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.
Tim Cook Angrily Rejects Political Proposal Asking for Profits-First Policies
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
Umm.... Macs were the reason Apple was around before the iPhone/iPad. While today iOS devices are the majority of Apple's income, Macs were the money makers before the iOS devices took off. Even during the iPod's golden years, Mac's were the majority of Apple's revenue/profits.
While it is probably an extreme libertarian view to do things only for profit as a corporation, I side with Tim that in various senses "doing the right thing" should take precedence. Human values are real things. That's not political, conservative or even progressive. It's humanistic centric.
Rocketman
Rocketman
I consider myself conservative and don't like when Cook drifts off into politics but this proposal was stupid. Apple made over $13B in profit last quarter. I don't think anyone should be concerned that they're putting the environment over profits. Seems odd that they would target a highly profitable company like Apple. Obviously Cook knows how to focus on profits as well as social issues Apple cares about.
And who says Apple isn't doing all this just for the profits ?
30% of their extended margins might be due to having better products than the competition, the other 70% due to their image.
Loosing that image or just addmiting that they do the "good stuff" just to protect that image would be devastating.
Yes, predictably, AAPL's stock value may dip a bit on Monday trading because of this. It's simply because a handful of ultra-conservative investors, the kind of investors that invest with their emotions/ideology rather than from the principled viewpoint of a long-term growth investment itself, they will SELL their remaining Apple stocks.
Those are the kinds of emotional investors that also do things like they instantly dump their Amazon stocks simply because there was a rumor that Jeff Bezos' son's best-friend's father's second wife was purportedly bisexual.
Good job Tim!
I'm generally a pretty conservative guy, but freaky people like this give us a bad name. Yes, they are a corporation. Yes, their charter is to improve shareholder value. But not at the expense of humanity. C'mon, get real for just one minute!
I'm generally a pretty conservative guy, but freaky people like this give us a bad name. Yes, they are a corporation. Yes, their charter is to improve shareholder value. But not at the expense of humanity. C'mon, get real for just one minute!
I think this would be a legitimate complaint (after all, a corporation exists in order to make money) if Apple weren't already making money hand over fist. But because they are making money, it's both the right thing to do and good business longterm to take care of important non-shareholders, like employees, customers, and government regulators.
Not a chance... Rush Limbaugh is Apple's biggest fan. In fact, the majority of Mac users I know are quite conservative.
But this whole exchange only tells me Cook was "had" and might not even be the right guy for the job. A more adroit CEO (and let's not forget Cook should be the most adroit heading up about the biggest outfit on earth) would have claimed that Apple undertakes all of these other endeavors precisely because it IS good for business. End of discussion from him.
And really, if Apple didn't care about profits, everything we buy from them would cost a whole bunch less. They would be doing the socially conscience thing to provide great products that everyone can afford at ridiculously low prices.
Meh, I don't have a problem with Apple charging for supporting out of warranty customers, I'd imagine those calls increases over time and becomes unsustainable. I wouldn't be happy as a shareholder to see that Apple's spending millions on supporting customers with 5-10 year old products.
At least they're still providing it for a small fee. Many companies rejects you completely and stop responding to any further questions.
I liked Tim's response. However, let's not kid ourselves either. Every corporation strives to have high ROI. If that wasn't the case, the profit margin on iDevices wouldn't be so high.
There's nothing wrong with it. But it's not like Apple's a non-profit. There seems to be a "healthy" balance for Tim between going for ROI but yet still maintaining Apple's core culture.
There's nothing wrong with it. But it's not like Apple's a non-profit. There seems to be a "healthy" balance for Tim between going for ROI but yet still maintaining Apple's core culture.
You make it sound like the only argument against pollution is climate change. The best possible time to consider cleaner results is when building new infrastructure. It's a big leap to go from that to "tree hugger". Congratulations on your affinity for mental acrobatics
.
From one of the investors at the shareholders meeting today:
Hmm...who is selling autonomous cars to consumers right now? And same thing with robots. Where exactly are these game changing products? Note, he said products, not ideas. Big difference. Investors should know by now that Apple has never been about moonshots. If investors are looking for self driving cars and robots from Apple then they're going to be very disappointed.
Not all conservatives are that narrow-minded. And not all of them are the same cookie-cutter mold.
I consider myself a fiscal conservative, but I also (occasionally) find myself siding with social progressives (e.g. human rights, social freedoms, environmental causes, etc). It's a hard balancing act at times, but mainly because the USA is so politically bi-polar (most people side with either the hard right, or the hard left, the pragmatic moderates are ignored or marginalized).
Why are people investing into Apple's stocks expecting them to go into cars and robotics?
No wonder Cook got pissed. Apple's making money and they're giving it back and you still want them to do something they were never going to do?
Apple is not Google and Google is not Apple, that's why they both exists. If investors like what they're seeing in Google, they should dump all of the Apple stocks and invest in Google instead. Make Google the biggest company in the world, not Apple. Google will use the extra money in more game-changing products.
If Apple sees all the money they're losing go into Google, then maybe, just maybe, they'll consider doing what investors want.
Vote with your money, not your complaints.
Well said, that was my first thought. Even if one were to have NO concern but profits, appearing to have no concern but profits hurts profits for an image-conscious company like apple.
Not that I think that's what drives the things NCPPR is complaining about, but even by their own logic their plan is a bad one for the company.
Conservatism itself gives conservatism a bad name. The statement from the douchebag to Tim Cook was informed by an ideology.
That ideology is conservative capitalism über alles
- Status