TIm Cook He exudes an air of bashful deference: In his 13 years at the helm of Apple, he has created more value than any other company. CEO It's the biggest thing in history. The tech giant's market capitalization has risen from less than $400 billion to nearly $3 trillion. But he acts as if he's there thanks to the grace of Steve Jobs, the sleight of his colleagues or divine providence. It was in character for him to take the stage at the iPhone maker's annual developers' gathering on June 10 to greet the cheering crowd by clasping his hands together as if in prayer. He probably wouldn't admit it, but he had a lot to pray for.
Apple has been hit periodically by investor anxiety. Call it the curse of lost magic. For the past 18 months, Wall Street has been convinced that the creative spark left by Apple's co-founder, the Prometheus, has finally died, as it has several times since Jobs died in 2011. Behind it all is a real problem: slowing sales of the iPhone, which accounts for half of Apple's revenue. But there's also a problem of perception. Generative artificial intelligence (AI)artificial intelligence) has been overtaken as the world's most valuable company by its old rival, Microsoft. To make matters worse, the market capitalization of Nvidia, the chip maker that powers the generators, is nowartificial intelligence This month, Google's tools division briefly overtook Apple's, and its president, Jen-Hsun Huang, is being treated like a second coming of Jobs.
