Jeff Bezos to step down as CEO of Amazon, to be replaced by AWS chief Andy Jassy

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
32,201
14,877
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Fruitful in what way? Making money? Or continuing to make a good product or service? Cook may have done a good job at making apple profitable but I think it could be argued that the quality of their products (in terms of things Steve Jobs would have been passionate about) has gone down hill.
 

UNCjigga

Lifer
Dec 12, 2000
24,802
9,004
136
Will this transfer of leadership be as fruitful for Amazon as it did for Apple when Steve Jobs stepped down and handed the reins to Tim Cook?


Considering that Jassy has been in charge of Amazon’s #1 profit center since Day 1, I’d say Amazon is in good hands. IBM wanted to poach him bad last year—I’m guessing another company came knocking and that may have prompted his promotion.
 

UNCjigga

Lifer
Dec 12, 2000
24,802
9,004
136
Looks like someone wants to avoid scrutiny.

LOL too late for that—Pecker and Saudis saw to that already. Bezos is practically untouchable though. Seems like he’s leaving on his own terms—wants to spend more time on rockets and other metaphorical moonshots.
 

cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
23,049
12,719
136
LOL too late for that—Pecker and Saudis saw to that already. Bezos is practically untouchable though. Seems like he’s leaving on his own terms—wants to spend more time on rockets and other metaphorical moonshots.

If that is it, then this is exceptionally good news.
Rockets > *
 

ponyo

Lifer
Feb 14, 2002
19,689
2,811
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you thought Tim Cook was a good transition?
Apple market cap when Tim Cook took over, $350 billion.
Apple current market cap under Tim Cook, $2,254 billion or $2.254 trillion.

You don't think Tim Cook was good transition? Steve Jobs handpicked Tim Apple to be the CEO before his death because he trusted Tim to continue the excellence at Apple after his death. Steve had lot of experience with what a wrong leader can do to a company. He saw John Sculley almost destroy Apple the first time. Steve got it wrong and picked the wrong guy the first time. Steve learned his lesson and picked the right guy his final and last time.
 

ponyo

Lifer
Feb 14, 2002
19,689
2,811
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I look forward to seeing some good fights between Elon Musk with SpaceX and Jeff "Who?" with Blue Origin. So far, Elon has kicked Jeff "Who?" ass when it comes to space. Blue Origin has really been BO and stunk up the joint so far. Hopefully Jeff "Who?" can make BO more competitive and actually get a rocket up into orbit.
 
Nov 8, 2012
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Apple market cap when Tim Cook took over, $350 billion.
Apple current market cap under Tim Cook, $2,254 billion or $2.254 trillion.

You don't think Tim Cook was good transition? Steve Jobs handpicked Tim Apple to be the CEO before his death because he trusted Tim to continue the excellence at Apple after his death. Steve had lot of experience with what a wrong leader can do to a company. He saw John Sculley almost destroy Apple the first time. Steve got it wrong and picked the wrong guy the first time. Steve learned his lesson and picked the right guy his final and last time.

I share a similar perspective with ivwshane.

The overall product, revisions, and innovations have taken a nosedive.

Their technology is always 1-2 generations behind Android as far as phone. The same can be said for all their other shit attempts at products - Apple Watch, their tablet, etc...

They have amassed a cult of follower though - which is what they hinge on and will continue to milk for as long as possible of course. But long term, they are a dying breed. Their last innovation was the iPhone - which is now almost 15 years old. It's still where the bulk of their revenue is. FIFTEEN years later. Adapt or die. Were at a point where everyone no longer gets a new phone every 1-2 years, hence why they stopped listing their iPhone numbers in earnings.
 

ponyo

Lifer
Feb 14, 2002
19,689
2,811
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No disagreement from me that Apple has been coasting on the success of the iPhone since Steve's death. Tim Apple shares most of the blame for that since he's the CEO. But you have to remember people's strengths and weaknesses. Steve was a visionary. He could look into the future and see what needed to be done. Tim is operational and logistics guy. That has always been his strength. Tim is not a visionary. He's numbers cruncher. And like most operational guy, he lacks the ability to innovate and see into the future. But Steve knew Apple had made it and didn't need some bozo with the wrong vision who could screw up what Apple had. Apple just needed someone to guide Apple based on everything Steve had built. They just needed a captain who could smoothly sail the water and not run into an iceberg and sink what's a great ship.

