The Ship of Theseus: if every part is replaced, is it still Apple?
Originally written in Chinese. Translated with AI, reviewed by Gary. Read the Chinese original →
Scrolling Instagram just now, I came across a really interesting video.
A watchmaker took a very old Rolex, replaced the crystal, replaced the strap, serviced the movement and swapped out quite a few parts inside. By the end, as far as I could tell, seventy or eighty percent of the watch's parts were no longer original.
A question popped into my head.
Is it still that Rolex?
If most of what's inside has been replaced, are we repairing an old watch, or has it actually become a new one?
It reminded me of a classic thought experiment I came across while reading philosophy a while ago: the Ship of Theseus.
People have debated it for more than two thousand years, and there's still no standard answer.
The story is simple. A ship: every time a plank rots, you replace it; every time a nail fails, you replace it. Decades later, every plank and every part has been replaced. Is it still the original ship? And if someone gathered all the old planks that were removed and rebuilt them, which one in the world is the real Ship of Theseus?
Apple is a Ship of Theseus too
I actually find the question more interesting when you bring it into business.
Take Apple.
Back then, a big reason I bought Apple was Steve Jobs. I loved his product philosophy, his taste and his ability to deliver disruptive innovation. To me, Apple was almost the same thing as Steve Jobs.
And today?
Steve Jobs is gone, Jony Ive has left, many of the first engineers have retired. The Mac is no longer the Mac it was, the iPhone changes every year, and Apple Vision Pro and Apple Intelligence are products Steve Jobs never had a hand in.
Yet the whole world still sees it as Apple.
Why?
Investors don't buy Apple shares today because of Steve Jobs either.
What they're buying is the company's ability to keep generating cash flow and creating value in the future.
A stock was never really about buying the past. It's about buying the future.
People believe that ten years from now, this company will still launch products others are willing to pay for, and will still keep making money. That's why it's worth what it is today.
Seen this way, Apple has become another Ship of Theseus.
The staff keep changing, the products keep changing, the management keeps changing, the technology keeps changing. But one thing seems never to have changed: the market keeps believing it will still create value in the future.
Identity is a continuity we agree on
Of course, there's an even more interesting question.
What if one day Apple's culture changes, its product philosophy changes, its management changes, and customers start feeling, "This doesn't feel like the Apple it used to be"?
Legally, it's still Apple. The ticker won't change, the company name won't change.
But in customers' minds, will it still be Apple?
I think that's what the Ship of Theseus is really asking.
Identity isn't defined by law, and it isn't determined by materials. It's more like a continuity that everyone agrees on.
A company's value doesn't come from how many assets it owns either.
Assets can be renewed, staff can be replaced, founders can retire, business models can change. What really matters is whether the market still believes it can keep creating value.
So what can't be replaced?
If the answer is "everything can be replaced", where does value actually rest?
I thought about it for a long time. Maybe what truly can't be replaced was never the planks, the parts, the CEO or the employees.
What can't be replaced is the market's belief that it can still create value in the future.
Once that belief is gone, even if the company is still there, the brand is still there and the ticker is still there, it may no longer be the company people have in mind.
The most interesting thing about the Ship of Theseus is that it isn't really about a ship.
It's about trust.
Why do we believe it's still the same company? Why are we willing to keep buying its products? Why are we willing to keep holding its shares?
Brands, companies, market value, even shares: at heart, they're all built on that trust.
Maybe that's why a philosophical question from more than two thousand years ago still hasn't gone out of date.