Tim's Apple has been over-cooked

With so much money in the bank, it's time for Apple to find another visionary for its next CEO

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It's hard to think of a more poisoned chalice than following Steve Jobs. You need only look at how Steve Ballmer withered in the hot seat at Microsoft to understand how following an iconic leader is brutally tough, even if you've been their right-hand man for decades. That Tim Cook has done so for nigh on 15 years is nothing short of remarkable. But it's time to move on.

Cook proved to be the right man at a terrible time. A steady pair of hands that knew the business inside out and turned its already fabulous portfolio of products into a thunking great pile of cash. The company now consistently earns net profits just shy of $100 billion a year. It's a fatuous comparison, but if Apple's revenue were counted as GDP, it would rank around 40th globally - comparable to South Africa and Hong Kong. Little wonder Trump nudged foreign leaders out of the way to have Cook sat there in the front rows at his inauguration.

Yet having amassed this enormous war chest, Apple needs to find someone who knows how to spend it. A Jobs-like visionary who can identify the products that are going to see Apple through the next 20 years, not just squeeze every last drop of milk from the cash cows of the past 20.