There's not too many visionaries in the world like Steve, Elon, and Jeff. These people are very rare. So Steve went with sure bet and someone he could trust with Apple. And Tim Cook was that guy and he has done Steve proud. I'm certain if Steve was alive today, he would've bought Tesla when it was in trouble and Tesla would be Apple brand today. 100% certain.
 

Commodus

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 2004
9,206
6,799
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you thought Tim Cook was a good transition?

Yes and no.

Cook is an operations guy, so he's more about iterative improvement and boosting sales than changing the world. Hence form factors that stay the same for years and upgrades that are sometimes very subtle. And when there are radical new products, they don't always have Jobs' ability to balance design idealism with commercial reality (the trashcan Mac Pro and solid gold Apple Watches felt like Ive was left unchecked).

At the same time, Cook is also very astute about maintaining Apple's bottom line. There's never been a worry that Apple would face any significant shortfall under his tenure. If there's a mistake, it gets fixed — not always right away, but in time. There's less of the rollercoaster that defined Jobs' tenure, where things generally grew but were more volatile and included some genuine bombs. Yeah, he oversaw the iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac, but he also had his share of G4 Cubes, iPod Hi-Fis and original Apple TVs.

I can't help but think that Apple would have been more exciting if Jobs were still alive, but its growth might also have been capped as he resisted the move to services or doubled down on hardware strategies that didn't necessarily work. Cook is the one who took Apple from "the iPhone company" to a powerhouse that might become a household name even if you prefer Android and Windows.
 

manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
10,914
2,061
126
I share a similar perspective with ivwshane.

The overall product, revisions, and innovations have taken a nosedive.

Their technology is always 1-2 generations behind Android as far as phone. The same can be said for all their other shit attempts at products - Apple Watch, their tablet, etc...

They have amassed a cult of follower though - which is what they hinge on and will continue to milk for as long as possible of course. But long term, they are a dying breed. Their last innovation was the iPhone - which is now almost 15 years old. It's still where the bulk of their revenue is. FIFTEEN years later. Adapt or die. Were at a point where everyone no longer gets a new phone every 1-2 years, hence why they stopped listing their iPhone numbers in earnings.
Although I too agree with ivwshane's perspective or ponyo's statement that they've coasted on the iPhone's success post-Steve, your other conclusions are hilariously off the mark. Apple still cranks out market-leading products, and except for PCs, they sell very well and dominate industry profits. It's not an accident that other companies have time and again tried to copy the success of the iPhone, iPad, Watch, and AirPods. Whether this is enough to sustain organic growth into the future is certainly debatable, and sadly I sold my AAPL shares several years ago after concluding their best days were behind them. Of course they just registered their first-ever $100B+ sales quarter FWIW.

It's a tired old trope that claims Apple sells inferior tech through marketing genius/RDF alone.
 
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IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
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I give Apple credit for their CPUs which are market leading. Other than that, they haven't done much innovating lately.
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
23,331
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I give Apple credit for their CPUs which are market leading. Other than that, they haven't done much innovating lately.
Well Intel sure hasn't. Talk about resting on ones laurels. AMD is eating their lunch. What ever happened to their tic and toc plans.
 
Nov 8, 2012
20,828
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Although I too agree with ivwshane's perspective or ponyo's statement that they've coasted on the iPhone's success post-Steve, your other conclusions are hilariously off the mark. Apple still cranks out market-leading products, and except for PCs, they sell very well and dominate industry profits. It's not an accident that other companies have time and again tried to copy the success of the iPhone, iPad, Watch, and AirPods. Whether this is enough to sustain organic growth into the future is certainly debatable, and sadly I sold my AAPL shares several years ago after concluding their best days were behind them. Of course they just registered their first-ever $100B+ sales quarter FWIW.

It's a tired old trope that claims Apple sells inferior tech through marketing genius/RDF alone.

They really don't - and it's hilariously comical that you SAY that - but for some odd reason don't oblige to mention any examples.

Every single feature that is released on an iPhone is something that was done on an android 1 or 2 generations back.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
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I give Apple credit for their CPUs which are market leading. Other than that, they haven't done much innovating lately.
I may be the only one but I love face ID (less effective these days). I have congenitally sweaty hands (sexy, I know) and so I had to constantly clean the touch ID button and fingerprint scanners never worked well for me.
 

repoman0

Diamond Member
Jun 17, 2010
4,445
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Apple’s new branding as a privacy-centric company is really savvy and I wish they’d push it harder. Controlling your own data is going to become bigger and more important to people in the future. I don’t follow Apple that closely but it seems recent enough to be during Tim Cook’s tenure.
 
