For what it's worth, I think Cook is a better CEO for the current era than Jobs would have been. He's not a strong public speaker, sure, but he's an operator who can execute on the vision Jobs laid out better than anyone.
On a personal level he's also a much more compassionate/empathetic person which I think plays well in the current social climate. I can't imagine Jobs getting away with some of his fabled antics today.
Finally, and probably due to the previous point, Cook is much more adept at playing the geopolitics game with India, China, Trump, etc..
But yes, him fielding random developer questions would be awkward at best. Which is why they shoo him off stage in favor of Craig/Sruji/some mid-level manager to talk tech every chance they get.
Is Cook more compassionate and empathetic? Or is he better at saying things to make him appear that way?
I ask that because I don't know. He does seem empathetic in his words. But the actions of Apple (from its production processes and sub-contracted systems to its treatment of developers and even iphone customers) seem as draconian and cut throat as they have ever been.
When I interned at Apple, every person from the mid-level upwards (who had been at Apple long enough) had a story of either being subjected to a negative experience at the hands of Jobs or else were party to one. Like... everyone. He was notoriously asshole-ish.
Cook does not have this reputation. Whether that's a persona or the real deal is impossible for us to say (I've never met him and I'm not at Apple anymore), but I think it's not very useful to think about what he's "really" like. We can only see how he presents himself, and so far his self-portrayal is significantly more positive than Jobs's, regardless of how the company is run at a larger scale.
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I also think it's impossible to compare Jobs's ethics to Cook's ethics by looking at how Apple as a company operates. The company has grown immensely in the past decade, so I think 2020-Apple can't be compared to 2010-Apple in this way. However, we can maybe look at Apple's increased commitment to certain real-world ethical concerns and stipulate a little bit.
Environmentally, they're 100% powered by renewable energy, and they recently announced they want to be 100% carbon-neutral by 2030. They have also said they want to manufacture new iPhones entirely from old iPhones, which would be great.
They're also a leader in consumer privacy and security, more than any other company of a similar size.
Then there's the manufacturing stuff. They certainly benefit from and make use of unethical manufacturing processes, but they seem to be trying to move away from that (to the extent that a company that requires as much manufacturing as they do can). I believe their chips are manufactured in the US (?), and I think they've started trying to manufacture certain other things in the US (I think the Mac Pro? or is that done with? I haven't checked in on it recently). Of course, they've got plenty of room to grow when it comes to ethical manufacturing, but what I'm highlighting here is that they've made some effort to improve as new issues have come to light, which can't be said of all companies with their manufacturing needs.
All that said, Apple as a company has plenty of room for growth in the ethical sense, but we can at least appreciate that these are issues that they address explicitly compared to the Apple of the past. As far as I'm aware, this has all been done under Cook's leadership, so perhaps it reflects on his personal values to some extent.
How those two were as 'personalities' may not have been important, and probably neither are the 'powered by renewable energy' efforts.
The former just doesn't matter that much and the later is just marketing.
What is material is their ability to make great things, delight customers, operate effectively etc..
Organizations are often led by complimentary types, Jobs is a classic Alpha, Cook a classic Beta, they happened to work well together. But Job's assertiveness, far from being a 'negative thing' may have been a quite essential spark in the formation of the company. Just because it doesn't make you 'feel good' doesn't mean it's bad for the creative process or the company. It also may have been irrelevant: it's entirely possible jobs may have been able to be jobs without that.
Apple is an IP company, their commitment to '0 carbon' is not really important compared to a chemical company, an oil refinery, or some entity whereupon operations are material contributors to carbon.
It's a nice thing to do, and it makes for good corporate citizenry, but it's mostly just that.
Bah. Apple makes a product like Airpod which is disposable and impossible to recycle. They design their products to be impossible to repair, and actually sabotage 3rd party repair efforts. Apple does not care about the environment at all. If they did, they would try to keep them out of landfills, make them easy to repair and recycle, and not design them to fail.
Tim Cook is arguably the greatest managerial operator of our times. Without him apple wouldn’t have been able to scale and refine their businesses processes like they needed to reach the $1T mark.
However, I believe it was Jobs who was the catalyst for the entire show. He was the spark that the rocket needed.
The company is in an incredible financial position but is still vulnerable to the next big innovation. The next usurper. The next Black Swan.
Jobs would be so antsy to have something new out at this point. And if he had a vision for something- which I think he would have Had- he would have made it happen.
Maybe some next great thing will happen for Apple soon? The device that cannibalizes the iPhone like the iPhone did to iPod.
Very true. I think Apple's got another 10 years or so until they face this dilemma, so time will tell. Their commitment to data privacy really put them at a disadvantage in the AI race, but have made great strides with federated learning.
And you can see them getting a little scared of this coming doom with their commitment to the App store monopolistic practices (whether you believe it's wrong or not, they really can't afford to cave on this front for their long-term sake)
Yeah, I'd say the next great thing is coming: Apple "simulated reality" AR glasses... I'm totally speculating, but I think a lot of their recent innovations have been pushing in this direction, and I think they have filed patents exactly along those lines as well IIRC.
Tim's obviously brought financial success, but where's Steve's user experience vision going?
After Steve passed in '11, it seems his idea pipe got drained. The watch came out in '15, the earbuds in '16 (neither earth shaking) and other than that, it's been small iterations on the same products for 10 years. Where's the new excitement?
I’m almost surprised they are even bothering to continue the line and just don’t shove the dev work out to Microsoft. Especially since they have been de-thanged, Windows is no threat at all to Apple’s market.
Yep, I definitely believe Jobs would have released a robot, a hologram machine, a magical glove tactile input device, a roomscale collaboration platform, or just something, anything besides 100 different variations of the iPhone and iPad.
I think some of the "fabled antics" are necessary for success. Tim Cook simply continue on what's already been built and would have to be really bad to really fail in that period of time.
In my opinion executive skills are of course needed but so are long term high level vision, with strong opinions like sjobs had - even if that makes them "less liked"
>On a personal level he's also a much more compassionate/ empathetic person
I really dont see any of that. Definitely not to its customers or professional users and developers. If anything I think these compassionate and empathetic note, the so called "enrich" people's live is a recent thing in the past 4-5 years.
And personally I have not problem with that statement, except until you get caught not doing so people will judge you as a hypocrite. And it is exactly the same playbook as Google's do no evil. That is why Steve Jobs never talks much about any of that ( Despite I think he deeply cares about it ) and only talks about building GREAT products for their customers.
Steve cares or doesn't cares. You can tell. And he is being true to himself. Not the same could be said to Cook. I guess that is partly why Tim is an operational person and not a product person.
On a personal level he's also a much more compassionate/empathetic person which I think plays well in the current social climate. I can't imagine Jobs getting away with some of his fabled antics today.
Finally, and probably due to the previous point, Cook is much more adept at playing the geopolitics game with India, China, Trump, etc..
But yes, him fielding random developer questions would be awkward at best. Which is why they shoo him off stage in favor of Craig/Sruji/some mid-level manager to talk tech every chance they get.