Tim Cook & predecessor, Steve Jobs
Credit: Australian Financial Review
Lengthy interview with Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. Lots of interesting & valuable ideas, including:
● “Maps was a mistake. Today we have a product we’re proud of. [But] we had the self-honesty to admit this wasn’t our finest hour & the courage to choose another way of doing it. That’s important. It’s the only way an organization learns. The classic big-company mistake is to not admit their mistake. They double down on them. Their pride or ego is so large that they can’t say, ‘We did something wrong.’”
● “Question: With the fight with the FBI, did you have any idea what you were getting into?
“Could we create a tool to unlock the phone? After a few days, we had determined yes, we could. Then the question was, ethically, should we? We thought, you know, that depends on whether we could contain it or not.”
“Other people were involved in this, too — deep security experts & so forth, & it was apparent from those discussions that we couldn’t be assured. The risk of what happens if it got out, we felt, could be incredibly terrible for public safety.”
“We knew the positioning on the outside would not be public safety. It would be security vs. privacy — security should win.”
“... the trade-off, so to speak, was essentially putting hundreds of millions of people at risk for a phone that may or may not have anything on it, & that likely didn’t, because of other things that we knew about.”
● “Over time, I’m convinced every person in the world will have a smartphone. That may take a while, & they won’t all have iPhones. But it is the greatest market on earth from a consumer electronics point of view.”
More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/wp/2016/08/13/2016/08/13/tim-cook-the-interview-running-apple-is-sort-of-a-lonely-job/ / Tim Cook interview running Apple sort of a lonely job Apple’s CEO talks iPhones AI privacy civil rights missteps mistakes China taxes Steve Jobs steers right past the car rumors Apple CEO Tim Cook fourth-floor office framed posters Robert F. Kennedy the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Jackie Robinson rose gold iPhone 6s in its original box Cook stood in front of employees Apple headquarters held up the phone staffer hand-delivered store Beijing commemorate notable occasion Apple sold its billionth iPhone celebratory milestone Cook big moment technology giant chief executive Cook mark fifth anniversary most closely watched transition power corporate history August 24 2011 24 August 2011 six weeks before his death Apple’s iconic founder Steve Jobs chief operating officer the reins filled in for Jobs medical leaves two milestones iPhone launched by Jobs biggest driver Apple’s massive growth during Cook’s tenure company soaring valuations accounted nearly two-thirds of Apple’s revenue past year iPhone sales $141 billion the past four quarters more than annual sales figures Cisco Disney Nike iPhone source of recent disappointment most recent quarter iPhone sales fell 23 percent 14.6 percent drop overall revenue Apple’s second straight quarterly drop sales after 13 years growth Apple disclosed results Tim Cook The Washington Post discuss first five years Corporate America’s most glaring spotlight self-reflective interviews scrutiny advice pivotal moments Warren Buffett decision return cash to shareholders Anderson Cooper publicly disclosing he is gay mistakes he’s made first hire to run Apple’s retail stores clearly a screw-up defended Apple’s tax policies succession planning importance grooming internal candidates most spirited talking about privacy long-term future Apple iPhone Apple’s big presence smartphone industry a privilege not a problem quieted considerably Jobs’s memory sounds bizarre I had convinced myself that he would bounce Cook, 55 speaking with a slight Alabama drawl deep Apple’s mission North Star eschews jargon many CEOs use quick to trumpet Apple unassuming his job can be lonely I’m not looking for any sympathy. CEOs don’t need any sympathy Cook’s imprint on Apple making it more systematic more transparent more team-oriented more humble social issues CEOs gay rights extraordinary decision oppose FBI unlock the San Bernardino killer’s phone CEO managing company’s growth keeping margins high expanding further markets China Apple retail stores pushed into the enterprise market grown Apple’s product lineup positioned Apple make more money off devices it’s already sold services business iTunes iCloud mobile payments service Fortune 100 business next year Apple most valuable most profitable company S&P 500 index declining sales major device categories markets like China critics some investors fretted about Apple’s innovation mojo Cook first all-new device Apple Watch mega hit iPhone juggernaut saturated smartphone market growing competition low-cost upstarts China longer upgrade windows consumers rumored big concepts