Billionaire investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel has renewed his long-standing criticism of Apple, arguing that the company has failed to produce meaningful innovation since the death of co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011. After that, he said, Apple’s work was a matter of scaling the product, building the brand and extending the business over about 15 years. Theil made the remarks during a Setepmver interview with author Walter Isaacson on The Builder’s podcast, which was released earlier this week, according to a report by Benzinga. Theil emphasised that the smartphone was a big invention with little left to do once it was launched.
Theil further added that Apple lost its sense of direction after the death of Steve Jobs.
During the interview, Theil said that one of the biggest breakthrough of Apple was iPhone and suggested that the company mainly focused on refining and expanding the product ever since. “In my telling, it did nothing new after Jobs,” Thiel said, adding that the iPhone was such a significant invention that there was little left to revolutionise afterward. Apple spent the years following the iPhone’s launch scaling the product, strengthening its brand and expanding its ecosystem rather than creating another transformative technology, according to Thiel.