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Apple’s Heir Apparent Is More Like Tim Cook Than Steve Jobs
- geodel 7y agoWhich would make complete sense. Anyone like Steve Jobs would be launching their own companies. People running fortune 10/50 companies would have risen through corporate ranks to be CEOs and be more like Cook not Jobs.
- applewww 7y agoInteresting point, I'm inclined to believe this is the case as well. Ive would've been a good candidate but he left to do just that.
- llbowers 7y ago"Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, who has now also taken over the company’s legendary design studio." This might be a dumb question, but does the COO usually manage design? Our COO is very much a supply chain, logistics, procurement and day-to-day administration type manager. I can't imagine him having any sort of sense of good design. I'm sure he's (he as in Apple's COO) not there in the design trenches on the daily, but he would have final say on overall design, unless I'm misinterpreting what it means in the article. To be fair I probably would've said the same thing for a CEO before Steve Jobs came along but he's proven himself to a be very rare exception.
- Despegar 7y agoThe titles at Apple don't really translate to other companies. Product marketing at Apple for example decides on how big features work.
- dmix 7y agoI can see the connection between a Product marketing person and feature development. The connection between the guy responsible for supply chains and operations and product/software design seems a bit weird to me. But I guess Steve Jobs trusted Tim Cook enough to take over the reigns and he was a COO.
- Despegar 7y agoIndustrial Design works hand-in-hand with Operations. One without the other means products that can't scale to hundreds of millions at good quality. https://blog.bolt.io/manufacture-like-apple/ https://blog.bolt.io/manufacture-like-apple/
- pcurve 7y ago"This might be a dumb question, but does the COO usually manage design?" I don't think so, but it's not unusual to have CTO, CIO report into COO. I'm guessing there will eventually be a dedicated CDO or a de facto CDO that reports into Williams.
- giobox 7y agoIt’s purely speculation on both our parts, but the CDO title was, one could argue, an honorific specifically for Ives and a recognition of his sizeable achievements. There is no precedent at Apple for it (or many other companies for that matter). While if any company should have such a position it’s Apple, I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t come back anytime soon.
- claudiawerner 7y agoThis also confuses me in politics. In one administration a particular member of the cabinet is justice secretary, and in the next election he's an education secretary. I am highly sceptical of the idea that they've studied the intricacies of effective pedagogy in order to get that job.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoThe jobs are awarded on the basis of political loyalty, ambition, and tribal (party) potential, not domain competence. In the UK - and I guess the US - they're executive roles. The Prime Minister's office sets policy, with varying levels of debate and pushback, and the department heads implement it. Executives who climb high enough are allowed to suggest policy of their own, under the oversight of the PM. Ministers direct implementation, but the details of execution are handled by the Civil Service. No competence is needed. In fact in the last decade or so in the UK most of ministers were absolutely incompetent dolts elevated to purely political appointments - with results that surprised no one.
- claudiawerner 7y agoThere seems to be no other explanation for the borderline ridiculous proposals that keep making their way into laws, including but certainly not limited to CAJA 2009 which criminalizes sexual drawings of fictional underage characters - which they admitted in their own reports wasn't based on any empirical evidence and in fact only on hearsay and faulty reasoning from the likes of children's charity workers. This is an egregious case with the chance to ruin lives (in fact, a substantial number of people are convicted under it each year according to stats in the VAWG report) but I wonder what other deplorable incompetence I'm missing out on seeing from the UK government.
- zeckalpha 7y agoSupply chain certainly seems like an important factor into design at Apple scale.
- paxys 7y agoNumber 2 at a company does not automatically mean heir apparent. In fact it has historically been very rare for a COO or other such executive to get promoted to CEO.
- pwinnski 7y agoAt Apple, it's the norm in the sense that Cook replaced Jobs. There was the interregnum during which Apple was more like other companies, but then Jobs returned, and here's what we have.
- paxys 7y agoIt has happened once, so not exactly the "norm". Also I imagine the circumstances that would require them to pick a new CEO will be very different from last time.
- adammenges 7y agoI honestly wouldn't mind this at all, I think there's a lot he could and does add to the company
- lostgame 7y agoThe sooner Cook is out, the better. There have been no current offerings in Apple's lineup I would purchase since 2012-2015, and I know I am not alone in this sentiment. The RAM and SSD being soldered to the logic board is beyond inexcusable. I count on upgrading my laptops over time, and have, for every Mac I've ever owned, to get a few extra good years out of them. Even the environmental impact is nonsense.
- scarface74 7y agoJobs loved unupgradable hardware. What you are seeing now all started under Jobs when he came back. Do you think Jobs would have moved the iPhone/iPad to be more like the Mac if he were still alive or vice versa?
