When Apple CEO Tim Cook and his executive team received their performance targets for fiscal 2025, the board set a modest bar for bonus payouts. The new targets, including sales and operating profit, did not require Apple’s leadership to expand the business—the board set goals at the same level or below the prior year’s results, citing “trade policy” and an “uncertain macroeconomic outlook.”
At the end of the fiscal year, Cook and his team delivered lights-out, extraordinary results anyway, not only blowing past the lackluster bar set by the board, but handily surpassing the prior year’s results, with net sales increasing 6% and operating income increasing 8%.
