Indeed, it's really simple with public companies. You can just read the scorecard, which is the company's share price. If you care about a long term measure, then look at the performance over a five year period. There is no question that Tim Cook has been a very good CEO. He does his job -- which is not to be a spokesman for "Viva la revolution" crowd at MR.
Having said that, I think he need to reduce the company's manufacturing reliance on China -- which I think he is trying to do.
Heres the problem with that....even after the pandemic, where this proved just how stupid it is to keep all your manufacturing eggs in one basket, where do you go to build things while balancing both fairness and practicality. The whole problem with this situation is that Reagan and his trickle down economics sold out any major manufacturing in the US overseas back in the 80s.
Remember that movie Gung Ho with Michael Keaton when the Japanese bought out the car manufacturing plant and there was a culture clash, well think of that on a global scale.
Trump thinks if you inflict these tariffs it somehow magically brings back manufacturing jobs here in the US and for some industries maybe, but not for the vast majority of them.
Tech companies build their products in China because China allows damn near Railroad Barrons of the 19th century style of manufacturing, which is borderline slave labor for pennies on the dollar, and other countries are just going to do the same.
No american is ever going to work 12-18 hour days building iphones for less then minimum wadge with no real benifits for what Foxcon pays its employees. Period.
You bring all iphone manufacturing here to the US, you dont have enough people willing to work the jobs for the same pay chinese workers will do it for, plus now after decades of doing it this way, you dont have enough skilled labor here to even do the jobs, and the prices go up astronomically.
Its way cheeper to bribe trump with various gifts and donations to his hidious ballroom to just keep the company afloat, buisness as usual. Tim cook is doing his job as best he can given the situation. I cant really fault the guy. I bet you deep down he loaths trump with a passion, but speaking out against him, refusing to bend the knee hurts his bottom line and company.
Ultimately whats going to happen is automation and AI (which allready does half the labor) is going to take over and no one is going to get paid to build these things at all. Doesn't mean they are going to get cheeper though.
Why pay chinese workers pennies on the dollar to build your devices when you can have machines do all the work for free beyond the cost of their installation and mantiance?
Thats the real issue here no one is thinking about long term. Soon there wont even be jobs to build these things because automation will be so efficent and effective there wont be a need for human hands to even be involved.
Thats the real future here and i think tim cook knows that ultimatly. If you have a human building your device, you got to pay them, you got to keep them coming into work somehow and make sure they dont get hurt in the process. You replace the human workforce with all automated machines, who can work ten times as fast, far more efficently, far more easer to mantain or replace, why would you even want a human being on the factory floor outside of making sure the machines do the job itself.
thats the real future, and thats an issue cause if no one has a job because they are all replaced by machines, whos going to buy your products when they cant afford them?
