Close menu

Apple will fail

Yes, I know. It’s a ridiculous statement.

In every leadership or business book written in the last 10 years Apple has been held up as a model of how to do things.

Steve Jobs is a demi-God, worshipped as a creative visionary who invented simplicity. Apple, the most profitable company in the history of profitable companies. The organisation that has an income greater than the entire 1977 US stock market. The company that’s bigger than the GDP of Slovakia…

And here I am, an academic ruffian, suggesting that Apple’s going to go belly up.

What’s more, I’m even daring to suggest that it’ll happen a lot sooner than you think.

How do I know? Because nothing is permanent.

The pace of change has quickened to the point that business cycles are shortening. Global competition is like a pack of rabid dogs and sooner or later, Apple will get bitten.

Some other company will emerge as the ‘new Apple’, headed by the ‘new Steve Jobs’ and historians will look back at these paragraphs and coo at my foresight.

And don’t get me started on Dickie Branson…

So, as the world quickens, what are we supposed to do?

I think the trick is to stop trying to keep up and, instead, watch it hurtling by in a blur. Enjoy being part of the hurly burly.

Be proud in the knowledge that historians will look back at us and go “Wow! They really were in the eye of the storm. They coped with the advent of the internet and ‘all you can eat’ data. They had the ISIS thing going on, and Brexit. They grappled with social media and Trump! Oh, and the fall of Apple.”

And while life hurtles by, take time out to enjoy it. Remember that in 40 years time, these are the ‘good old days’.

So my best advice is to take time to enjoy today, today.

Andy C