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manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
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They really don't - and it's hilariously comical that you SAY that - but for some odd reason don't oblige to mention any examples.

Every single feature that is released on an iPhone is something that was done on an android 1 or 2 generations back.
As IronWing mentioned, compare Apple's SoC to every other smartphone SoC. And for good measure, compare it to desktop CPUs. Then come back and tell us that Apple is 1-2 generations behind Android. In general, there isn't a ton of true innovation going on with smartphones; it's a very mature product class. Slapping more cameras on a year before Apple does isn't innovation either, nor does it make your phone a "generation" better. As for software features, both Apple and Google iterate annually but the platforms aren't moving the needle much. In the past, Android software was ahead in some ways and that gap has been bridged.

To say that every new feature on iPhone came from Android a generation or two ago is just a silly, unsubstantiated opinion. But this is P&N, and you be you. I wouldn't expect anything less.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
136
As IronWing mentioned, compare Apple's SoC to every other smartphone SoC. And for good measure, compare it to desktop CPUs. Then come back and tell us that Apple is 1-2 generations behind Android. In general, there isn't a ton of true innovation going on with smartphones; it's a very mature product class. Slapping more cameras on a year before Apple does isn't innovation either, nor does it make your phone a "generation" better. As for software features, both Apple and Google iterate annually but the platforms aren't moving the needle much. In the past, Android software was ahead in some ways and that gap has been bridged.

To say that every new feature on iPhone came from Android a generation or two ago is just a silly, unsubstantiated opinion. But this is P&N, and you be you. I wouldn't expect anything less.
It really is a spent space for innovation, at least at the moment. Maybe if they actually get the folding tech to work well, which I am skeptical of. I recently replaced my iphone X with an iphone 12 and while it's better, the difference isn't that big and that's 3 years of accumulated improvements.
 

manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
10,914
2,061
126
I may be the only one but I love face ID (less effective these days). I have congenitally sweaty hands (sexy, I know) and so I had to constantly clean the touch ID button and fingerprint scanners never worked well for me.
It's kinda funny, they created the widely debated iPhone "notch" to pack in a wide array of sensors at the top of the display (adding support for Face ID). Then in relatively short order, most other Android OEMs added their own notch (usually a bit smaller), without the same array of sensors to justify the form.

I personally don't agree with a lot of the choices that Apple makes, and I switched from iPhone to Android nine years ago. But there's a lot they do get right with the iPhone, such as update policy, and there's a non-zero chance that I'll switch back when I'm replacing my Samsung phone.

But someone without a mind asserts without proof that Android is always 1-2 generations ahead of Apple.
 

cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
23,049
12,719
136
iOS now has so many small usability kinks that its approaching a windows vista experience
Ok that may be over the top but you get what I mean. Much of this shit would NEVER have flown under Jobs.
 

cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
23,049
12,719
136
It's kinda funny, they created the widely debated iPhone "notch" to pack in a wide array of sensors at the top of the display (adding support for Face ID). Then in relatively short order, most other Android OEMs added their own notch (usually a bit smaller), without the same array of sensors to justify the form.

I personally don't agree with a lot of the choices that Apple makes, and I switched from iPhone to Android nine years ago. But there's a lot they do get right with the iPhone, such as update policy, and there's a non-zero chance that I'll switch back when I'm replacing my Samsung phone.

But someone without a mind asserts without proof that Android is always 1-2 generations ahead of Apple.
Only reason I am with iphone is because I tell my self that my privacy is a little bit better protected, less 0 days and less malware in the store.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
136
It's kinda funny, they created the widely debated iPhone "notch" to pack in a wide array of sensors at the top of the display (adding support for Face ID). Then in relatively short order, most other Android OEMs added their own notch (usually a bit smaller), without the same array of sensors to justify the form.

I personally don't agree with a lot of the choices that Apple makes, and I switched from iPhone to Android nine years ago. But there's a lot they do get right with the iPhone, such as update policy, and there's a non-zero chance that I'll switch back when I'm replacing my Samsung phone.

But someone without a mind asserts without proof that Android is always 1-2 generations ahead of Apple.
Yes, that's just dumb. Everyone tries to differentiate in their own way and frankly I'm very confident I would be happy with nearly any smartphone that's sold these days, they just aren't that different. For me it's basically face ID and imessage. The rest is a wash.