reported car project years away analysts impatience is shortsighted long-term potential services augmented reality ultimately transform Cook’s tenure is viewed investors lose track of the big picture Gene Munster analyst at Piper Jaffray Apple wisdom legacy Tim Cook determined what happens in the next five years conversation Cook hinting augmented reality refusing to comment about a car project Apple believes people love a surprise lonely job leadership Apple CEO Tim Cook when it's important to seek out advice confident that Apple is not going to change qualities of Apple immutable DNA of the company North Star making insanely great products really change the world in some way enrich people’s lives our reason for being hasn’t changed other things change that’s the thread that ties everyone together what has changed more employees in the company is four times larger by revenue since 2010 broadened the iPhone lineup really key decision a good one Apple Watch business wellness and in health lots of core technology work has been done culture has evolved social responsibility been more transparent about what we’re doing products secretive on products increasingly difficult to do that environmental work environmental work at Apple for decades we didn’t talk about it aspirational kind of objectives philosophy products unveil them when you’ve finished re-evaluated helping anyone else get there, too traditional CEO divorced from customers consumer company CEOs interacting with consumers traditional CEO profit and loss revenue statement income balance sheet important incredible responsibility to the employees communities countries company operates in people who assemble its products developers whole ecosystem of the company nontraditional view long-term shareholder return really critical billionth iPhone 44 percent of company’s sales came from iPhone close to two-thirds Apple move forward iPhone industry that’s cooling off privilege problem products ratio of people to the product consumer electronics product one-to-one over the long haul increase Apple’s transparency products develop behind the curtain before a big reveal global sales of PCs each year 275 million declining global market smartphones 1.4 billion every person in the world will have a smartphone iPhones greatest market on earth consumer electronics it’s not going to be one-to-one core technologies smartphone smart phone today dominant in smartphones of the future artificial intelligence AI AI product even more essential to you become better assistant than it is today won’t leaving home without it today really going to be connected to it in the future level of performance nothing that’s going to replace in the short term intermediate term either people focused on this 90-day clock smartphone industry grew decreased global economy in it for the long haul best market on earth enormous opportunity India people in this country who don’t have smartphones using flip phones feature phone lot of people switching from Android to iOS more market share than we do unit point of view our goal make the best next big world-changing category Apple sitting on $231.5 billion pile of cash smartphone smart phone smart-phone technology industry industries new shiny object netbooks PDA technology product category better days are behind us analysts Apple this stupid iPhone $60 billion revenue you can’t grow anymore $230 billion I don’t subscribe to it traditional thinking Apple is still a long-term growth company today’s products services iCloud App Store Apple Pay $23 billion in sales Fortune 100 company size iPad iPad Pro using it at work enormous opportunity in enterprise collaborating much better with key partners important use our products in the enterprise work well together working with Cisco incredible with the network infrastructure IBM written a number of apps SAP because they own the back of the house processing three-quarters of the world’s transactions running on their products markets China India fast growing cellular infrastructure two major carriers investment 4G video 3G game changer India no fixed line to home mobile society China markets enterprise geographies products what’s Apple so great at Apple only company that can take hardware software services integrate experience aha for the customer markets limitation smartphone tablet Mac watch area investor impatience investors making our decisions based on long term investors focused on the long term total shareholder return over 100 percent pretty good number Steve’s not replaceable icons of American business step into those shoes Steve’s not replaceable CEO chairman the day he died worst day ever leading Apple customers have a really deep love for the company avalanche of customer mail FaceTime running the company scrutiny was much higher than I thought media interest scrutiny social networking love interest from customers media interest visibility Alan Greenspan Janet Yellen /
