Apple’s longtime CEO sat out the crypto revolution. His successor should choose a different path

It’s been quite a run for Tim Cook. During his 15 years as the head of Apple, Cook grew the company’s market cap from $350 billion to $4 trillion and cemented its status as one of the most dominant and trusted brands on the planet. Few would dispute that his tenure has been a smashing success. Still, for those of us who knew Apple in the Steve Jobs era, it’s hard to look at the Cook era without wondering what could have been.

Unlike Jobs, Cook was not a visionary but an operator. His success lay in building out Apple’s fledgling services division into a $110 billion juggernaut and making the golden handcuffs it clasps around consumers ever tighter. What he didn’t do was build products. Yes, there were hits in the form of the Apple Watch and AirPods, but their genesis largely predated Cook. At the same time, Cook’s foray into cars became a road to nowhere, and his Apple Vision project proved an expensive flop. As for AI under Cook, the company’s efforts can be summed up by the hot mess that is Siri. Finally, there is crypto and blockchain—where Apple is nowhere at all.

Yes, Apple is not a blockchain-native company and no one expected Tim Cook to turn his attention from iPhones to Bitcoin. Still, look at other prominent Silicon........

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