In the startup and business world you reward execution not ideas. Ideas are easy.

I have an idea for a memristor based neural processor for low power on device AI, but its worthless because I dont have the 9 billion dollars to realize this idea...

> Ideas are easy.

Let's not get into absolutes. Ideas can be as hard or harder than execution. Not many will claim ideas like Special Relativity are easy to come by.

It really depends on the idea and what you're executing. Often in business both the idea and the execution have to work out to captialize. In this case Jobs might have set the direction and Cook capitalized. Both deserve a share of the credit.

Cook is definitely one of the world’s best operators (I think he was COO during Jobs’ tenure). But he is not a visionary by any stretch. Maybe Apple itself does not need a visionary, but I think tech needs one.

Yes, Cook was the COO during Jobs’ tenure.

Before Cook, Apple’s supply chain and manufacturing was a mess—too many of some products and not enough of others.

Back in the day, it was a running joke trying to buy products as an organization—they would announce a new Mac but you couldn’t buy it for 4-6 weeks.

It was Tim Cook who implemented Apple’s build to order system after Dell demonstrated its success. We take it for granted now, but it was a huge development at the time.

The P.A. Semi acquisition was huge of course but we shouldn’t forget during Steve’s absence, Apple used ARM processors in the Newton in the’90s.