Tim Cook Was Very, Very Good at Making Money

When Tim Cook took over Apple in 2011, leaders from Silicon Valley to Wall Street predicted that the company’s best days were behind it. They feared that without Steve Jobs, Apple’s innovative chief executive, the company would falter.

They were wrong.

Over 15 years, Mr. Cook has engineered Apple’s rise from a Silicon Valley darling worth $350 billion into a cash-generating giant worth $4 trillion. The company’s annual revenue quadrupled, and its profits rose fourfold. The iPhone became ubiquitous, the Apple Watch proliferated, and the company developed credit cards and TV shows.

Apple’s growth is a testament to how Mr. Cook turned the iPhone into one of history’s best-selling products. Introduced by Mr. Jobs in 2007, the iPhone started the smartphone revolution, changing the way people work, socialize and travel. But Apple was selling only 72 million iPhones a year when Mr. Jobs died and Mr. Cook took over.

Two years later, Mr. Cook struck a deal with China’s largest wireless company, China Mobile. By the end of that year, Apple had more than doubled the number of iPhones it sold, and China was cementing itself as the company’s largest market after the United States.

In 2018, Apple became the first public company worth $1 trillion behind the 10th anniversary edition of its iPhone. It had a facial recognition system, a full screen and a higher price, $1,000, which helped lift Apple’s sales to new heights.

Over the next year, the company added $1 trillion more in market value after the pandemic led people who were working from home to splurge on iPhones, iPads and Macs. There were more than a billion iPhones in use around the world and 650 million other Apple devices in use.

Apple has been cruising ever since. People typically replace their iPhones every three years, and the company collects sales on the apps and services used on those devices.

Even though it has largely missed out on the artificial intelligence boom now lifting the sales of its technology peers, the company’s profits and stock value continue to grow.

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