- lostgame 7y ago>> Jobs loved unupgradable hardware. First off, I don't think any of Apple's computers from 2012-2015 had much to do with Jobs, nor did I mention him by name. Second off, if Jobs loved unupgradable hardware so much, then why have I upgraded every single Mac I've owned since my first original 2005 Mac Mini? Why am I now paying more for something that will be derped in three years because I can't upgrade the RAM and can't justify the extra cost at the moment? If Apple even offered a service to do such a thing, but no. I've upgraded every computer I've ever had - I would never purchase a brand new computer that I could not extend the life of later on - nor have I, from Apple. (I'm talking desktop computers, the iPad is most certainly not a computer - until I can develop on it, and have full access to the filesystem, I'm not calling it a computer). This pattern has only emerged in the past few years, and I will absolutely refuse to buy another MacBook until I can upgrade it myself. If that means I go back to hackintoshing a ThinkPad (I use Logic and Final Cut professionally, and occasionally do iOS work with Xcode) - I'll be more than happy to give Lenovo my money - and hey, I'll actually have some usable ports while I'm at it.
- scarface74 7y agoFirst off, I don't think any of Apple's computers from 2012-2015 had much to do with Jobs, nor did I mention him by name. Well, since the entire premise of the article and even the title is that the next person in line is more like Tim Cook than Steve Jobs and you said that you would be glad when Tim Cook left, it’s a reasonable assumption that you were implying you wish Apple had someone more like Jobs. Second off, if Jobs loved unupgradable hardware so much, then why have I upgraded every single Mac I've owned since my first original 2005 Mac Mini? Seeing that it’s kinda hard to solder a spinning hard drive to the motherboard, Apple really didn’t have a choice back then.... Why am I now paying more for something that will be derped in three years because I can't upgrade the RAM and can't justify the extra cost at the moment? Is there such a thing as a price sensitive Apple customer? If you’re looking for the most affordable, best bang for your buck piece of electronics, you shouldn’t be going anywhere near apple.com. I'm talking desktop computers, the iPad is most certainly not a computer - until I can develop on it, and have full access to the filesystem, I'm not calling it a computer). So now the definition of a computer is “something you can develop on”? What’s the advantage of having “full access to the file system” over “having a common repository on the device where you can share files across applications”? But really, most of the laptops are only upgradeable to 16GB ($200 extra) or at the most 32GB ($400 extra from the base 16GB). Why wouldn’t you just max them out from day one? All of the current desktop Macs (except maybe the low end iMacs?) have user upgradeable RAM. The motherboard of the laptops don’t support more than 16/32GB of RAM so you would never be able to upgrade pass that anyway.
- Razengan 7y agoDidn't Steve Jobs apparently groom the ousted Scott Forstall to be his successor?
- scarface74 7y agoNo. Every time he took a leave of absence, Tim Cook was the acting CEO.
- DoofusOfDeath 7y agoI'd love to see what Steve Wozniak would produce if given Apple's current resources. My impression is that he's a real engineer's engineer. Or barring that, I'd love to just be his neighbor. He seems like a great guy.
- forgotmysn 7y agoI grew up near by, and he had a reputation for giving away ipod nano's on Halloween
- michaelchisari 7y agoThe history of the CL-9 says it'd be a lot of fun toys for engineers and a stock price jump for Apple's competitors.
- jedberg 7y agoThat's unfortunate. There is a lot of literature out there that talks about how after the founder leaves, usually the COO takes over, because they would leave if they don't get the job, but after that, usually they look for a more "visionary" person, because the COO makes things efficient but not interesting. Look at Microsoft. When Gates left, Ballmer took over, and did great things for the company financials. Profits and revenue were consistently up year after year. But the company stagnated product-wise and lost favor among enthusiasts and investors. He left the stock 10% worse than when he got there, despite the profits and revenue. But since Ballmer left, Nadella has done an amazing job continuing the profit and revenue story while also winning back the hearts and minds of developers and investors with some great new products and product vision. Apple needs a Nadella -- a long time insider who has a strong product vision.
- liberte82 7y agoJony Ive?
- Despegar 7y agoPeople with this line of critique against Tim Cook don't actually know how Apple works. By your own metrics Cook is Nadella. The stock more than doubled under his tenure and the installed base for Apple products has grown massively since 2011 (to 1.4 billion). More people than ever own Apple products.
- applewww 7y agoStock doubling means squat with stagnating sales and billions in stock buy backs.
- tambourine_man 7y agoBring back Forstall! Just kidding. A little.
- sys_64738 7y agoI think Eddy Cue would make an excellent CEO. He seems very charismatic which is what Cook never had.