Abstract:
According to Business Insider, billionaire, PayPal co-founder, and technology investor Peter Thiel said that Apple "did nothing new" after founder Steve Jobs died of cancer in 2011. He made the comments in a September interview with writer Walter Isaacson, which was released on "Builder's Podcast" on Thursday.
"In my opinion, it didn't do anything new after Steve Jobs," Thiel said. "It turned out that the mobile phone was a huge invention - there wasn't much to do after that. Then it was scaling, branding, and rolling it out over 15 years or so or more."
According to the report, Apple has been criticized for its lack of innovation beyond mobile phones and tablets, especially in the era of artificial intelligence, and its "Siri" product is not as advanced as competing products from ChatGPT or Anthropic.
Jobs released the first-generation iPhone at a conference in San Francisco in 2007. Nearly 20 years later, Apple released the 18th generation iPhone this week; reports say the foldable model is the iPhone Duo.
However, the report also pointed out that MacBook is still the de facto laptop for many AI enthusiasts and ordinary users, iPhone is everywhere, and AirPods released in 2016 has gained a foothold with its simple design.
Thiel told Maureen Dowd of the New York Times in 2017 that Apple's era was over; but the report said Apple's stock price has risen steadily since then.
Thiel did not completely dismiss Apple. He called Apple a "pure, well-run value stock" but lamented the loss of vision after Jobs' death.
"I would still say that somehow Elon or Steve Jobs were far better for society than Tim Cook," he said.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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