Apple was the world's most valuable company from 2021 to 2023. Today? They're third behind Nvidia and Microsoft. In just 4 months, their value dropped 28%. That's $1.1 trillion gone. But this disaster started in 2011.

When Steve Jobs stepped down, he told Tim Cook something crucial: "Don't ask, 'what Steve would do' ... just do what's right" Jobs believed great products created great stock prices. Cook believed the opposite. The shift was immediate.

In 2010, Jobs had $27 billion in cash and no idea what to do with it. Warren Buffett gave him three options: acquisitions, dividends, or stock buybacks. Jobs refused dividends and buybacks entirely. His reasoning? "Our goal is to increase enterprise value."

Jobs wanted to strengthen Apple, not reward shareholders. But in 2012, 6 months after becoming CEO, Cook did exactly what Jobs refused. First dividend program. First stock buyback. Initially $45 billion planned. They spent $80 billion instead. Warren Buffett noticed.

Buffett famously avoided tech companies, saying "If there's lots of technology, we won't understand it." But he invested $1 billion in Cook's Apple. Never invested a penny under Jobs. This revealed everything about Apple's transformation. They'd become a finance company.

The culture shift was brutal for Apple's design team. Jobs visited the design studio daily. Cook? Once a month. Chief Design Officer Jonathan Ive lost all power. When developing Apple Watch, Ive wanted a $25 million fashion show. Finance team called it "unnecessary."

For the first time ever, Ive's ideas faced resistance from finance executives. Cook appeared to side with them. Ive complained to colleagues calling board members as "another one of those accounts." He started working from home and showing up late. Innovation was dying.

The proof was in the products. iPhone 6, 6s, 7, and 8 looked nearly identical from 2014 to 2017. But Cook found a new way to grow revenue: price hikes. iPhone stayed $650 for 7 years under Jobs. Cook changed that forever.

iPhone X launched at $1,000 in 2017. A 30% price increase from the previous model. By 2023, the most expensive iPhone hit $1,200. Even Apple's "budget" model jumped 40% this year. Average iPhone price: $657 in 2016, $974 in 2024.

But the real disaster came with AI. Apple pioneered voice assistants with Siri in 2011. By 2017, Siri had 62% accuracy. Google Assistant had 90%. When ChatGPT launched in 2022, Apple was years behind. Their AI team knew what they needed.

In 2023, Apple's AI team requested 50,000 new GPU chips to catch up. Cost: $10 billion. Cook approved it. The finance team killed it. Their reasoning? "Make existing chips more efficient." Meanwhile, Apple spent $77 billion on stock buybacks that same year.

The priorities were crystal clear. Apple led the world in stock buybacks: $110 billion in 2024. • But Amazon spent $85 billion on R&D. • Google spent $45 billion. • Meta spent $39 billion. All have better AI than Apple. Jobs feared exactly this scenario.

Apple's $1.1 trillion loss proves Steve Jobs was right about one thing: When you prioritize shareholders over products, you eventually lose both. Cook grew Apple market cap 10x, but he destroyed innovation. A company that once modernized industries now can't even finish Siri.

That's a wrap! Apple Intelligence was pure marketing fluff - rebranding basic features as "AI breakthrough." I miss when Apple products actually changed how we lived, not just how much we spent. Now it's premium pricing for yesterday's innovation. What do you think? 👇

Thanks for reading! Hi!! I'm Polly. 2 years ago, I left Asia's biggest outsourcing firm after watching founders get scammed by bad hires. So I decided to build VisionBrain to fix hiring forever.

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@PollyA36379 Recently saw a video by 'Apple explained' covering this, which elaborated on how ever since Tim took over, the company chose to focus more on financials and less on creativity. As a fan of the old Apple, seeing the misses they've made recently makes me sad.

@imawickedlemon Loved the video! Was the inspiration for this thread :)

@PollyA36379 Apple is cooked. My iPhone gets worse every year

@dustinthedad Since last few years, yess!

@PollyA36379 WOW never heard of it

@JafarNajafov Now you have :)

@PollyA36379 At this rate, Elon can scoop up Apple for the iPhone only, and recreate it as the xPhone, connected to Starlink DTC high-speed internet, and say goodbye to all the legacy carriers. With the 'All-In-One' financial functionality, banks will be the next to fail.

@redSnakeSleeper That'll be interesting :)

@PollyA36379 I can’t believe it didn’t happen sooner. Jobs mistake was letting a finance guy run the company.

@k24378814 Jobs was the best :)

@PollyA36379 Great thread. Stock buybacks are disguised as being for the shareholders but in reality they are for the executive suite who wish to pad their pockets in the short term at the expense of the future of the company. There should be more restrictions put in place but the corporate

@JettBlast00 This is it. The craziest part? Companies will do $50B in buybacks while saying they can't afford R&D or worker raises.

@PollyA36379 Sounds just like what happened under John Sculley. Brought in from PepsiCo. Ousted Jobs. Wrecked the company. Had to buy NeXT Computer to bring Jobs back to fix the company. Unfortunately Jobs is no longer with us to be brought back to save the company again.

@OttoRommel Exactly! It is what it is :/ But! Thanks for insight Otto!

@PollyA36379 Earlier this year, I decided to try an iPhone for the first time. I had it for less than 24 hours before returning it. The build quality is nice, but the features are years behind Samsung.

@alamo_ghost Samsung is leading the race as of now