Comment by shafoshaf

I think this is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory fallacy. There is a correlation to Cook and the performance, but the idea that this was all because of one single guy at the top is survivor bias. For example, other companies didn't fail at outsourcing to China because their CEOs weren't as personally involved as Cook, it was because the team as a whole didn't perform.

Looking today, Trump is as much a symptom as the problem. He didn't get there just because of who he is, he rode on the backs of all the people who voted for him, the state legislators who gerrymandered for him, the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, etc...