Apple’s Record-Breaking Quarter Was SO BORING
Yesterday, Apple reported Q1 results that saw them set an all-time quarterly revenue record. Given the run the company has been on over the past couple of decades, still being able to set records from such great heights is truly incredible. But that's not really what stands out about the quarter. What stands out, especially when compared to their Big Tech peers, is just how boring the record-breaking quarter was.
That sounds harsh, and well, it is harsh. But it's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it might be a good thing in the short term. It is potentially a problem for the longer term, but well, that's a long way out. And a lot is going to change between now and then. And with AI in particular, that's perhaps more true than ever before.
Just this past week, Apple's approach was validated in a way. The DeepSeek situation did nothing if not cause everyone – and certainly Wall Street – to take a pause and consider where we stand on AI. Essentially: if a Chinese upstart can match the biggest and best that Silicon Valley has to offer at a fraction of the cost, what's the point of all this AI spend? That's exactly why Apple was buoyed in the stock market while the others were hit to varying degrees. I mean, NVIDIA lost just about $600B in market cap in a single day. Meanwhile, Apple's stock surged.
Call it a last-mover advantage. And really, it's not too different from Apple's general playbook of waiting for a technology to mature to the point where it's ready to create great products.1 Why should AI be any different?