Apple CEO, Tim Cook must resign and the company should shift towards a more aggressive development strategy. Apple at the present is just a company of incremental improvements of existing products and market expansion.

There are no new products to come. No new directions to travel. The problem with apple started when the company stopped making tools for creative people and focused on creating gadgets. But it is not all about the products made by apple. In the end, it is all about the core vision and ambition of Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook.

“Peacetime CEO aims to expand the market. Wartime CEO aims to win the market.”

Excerpt From: Horowitz, Ben. “The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers.” – Chap. 7 – “Peacetime CEO/Wartime CEO”.

Tim Cook is an excellent peacetime CEO, like the ones of Eric Schmidt at Google or Steve Balmer at Microsoft. They were excellent at expanding the company market, but not really at reinventing the company. Wartime CEOs like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Larry Page, envision new products that will define new markets and want to control those markets. The uninteresting – to avoid the word dull – products of Apple, show that they really need a CEO that can stir the waters. For all this Tim Cook must resign.

Who can replace Tim Cook?

Probably no one inside apple right now. Mainly because the CEO cannot be someone of the existing CEOs. Most of them are just peacetime CEOs like Tim Cook. They are there since the time of Steve Jobs. And going back to Ben Horowitz book:

“I call managers who are happier setting the direction of the company Ones and those who more enjoy making the company perform at the highest level Twos.”

Excerpt From: Horowitz, Ben. “The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers.” – Chap. 7 – “Ones and Twos”.

Steve Jobs was a natural One. As a founding CEO he was always defining the future. Gathering information and playing “eight-dimensional chess against their best competitors”. Ones need to be surrounded by Twos, people that excel at making the company execute the plan at full performance. Tim Cook was that kind of person. As were the others executives at apple at the time, either Jony Ive or Phil Schiller. As Twos they complemented Steve Jobs being the One.

When Jobs passed way Tim Cook took over and we started having a Two as the CEO. He made Apple stronger and bigger than ever before. Apple expanded with the same products. But now, that existing products are not sustaining that expansion, Apple needs to redefine their strategy. Define the big transformative objectives. Decide on where to go next. For that, Apple needs a One at the helm, and that’s why Tim Cook must resign.