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Apple’s Changing Business Model: What Should the World’s Richest Company Do with All Those Profits?

Author

Listed:
  • William Lazonick

    (University of Massachusetts, Lowell, USA)

  • Mariana Mazzucato

    (SPRU, University of Sussex, UK)

  • Öner Tulum

    (University of Massachusetts, Lowell, USA)

Abstract
Apple Inc. stands out as the world’s most famous, and currently richest, company. To the general public, Apple is known for three things: its intriguing CEO Steve Jobs, who has achieved iconic status in death as in life; its amazing iOS products, especially the iPhone and the iPad, and their predecessor the iPod, which have literally placed sophisticated technology in the hands of the masses; and its stratospheric stock price, which even when in March 2013 it had dropped to 63 percent of its September 2012 peak, gave Apple the highest market capitalization of any company in the world. As a result of its phenomenal success, at the end of fiscal 2012 Apple had $121 billion in liquid assets. In April 2013 the company committed to distributing as much as $100 billion to shareholders in stock buybacks and cash dividends by the end of calendar 2015. By employing the theory of innovative enterprise to analyze how over the course of its 37-year history Apple became so profitable, we argue that there is no economic justification from a risk-reward perspective for this distribution to Apple’s shareholders. Taxpayers and workers have superior claims on these profits. In analyzing by whom value is created as a basis for considering for whom value should be extracted, we raise the implications of Apple’s changing business model for the future of innovation at this heretofore exceptional American company and even in the U.S. economy as a whole.

Suggested Citation

  • William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato & Öner Tulum, 2013. "Apple’s Changing Business Model: What Should the World’s Richest Company Do with All Those Profits?," SPRU Working Paper Series 2013-07, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:sru:ssewps:2013-07
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    File URL: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/documents/2013-07-swps-lazonick-et-al-apple-20130903.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato, 2013. "The risk-reward nexus in the innovation-inequality relationship: who takes the risks? Who gets the rewards ?," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 22(4), pages 1093-1128, August.
    2. Lazonick, William, 2010. "Innovative Business Models and Varieties of Capitalism: Financialization of the U.S. Corporation," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(4), pages 675-702, January.
    3. William Lazonick, 2009. "Sustainable Prosperity in the New Economy? Business Organization and High-Tech Employment in the United States," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number spne, December.
    4. Lazonick, William & Tulum, Öner, 2011. "US biopharmaceutical finance and the sustainability of the biotech business model," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(9), pages 1170-1187.
    5. William Lazonick, 2010. "Innovative Business Models and Varieties of Capitalism: Financialization of the U.S. Corporation," Business History Review, Harvard Business School, vol. 84(4), pages 675-702, December.
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    Cited by:

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    3. Mariana Mazzucato & L. Randall Wray, 2015. "Financing the Capital Development of the Economy: A Keynes-Schumpeter-Minsky Synthesis," LEM Papers Series 2015/14, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
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    11. Palea, Vera, 2018. "Financial reporting for sustainable development: Critical insights into IFRS implementation in the European Union," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 248-260.
    12. Palea, Vera, 2019. "Accounting for Sustainable Finance: Does Fair value Accounting Fit for Long-term Investing in Equity?," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201912, University of Turin.
    13. Palma, J. G., 2019. "Why is inequality so unequal across the world? Part 2 The diversity of inequality in market income - and the increasing asymmetry between the distribution of income before and after taxes and transfer," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 19100, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    14. Niall Reddy & Joel Rabinovich, 2022. "Debunking the short-termist thesis in financialization studies: Evidence from US non-financial corporations 1998 – 2018," Working Papers PKWP2227, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).

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