In a New Interview, Tim Cook Says Apple is Focused on Products and People

Cook said that instead of stock price, the company is focused on other priorities:

Stock price is a result, not an achievement by itself. For me, it’s about products and people. Did we make the best product, and did we enrich people’s lives? If you’re doing both of those things–and obviously those things are incredibly connected because one leads to the other—then you have a good year.

While in some areas, like the HomePod, Apple isn’t the first to market with a specific technology. But Cook doesn’t see the company as following:

I wouldn’t say “follow.” I wouldn’t use that word because that implies we waited for somebody to see what they were doing. That’s actually not what’s happening. What’s happening if you look under the sheets, which we probably don’t let people do, is that we start projects years before they come out. You could take every one of our products–iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch–they weren’t the first, but they were the first modern one, right?

In each case, if you look at when we started, I would guess that we started much before other people did, but we took our time to get it right. Because we don’t believe in using our customers as a laboratory. What we have that I think is unique is patience. We have patience to wait until something is great before we ship it.

Interestingly, because Apple designs its own silicone chips, Cook said the company is working on products “way out in the 2020s.”