Apple Kills Steve Jobs’s Visionary Era. Welcome Shareholders!

Mind your own ‘business’ and let us do our job! For years and years, this could be summarized as Apple’s policy towards shareholders in Steve Jobs’s visionary era. Traumatized by them almost bankrupting Apple, upon his return to the company, Steve Jobs was extremely hard with shareholders by sweeping the idea of paying dividends.
However, throughout his sick leave and since his death, the position of Steve Jobs has been increasingly challenged. At that point Tim Cook, his successor, was not able to give an interview without also being asked the big question: Will Apple open the taps for cash to shareholders? The new CEO freely admits that Apple has more money than it takes to work everyday and that they still have no intent on paying dividends to shareholders. He says that the discussion on this subject is becoming increasingly active in the board. Could this be a change of tone, with everything in details?
At the last Board of Directors meeting, under big pressure from its shareholders, Apple had no other possibilty than to agree to a request of new operating rules for the election of its Board of Directors (the old rules of governance).
This now means that if a director who has not obtained the favorable vote of a majority of shareholders must absoultely resign. In Steve Jobs’s visionary era, the shareholders had the option not to vote for a director, but could not vote against. A mode that allowed Steve Jobs to hold the board under his thumb for a long time; Jobs appears to have chosen close or trusted friends among the Board of Directors, as reported by Adam Lashinsky in his book Inside Apple .

Apple Kills Steve Jobs's Visionary Era. Welcome Shareholders!

New board rules means the end of Steve Jobs’s visionary era.

Calpers, the pension fund of retired public service, previously called California (California Public Employees Retirement System), has been very active in supporting this change, saying that it is a lot more democratic. We think the new board election rules actually translate in a new mode of managing Apple, giving more power to shareholders, giving them a voice, giving them an advantage over the board and obviously over the CEO. This new decision for the future strategy of Apple, begins to signal the end of a visionary era.
A Steve Jobs era, where the company was managed by an iron fist of nothing but a visionary. That of a man often criticized, which we can not deny, was however the meaning and use of technology. Steve Jobs is a man whose legendary intransigence, urged him to act sometimes very hard with its employees and shareholders. Apple’s primary goal for business was to build great products and only then earn lots of money.
By opening the door to shareholders, Apple seems to go in a direction that now makes it a business like any other. Exceptional in many ways, but much of the magic in Apple was created by nothing else than Steve Jobs’s visionary era. Is this good or bad? Time will tell. For shareholders in any case, it looks like the time for dividends has come.

Think Apple, think different no more!