Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Steve Jobs Criticized Tim Cook as 'Not a Product Person,' Says Biographer Walter Isaacson
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Really? And how do you know that you have a good product team when you are not a product person?
In order to be a good(!!!) boss/manager/CEO, you actually have to know every job that the people you manage are doing. Good leaders raised through the ranks.
He was the COO - Chief Operating Officer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_operating_officer
You can pretty much lay all those at the feet of the CDO - Chief Design Officer. As in Jony Ives. Unlike Steve, Tim was not one to tell Jony "no" when it came to design decisions (though Steve might very well have supported some or all of those decisions, as well).
Well then maybe the Board and Shareholders will select Luca Maestri, the CFO, to replace Cook when he decides to step down.
My money is them choosing Jeff Williams - the COO.
Is it not obvious that it's John Scully all over again with the exception that Tim has some tech background? The guy is a businessman who knows how to please board members. Nothing more, nothing less. That whole team was full of idiots that hid behind Steve's ideas and the last one just left and was given way more credit than he ever deserved. All apple does now is put out fluffy junk to please the millenials. Change my mind
I think your assessment is a bit off, or rather way off. Do you really think that Tim Cook himself is deciding that the MacBook Pro doesn’t need an SD card reader or should exclusively use USB-C ports? Or the iPhone not to use a ¼” headphone jack?
Just like when Steve Jobs was around, it’s other people in various teams that come up with what they believe are the right products and features. My guess is that Tim Cook is only getting info on products in development once it’s been put to bed. He only needs to know that those below him (that’s everyone at Apple) has done their due diligence and is confident in their decisions and that anything that had the potential to be problematic was addressed by multiple people within the company.
And as far as the ports and headphone jacks you’re missing, Steve Jobs was absolutely THE guy who was always pushing forward in moving products and people forward by dumping old ports, drives, connections, etc. - with people kicking and screaming until the rest of the market has caught up.
And as far as the new monitor stand that costs $1,000.00, you have to put it in the perspective of how much the monitor itself costs, including it’s features and the fact that it performs better than monitors costing tens of thousands of dollars more. That and the fact that many of the prospective buyers of the monitor will have no use for the stand because they’ll use their existing multiple monitor stand set-up. So Apple will likely only make tiny amounts of their stand, hence the high cost, relatively speaking. But even if you did spring for the monitor and stand, what you’re getting is priced SOOOOO much lower than any other manufacturer - you can’t even say there are competitive products on the market.
And as far as innovating, Apple innovates every day. It’s with things you’re not thinking about their Arm chips and SoC systems that so far blow away the competition that we’re likely going to be witness to Apple’s own chips replacing Intel in the not to distant future.
I don't see how this matters at all.
Jobs knew this and despite that, still made Cook his heir apparent. The best leaders don't necessarily have to be "the guy."
Tim gets a lot of heat around here for everything and it's rather silly. He's not a product guy, but people around here seem to think the man is diving into the nitty-gritty and deciding to cheap out on some tiny component here and there—as if building a strong supply chain is the same as being some bean counter. It's very much about building relationships, negotiation, and consensus. Oddly, these are all excellent leadership qualities given a certain style of leadership.
Cook was always going to live in the shadow of Jobs. Apple breaks the 1 trillion market cap and he's still gonna be compared to Jobs. It's asinine. Apple is a gigantic machine with thousands of people working on products. Even Jobs leaned on a lot of people he trusted to make up for his weaknesses—or in the worst cases, failed to recognize said weaknesses, which is an area I believe Cook is absolutely superior.
In some ways, I think Apple is a bit more humble than it was in the Jobs days. The way they handled the Mac Pro while not great, was very un-Apple. "Oops, we actually blew it and we're working on something new that won't be ready for like 12-18 months." I think they were trying to force the Pro market into a place the Pro market was never going to go and had to do an about face. Annoying, but better than doubling down blindly on a bad decision.
The most interesting part of this, to me, is that while Jobs was basically the ultimate product guy, he chose someone who wasn't to succeed him—and you're not just talking about any company, you're talking about a company that will always be considered Jobs' legacy and he knew that as he was handing over the reigns as he was dying. Let that sink in.
Jobs knew this and despite that, still made Cook his heir apparent. The best leaders don't necessarily have to be "the guy."
Tim gets a lot of heat around here for everything and it's rather silly. He's not a product guy, but people around here seem to think the man is diving into the nitty-gritty and deciding to cheap out on some tiny component here and there—as if building a strong supply chain is the same as being some bean counter. It's very much about building relationships, negotiation, and consensus. Oddly, these are all excellent leadership qualities given a certain style of leadership.
Cook was always going to live in the shadow of Jobs. Apple breaks the 1 trillion market cap and he's still gonna be compared to Jobs. It's asinine. Apple is a gigantic machine with thousands of people working on products. Even Jobs leaned on a lot of people he trusted to make up for his weaknesses—or in the worst cases, failed to recognize said weaknesses, which is an area I believe Cook is absolutely superior.
