Setting Records... and Breaking Them

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Recently, Apple nudged out oil giant Exxon Mobil to become the most valuable publicly-traded company in the world.

“The company's stock was up 6.3% to $447.02 a share, one day after Apple reported the best quarterly results in history for a tech company. That spike pushed the company's market value to $419 billion,” Ben Rooney writes.

According to The New York Times, last year Apple earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google.

Here’s my personal theory why …

Apple first redefined the consumer’s experience of using a portable audio device in 2001, when it launched the iPod First Generation in 2001. Now it seems like Apple is coming out with new products — and impressive innovations on existing products — just about every “15 minutes.” Steve Jobs’ brilliant engineering, design, branding and marketing teams have redefined the market and given rise to a whole family of products that now includes five or six different varieties of iPods — plus iPhone, iTouch and iPad.

Apple outperforms its competition by outperforming its own past performance. Lesson to be learned.