Peter Thiel claims Apple has lacked innovation since Steve Jobs' death
Tech investor Peter Thiel said Apple has not introduced anything truly new since Steve Jobs died, calling the company a well-run value stock but lacking vision.
Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and prominent tech investor, told host Walter Isaacson on the Builder's Podcast that Apple has failed to produce any groundbreaking innovation since Steve Jobs died of cancer in 2011. He described the original iPhone as a monumental invention and said later models have been limited to scaling and branding efforts over the past 15 years. Thiel pointed to the recently launched 18th-generation iPhone, which only introduces a folding mechanism, as evidence of this stagnation.
He also highlighted that Apple's voice assistant Siri lags behind competitors such as ChatGPT and Anthropic in the AI arena. Despite these criticisms, Thiel called Apple a "pure, well-run value stock" and praised the company's consistent stock growth, but he asserted that figures like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs have had a greater societal impact than current CEO Tim Cook. Apple was not available for comment when approached for a response.
Why it matters
Thiel's critique raises questions about Apple's future relevance in a fast-evolving tech landscape.
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