option among others doesnt mean it still has it’s good steve jobs culture, is on the right trajectory, or is nearly as well run as it used to be under jobs.
A studio cannot have 1400MB/s u.2 esdff drives which are common and easy to get in 15, 31, 62, and 122tb sizes. I cannot have 100/400/800gbe ethernet connections. All those things are possible with the old M2 ultra mac pro and older mac pros. Things that help high end AI work.
TLDR your arguments are lame. You dont know s**t. And you lose.
Being able/willing to criticize one’s favorite team, while they remain as favorite is an actual skill.
To say that it’s a form of “giving up” is ridiculous and representative of today’s mind…cheering tribally and blindly ignoring truth before one’s eyeballs. Preserving narratives for their own sake is tiring.
I find it rather ironic that the 2 complaining about my comment on the Mac Pro with expansion slots not really being what Apple needs to spend resources on. Which is the antithesis of what Jobs wanted, but was talked into allowing to exist, are saying I don’t get in a TLDR cursory review of their complaints.
Also, I wasn’t saying a Studio is a replacement for a Mac Pro, it’s just the only option they make, no expansion slots, just TB5 ports.