For Apple Shareholders Only

Created at Sep 20, 2026 08:54:09 185.**.157.161 106 4 0

I think Apple is annoyingly good at business. The reason is that they let other companies jump in first and compete to see what actually works.
Then they take what has been proven and make it better... Never the first. Yet they always win.

Personal Computer (1977) — IBM → Apple II
GUI Computer (1984) — Xerox → Macintosh
MP3 Player (2001) — Diamond Rio → iPod
Digital Music Store (2003) — Napster → iTunes
Smartphone (2007) — BlackBerry, Nokia → iPhone
App Market (2008) — Various mobile stores → App Store
Tablet (2010) — Microsoft Tablet → iPad
Video Calling (2010) — Skype → FaceTime
Voice Assistant (2011) — GPS → Siri
Cloud Storage (2011) — Dropbox → iCloud
Fingerprint Recognition (2013) — Motorola Atrix → Touch ID
Smartwatch (2015) — Samsung Galaxy Gear → Apple Watch
Mobile Payment (2014) — PayPal → Apple Pay
Wireless Earbuds (2016) — Bluetooth earphones that had already existed for years → AirPods
Smart Speaker (2018) — Amazon Alexa → HomePod
Item Tracker (2021) — Tile → AirTag
High-Performance ARM Computer (2020) — ARM Chips → Apple Silicon Mac
Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) (2023) — Affirm → Apple Pay Later
Mixed Reality / VR (2024) — Oculus/Meta → Apple Vision Pro
Generative AI (2024) — OpenAI → Apple Intelligence

To this extent, their management is truly smart.
Over the past 20 years, their CAGR is a whopping 28.5%.
While the S&P is around 11%.

Tags APPL Apple

Comments 4

12.**.152.193 Sep 20, 2026 08:57:31

An unethical company that habitually engages in extreme abuse of power and unfair practices against parts and assembly suppliers using its immense buying power and market influence.
More than just a few suppliers have gone bankrupt because of Apple.
In the past, it even drove Micron to the brink of bankruptcy through the tactic of promising memory prices to induce production investment and then slashing the prices.

Additionally, it habitually commits despicable acts of slashing unit prices by sharing existing suppliers' manufacturing technology and designs with latecomer Chinese companies to force them to compete with the existing suppliers.

The only American company I wish would go under because of its countless evil deeds that are hard to list one by one.

11.**.233.97 Sep 20, 2026 08:57:10

Hmm.. In Apple's case, they never reveal anything until it becomes a finished product.
And the time it takes for a finished product to come out is really long..
Then there are also projects that end without ever becoming a finished product (a prime example being the Apple Car)
Maybe because they deal with hardware, their security is really strict..

198.**.134.234 Sep 20, 2026 08:56:39

Steve Jobs' strategy was originally not "the first," but "the best." According to the business/marketing strategy I learned back in school a long time ago, people don't remember the first; they remember the best. In fact, if something stays in the top position for a long time, people even mistakenly think it was the first. That's why what matters in business is not being the first, but being the best. When you look into it, even the "first mover advantage" is actually about who enters the consumer's mind first. That is why Google, despite not being the first search engine, survived in the end and became the dominant player. No matter how much Samsung keeps shouting that they were the first, the reason they can't catch up to Apple is that they are not the pioneer in the minds of consumers.

121.**.6.135 Sep 20, 2026 08:56:21

I agree. Not pouring money into AI development is also a strategy.