3 ms·

I am much less negative on Tim Cook and I’ll tell you why: Steve Jobs was a great vision leader but something of a bad manager in other ways. Being an asshole

by dangus 2y ago

I am much less negative on Tim Cook and I’ll tell you why: Steve Jobs was a great vision leader but something of a bad manager in other ways. Being an asshole doesn’t magically make his track record perfect, especially if we include his first stint at Apple. He was a great leader of a growth company. He motivated and sourced talent very well in his own strange way. Tim Cook is extremely good at the logistics of a large and mature company, and Apple doesn’t need a Steve Jobs because it doesn’t need to grow. Apple doesn’t need to do any of the shit that you’ve criticized them for doing badly. It doesn’t need the Vision Pro or an AI product at all. It doesn’t even need to innovate anymore, ever. Apple is now entrenched in a duopoly. It literally can’t fail. They are basically like AT&T now. They’ll make more money reselling cloud storage and bundling a glorified cable subscription with it. They probably make more money on their stupid credit card than OpenAI will ever make. Hell, their services division makes more revenue than Macs and iPads combined IIRC. Perhaps Tim Cook’s only failure is not canceling the Vision Pro product and not delaying Apple Intelligence. But the consequences of those actions are minimal if any. They probably sold the iPhone 16 Pro to millions of morons who don’t even care about the AI rug pull. With a company so large, Tim Cook’s most important job is keeping the machine running, staying on the good side of all the countries involved politically, things of that nature. And in that sense he’s done a great job.

gizajob 2y ago
"If you're doing business the same way you were 5 years ago, you're going out of business." I'd say they were more like Nokia than AT&T.
- dangus 2y ago
  Not really true in an end-state market where only monopoly players exist. Nokia didn't exist in the end-state smartphone market. Smartphones were nowhere near done innovating when they were dominant, and now they are essentially a completed product. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have done essentially zero innovation and they do great business. Duke Energy does zero innovation and they do great business. Coca-Cola does zero innovation and they do great business. Do their businesses incrementally improve and become more efficient? Yes, but that's much different than being an innovation company. Again, the mistake you are making here is mischaracterizing the type of business Apple is in based on the business they were in 10 years ago. Apple is not in an innovation business anymore. Most of its product lines are in areas where no startup can possibly enter the market and compete. Apple is becoming a company where their financial functions outweigh their actual business (another example of a business like this are the major airlines like United and Delta that make more revenue on credit cards than actual flying). Again I had the example of services bringing in more money than some of Apple's major product lines. Apple storing your family photos on some computers they didn't design in a data center they might not even own is likely a more profitable and higher revenue business than the incredibly complicated hardware that they are selling you.

by dangus 2y ago

gizajob 2y ago

"If you're doing business the same way you were 5 years ago, you're going out of business." I'd say they were more like Nokia than AT&T.

dangus 2y ago
Not really true in an end-state market where only monopoly players exist. Nokia didn't exist in the end-state smartphone market. Smartphones were nowhere near done innovating when they were dominant, and now they are essentially a completed product. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have done essentially zero innovation and they do great business. Duke Energy does zero innovation and they do great business. Coca-Cola does zero innovation and they do great business. Do their businesses incrementally improve and become more efficient? Yes, but that's much different than being an innovation company. Again, the mistake you are making here is mischaracterizing the type of business Apple is in based on the business they were in 10 years ago. Apple is not in an innovation business anymore. Most of its product lines are in areas where no startup can possibly enter the market and compete. Apple is becoming a company where their financial functions outweigh their actual business (another example of a business like this are the major airlines like United and Delta that make more revenue on credit cards than actual flying). Again I had the example of services bringing in more money than some of Apple's major product lines. Apple storing your family photos on some computers they didn't design in a data center they might not even own is likely a more profitable and higher revenue business than the incredibly complicated hardware that they are selling you.