In some ways, I think Apple is a bit more humble than it was in the Jobs days. The way they handled the Mac Pro while not great, was very un-Apple. "Oops, we actually blew it and we're working on something new that won't be ready for like 12-18 months." I think they were trying to force the Pro market into a place the Pro market was never going to go and had to do an about face. Annoying, but better than doubling down blindly on a bad decision.
The most interesting part of this, to me, is that while Jobs was basically the ultimate product guy, he chose someone who wasn't to succeed him—and you're not just talking about any company, you're talking about a company that will always be considered Jobs' legacy and he knew that as he was handing over the reigns as he was dying. Let that sink in.
This, this, this. I love coming away from a new iPhone announcement and seeing people go berserk because the housing looks the same even though you see advances every year where battery consumption is reduced and performance is increased. It's taken entirely for granted that this is just going to happen. The work being done in those areas is absolutely amazing.
Apple: "We just doubled performance while using 20% less power."
MacRumors: "(Yawn.) Courage. Lol. I need my headphone jack."
It's silly.
Dear God NO!! Clueless Tim is better Clueless, Arrogant and nuclear strength smarmy Ferenghi. The literal embodiment of condescension. The ANTI Forstall.
Cook’s compensation is a bargain for a company that size and that successful!
I can see where you’re coming from, but honestly you’re not seeing it from a consumer angle.
When you make an argument that the supply chain is strong, the only connotation most people expect is lower prices. Most consumers don’t care about leadership from a financial perspective. If it doesn’t give them any incentive, then what’s the point?
Steve Jobs made some serious mistakes in choosing certain people. John Scully was one of them. Isaacson was another. Isaacson was pretty much a luddite regarding technology, and his biography of Steve sucked. He was a historian and had written biographies of U.S. presidents. He was out of his element. We all know Tim Cook is not a product person and never will be. Steve Jobs was a once in a lifetime type of CEO. He could "smell" the latest thing and knew how to jump on it. Apple currently has no one to fill the vacuum he left. Nothing really new and innovative at Apple since the original iPhone. I sold more than half of my Apple stock at last years high. They are a one trick pony now. Without the iPhone they would be dead in the water.
Except most consumers have no idea what the words "supply chain" mean.
And for those that do and who are involved in manufacturing, an expectation of lower prices doesn't necessarily follow (though that can be *a* result, of many) if a supply chain is characterized as strong.
Last edited:
The Apple Board of Directors is happy with Tim Cook’s performance. He has met predetermined performance goals in order to qualify for bonus pay in 2016, 2017 and his biggest bonus ever in 2018, a 22% bump in salary.
Don't know the answer to your question, but ask Lou Gerstner who turned around IBM and didn't know about computers (knew about food though).
Revenues would be on the income statement, not the balance sheet...
Finance lesson aside, the wearables segment for Apple is the size of a Fortune 200 company and will likely be a $25B+ business this year. Sure, it’s small for Apple, but that’s half the revenue of the entire Disney company and more than what Netflix and eBay do in a year combined.
Cook also grew the iPhone to 3X what Jobs ever did. Products like the iPhone are generational. The fact it’s remained relevant in an ultra competitive environment is a credit to Cook. Jobs invented the thing, but Cook brilliantly executed its growth and dominant position.
Cook also gets credit for many other areas of dominance including mobile silicon, FaceID, $50B services business, and the aforementioned wearables market.
Oh by the way, he’s created $700B in value.
A product person really. Reality what makes a product. How useful is the hardware (product). Which in reality is the software driving the echosystem. Ask BlackBerry about great hardware. Lost big time to Apple and others because of Apps and the integrated echosystems. The hardware partnered with software what makes Apple products great. Tim Cook has done a good job of moving Apple to an enterprise system of hardware integration. Better then Steve Jobs.
ALL OF THIS ^^^
[doublepost=1562640448][/doublepost]
Try running software without hardware.
You need to focus on the product from the top down, or else things slowly turn to crap. A lame CEO can't pick good sub-leaders, and so on. IMO, Tim Cook is decent but nothing like Jobs. Apple still has their eye on the ball way more than Google does, but they don't innovate, and Amazon is the leader in that now.
[doublepost=1562640943][/doublepost]
Hardware is commodity that any old Chinese company can do well. That's like saying air is valuable because everyone needs it. It's extremely hard to design the best ecosystem, or even to hire basic software engineers. A great one is like 100X as effective as an average one, and I'm not even exaggerating. Software development is fast, and decisions snowball.
Not to belittle hardware engineers. Their work is difficult and their prerequisites steep, and Apple has some of the best. It's just that many other companies produce equivalent hardware, while obviously nobody has software or an ecosystem like Apple's.
Last edited:
Well, I still need my headphone jack. I don't give a crap about the CPU speed; I'm just trying to play my music and send my messages like a normal person. What do I need the extra speed for? Apparently nothing cause I'm still holding onto my iPhone 6.
Last edited: