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I have literally 0 times in my career observed a change like this come from the top. Maybe it happens but somehow I doubt it. A non trivial part of the market c

I have literally 0 times in my career observed a change like this come from the top. Maybe it happens but somehow I doubt it. A non trivial part of the market cap of Apple is built around trust, privacy, and security. You may think whatever you want of the quality of the people at any level, but I’d imagine they’re all aligned on protecting the brand be their financial future. They aren’t driven by short term bets and thinking.

benzible 1y ago
I'm sure that's true, but your personal experience as [presumably] rank-and-file wouldn't have given you visibility into C-suite machinations. The ruling in the App Store case this year documented that Cook personally overruled Schiller's compliance recommendations, made the decision to violate the judge's court order on fees, and then tried to hide those meetings from the court - resulting in contempt findings and a criminal referral. Those are top-down decisions, on the record, with executives lying about it, which wouldn't have been known outside the inner sanctum but for this case. Not at all consistent with "trust", in a matter that directly harms consumers. Regarding the basis of Apple's market cap, I would suggest that profitability ranks a bit higher than privacy. Apple's potential tariff burden was $44 billion annually, reduced to $7 billion after Cook plied the mad king with flattery, gold and cash. Apple had lost $300 billion in market value before Trump exempted smartphones, then immediately regained its $3 trillion market cap. Privacy is nice brand positioning, but the truth behind it was always that Apple wasn't beholden to "surveillance capitalism" like the other tech behemoths as hardware was their primary profit center. This allowed them to take the high ground on this one, while coincidentally kneecapping Meta and others with App Tracking Transparency - which cost Meta an estimated $10 billion in 2022 alone and hit Google as well. But ATT only blocks third-party tracking across apps and websites - it doesn't apply to Apple's own growing advertising business, which uses first-party data from the App Store, Apple News, etc. Apple claims they don't "track users across apps and websites owned by other companies" - but they absolutely track within their own walled garden for their expanding ad business. And the iOS 26 removal of Pegasus/Predator detection artifacts right as ICE activates Paragon spyware contracts? Maybe a coincidental bug, maybe what happens when keeping Trump happy is worth tens of billions.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > your personal experience as [presumably] rank-and-file wouldn't have given you visibility into C-suite machinations But yours does? I know some fairly high-up folks in Cupertino. They care about privacy more than the median American, possibly the median techie. They overshot in San Bernardino precisely because they were internally calibrated off the political mark.
  - benzible 1y ago
    Where did I claim my personal experience gave me insight into C-suite decisions? I haven't appealed to personal experience for anything - I've cited court rulings, financial data, and documented executive behavior. But since you've brought it up, now I will. In my experience, people want to believe they're good, that they're doing good things, and that the institutions they're associated with are good. You say you "know some fairly high-up folks in Cupertino" - taking that at face value, that means either: (a) you're of similar status, in which case they may be personal friends or peers you naturally view charitably, or (b) you're of lesser status and get social capital from knowing high-status people, which creates its own incentives to view them favorably. But here's the thing: "knowing someone" to some unknown degree doesn't give you access to their innermost thoughts and beliefs. You're inferring their true convictions from their behavior and what they tell you - the very behavior I'm arguing demonstrates something other than absolute commitment to privacy principles. It's easy to believe you'd stand on principle when your financial interests happen to align with it - the real test is when they conflict, and we're seeing that now. This is actually why having some distance gives _more_ insight, not less. Every white-collar criminal convicted of horrific personal or corporate malfeasance has had plenty of people vouching for them based on "knowing them" - shocked that this person they knew would have done what the evidence clearly showed they did. The San Bernardino case you cite as evidence of Apple's privacy conviction? That was 2016, when Apple's business interests happened to align with privacy advocacy - their profit center was hardware, not surveillance capitalism like Meta or Google, so taking a stand cost them nothing and disadvantaged competitors. It also came during Obama's administration and Trump's first term, when the costs of corporate pushback against government demands were considerably lower than they are now, for reasons I've outlined elsewhere. Here's the reality: the theory that corporations act in their financial interest is almost completely predictive. The theory that "good guys at the top" will protect principles when those principles conflict with tens of billions in market cap? Not so much.
int0x29 1y ago
Apple's response to XCodeGhost was to draft a breach notification to everyone impacted and then not send it as it would impact their brand.
- techsystems 1y ago
  Any article you recommend on this?
- vlovich123 1y ago
  Public comms is decidedly a leadership decision at all times - you don’t have ICs or even managers spouting off in the press or releasing press releases. They may have mishandled it but that’s their purview and yes it can impact their brand although I’m not sure I’m seeing the long term negative ramifications from that and they made technical changes to mitigate such issues going forward. That is all very different from management making an IC develop a single specific more obscure technical change like this.

benzible 1y ago

I'm sure that's true, but your personal experience as [presumably] rank-and-file wouldn't have given you visibility into C-suite machinations. The ruling in the App Store case this year documented that Cook personally overruled Schiller's compliance recommendations, made the decision to violate the judge's court order on fees, and then tried to hide those meetings from the court - resulting in contempt findings and a criminal referral. Those are top-down decisions, on the record, with executives lying about it, which wouldn't have been known outside the inner sanctum but for this case. Not at all consistent with "trust", in a matter that directly harms consumers. Regarding the basis of Apple's market cap, I would suggest that profitability ranks a bit higher than privacy. Apple's potential tariff burden was $44 billion annually, reduced to $7 billion after Cook plied the mad king with flattery, gold and cash. Apple had lost $300 billion in market value before Trump exempted smartphones, then immediately regained its $3 trillion market cap. Privacy is nice brand positioning, but the truth behind it was always that Apple wasn't beholden to "surveillance capitalism" like the other tech behemoths as hardware was their primary profit center. This allowed them to take the high ground on this one, while coincidentally kneecapping Meta and others with App Tracking Transparency - which cost Meta an estimated $10 billion in 2022 alone and hit Google as well. But ATT only blocks third-party tracking across apps and websites - it doesn't apply to Apple's own growing advertising business, which uses first-party data from the App Store, Apple News, etc. Apple claims they don't "track users across apps and websites owned by other companies" - but they absolutely track within their own walled garden for their expanding ad business. And the iOS 26 removal of Pegasus/Predator detection artifacts right as ICE activates Paragon spyware contracts? Maybe a coincidental bug, maybe what happens when keeping Trump happy is worth tens of billions.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> your personal experience as [presumably] rank-and-file wouldn't have given you visibility into C-suite machinations But yours does? I know some fairly high-up folks in Cupertino. They care about privacy more than the median American, possibly the median techie. They overshot in San Bernardino precisely because they were internally calibrated off the political mark.
- benzible 1y ago
  Where did I claim my personal experience gave me insight into C-suite decisions? I haven't appealed to personal experience for anything - I've cited court rulings, financial data, and documented executive behavior. But since you've brought it up, now I will. In my experience, people want to believe they're good, that they're doing good things, and that the institutions they're associated with are good. You say you "know some fairly high-up folks in Cupertino" - taking that at face value, that means either: (a) you're of similar status, in which case they may be personal friends or peers you naturally view charitably, or (b) you're of lesser status and get social capital from knowing high-status people, which creates its own incentives to view them favorably. But here's the thing: "knowing someone" to some unknown degree doesn't give you access to their innermost thoughts and beliefs. You're inferring their true convictions from their behavior and what they tell you - the very behavior I'm arguing demonstrates something other than absolute commitment to privacy principles. It's easy to believe you'd stand on principle when your financial interests happen to align with it - the real test is when they conflict, and we're seeing that now. This is actually why having some distance gives _more_ insight, not less. Every white-collar criminal convicted of horrific personal or corporate malfeasance has had plenty of people vouching for them based on "knowing them" - shocked that this person they knew would have done what the evidence clearly showed they did. The San Bernardino case you cite as evidence of Apple's privacy conviction? That was 2016, when Apple's business interests happened to align with privacy advocacy - their profit center was hardware, not surveillance capitalism like Meta or Google, so taking a stand cost them nothing and disadvantaged competitors. It also came during Obama's administration and Trump's first term, when the costs of corporate pushback against government demands were considerably lower than they are now, for reasons I've outlined elsewhere. Here's the reality: the theory that corporations act in their financial interest is almost completely predictive. The theory that "good guys at the top" will protect principles when those principles conflict with tens of billions in market cap? Not so much.

int0x29 1y ago

Apple's response to XCodeGhost was to draft a breach notification to everyone impacted and then not send it as it would impact their brand.

techsystems 1y ago
Any article you recommend on this?
vlovich123 1y ago
Public comms is decidedly a leadership decision at all times - you don’t have ICs or even managers spouting off in the press or releasing press releases. They may have mishandled it but that’s their purview and yes it can impact their brand although I’m not sure I’m seeing the long term negative ramifications from that and they made technical changes to mitigate such issues going forward. That is all very different from management making an IC develop a single specific more obscure technical change like this.