"I’m heartbroken by the events in Minneapolis, and my prayers and deepest sympathies are with the families, with the communities, and with everyone that’s been affected.
This is a time for deescalation. I believe America is strongest when we live up to our highest ideals, when we treat everyone with dignity and respect no matter who they are or where they’re from, and when we embrace our shared humanity. This is something Apple has always advocated for. I had a good conversation with the president this week where I shared my views, and I appreciate his openness to engaging on issues that matter to us all.
I know this is very emotional and challenging for so many. I am proud of how deeply our teams care about the world beyond our walls. That empathy is one of Apple’s greatest strengths and it is something I believe we all cherish.
Thank you for all that you do."
No, Mr. Cook, I respectfully disagree. This is a time for escalation; for standing up for what is right, and moral, and just. It is not a time to "treat everyone with dignity and respect"; it is a time to show those who are failing to treat everyone with dignity and respect that their behavior will not be tolerated in this society. It is not a time for having "a good conversation" with a madman intent on turning our Republic into a dictatorship. While I am sure you are proud of "how deeply Apple teams care about the world", I am disappointed that you appear to care for nothing more than Apple's bottom-line next quarter profits, and will appease dictators on both sides of the Pacific to preserve and increase them.
(Sent to tcook@apple.com, because I have no fucks left to give.)
I think your comment is a far better directive than simply providing a diatribe against the lack of ethics of Tim Cook. I want emails and phone numbers to voice my dissatisfaction or my abhorrence towards the behavior of specific people that are not speaking up for that which is obviously right.
So I will share the email address that you have provided for Mr. Cook, and I will write to him as a physician, as a Vietnam vet, as a dedicated user of Apple products for the last 30 years, and tell him how disappointed I am in what he has expressed to the world in his actions and his words regarding Donald Trump.
Wow....just WOW. What an incredibly insightful article. Thank you. You frame the issues we are dealing with in our society perfectly...issues that were becoming increasingly pernicious before Trump, but now that we have a full-on fascist assault on our democracy, these monster companies and their leader/oligarchs are gorging on what prosperity we have left here in the U.S. And the way you discuss what the real purpose, or value, of money should be... you have created many quotable quotes that I will use (with full credit). Thank you for your insights. Thank you for writing this. This is a piece that should be featured in Harvard Business Review.
This resonates so much with me. I've been an Apple ever since the first Mac came out in 1984 and now I feel trapped by my all the time and money I've invested, especially in the absence of any alternative that isn't as bad or worse.
I reluctantly bought a new iPhone just now, but I really want to shift to something that isn't evil when I next buy a computer. Not Chrome or Windows obviously, but Linux still seems too hard for me
I, too, have been an Apple user since the first Mac came out in 1984. If I had time on my hands, I'd go with Linux, but in my experience it requires far too much tinkering just to find the right distro, much less to make it usable on a daily basis, especially on mobile devices, but even on desktop computers. This, however, is why I have invested in a Commodore 64 Ultimate (commodore.net) - "the future we were promised".
Thank you so much for your well written analysis. I have asked in print for cook to step down. He needs to, even if it takes two years to find a succession plan.
I bow to your expansive picture of Steve Jobs. He was a visionary. I have had to bow to the weakness of human beings abilities to predict anything, carrots types of beatific predictions you made about jobs had he survived to this time. It feels good to entertain those notions. I believe someone or some ones can emerge to improve our lot on this planet. When we see and hear them we must nurture them.
Mike this is such a superb post, capturing the Leadership and passion of a rogue entrepreneur who bootstrapped his success through one of the boldest tech visions I experienced in my 'boutique' software development that started on a DECmate ....then an Apple; for my clients, I had to develop in the Microsoft environment starting with Turbo C.
It was so clear to me that Jobs had the highest form of truly creative and inspirational vision that Leaders like Washington, Patton, and many more. None particularly known for kindness, but omg, such brilliant innovation that swept the imagination of generations around the world...! Apple had genius level integration from hardware to grade school through college "give away to get Apples used early as a key marketing strategy.
Microsoft seemed more like Tim Cook's current Apple culture that was reflected in its efficient, productive, well managed products...never as inspiring or team/ community that Jobs created.
Mike you did Steve Jobs such justice and honor. Truly was a joy to read! Thank you.
Excellent piece, Mike. Thanks. Even more fundamentally, what is an economy for? What ends do the businesses in an economy (like Apple) serve? If you haven’t read it, check out “Doughnut Economics,” by Kate Raworth…
You can give Trump a tribute in gold and not show yourself, in doing so, evil? This notion that morality stops at the shore washed by the waves of capitalism -- how is that very claim, along with those who embrace it, not at least a bit evil? I'm a capitalist, to be sure. But to have a job should never be an excuse for betraying morality. The worst thing about religions with once-a-week services is the pretense that the rest of the week has different rules.
Mike: Your well-written and informative posts remind me of Heather Cox Richardson’s. She weaves her understanding of history into observations about current events to lay out a roadmap of moral dangers ahead. You sink us deep into the world of technology, connecting current events to crossroads in our future, opining on the repercussions when industry leaders choose the road to perdition, instead of democracy and freedom. Your essays are always an enlightening read. Thank you!
Well said. And if I may add another layer, Jobs would not have let Apple's Human Interface Guidelines die the death of a thousand cuts. It's another part of Tim Cook's legacy that under his watch, Apple violated its contract with its users, putting their experience behind so many corporate imperatives.
Regarding your culture over politics assertion, I both agree and disagree. Apple’s iconic “1984” commercial was indicative (a) of breaking the chains of sameness but also (b) making a political statement about corporate tyranny as a stand-in for government tyranny. https://youtu.be/2zfqw8nhUwA?si=e-FJ2AT_Q7Ex7aiC
I’m not sure Jobs wouldn’t have bent the knee. What I do think is that he might have objected strongly to the misuse of data and individual privacy. Who really knows. He was a complicated guy and perhaps didn’t quite deserve the reverence so many of his acolytes seem to bestow upon him.
Thanks for lifting the paywall on this, Mike. (I hope I can work you into my rotation of paid subscriptions some day - there are a lot of great writers on substack so I'm sure you understand people have limits.)
I agree with every word of this. I had gotten pretty cynical about Jobs by the end of his life, but the tragedy of his absence has grown more noticeable with every year that goes by.
You have articulated a value in the way he approached business that I hadn't considered - and maybe other corporate leaders would care to note that his "money isn't the point" philosophy enabled Jobs to take a company that was on the brink of failure when it re-hired him and turn it into the biggest company in the world. (If I had bought Apple stock with the ~$10,000 I spent on Macs in the 90s I would have almost $2 million today.) It's not even really a tradeoff! In the medium and long term, companies that are passionate about their products do better than ones that are pushing buttons.
But that wasn't the only loss. Every time we unlock our phones, our lives are diminished slightly by his death. Anybody who denied he was a UI and industrial design genius, and said he was just a businessman who knew how to push talented people around, has been proven wrong by the decline in the quality of Apple's software since his death. Every new release of iOS or Mac OS that comes out I see dozens of things that would have made Steve absolutely apoplectic. Cook says "good enough" all the time, Jobs NEVER did.
No, Jobs didn't design things, but he knew, in a singular way, when a design was right. And if it wasn't he would yell at people, in a pretty ethically problematic but effective way, until it was.
PS, fun fact about NeXT - the NeXTSTEP OS that was developed for NeXT computers was the basis for Mac OS X, which was a major paradigm shift from Mac OS 9 and earlier versions. (Acquiring NeXT and its IP was part of the deal that brought Jobs back to Apple.) A lot of features we take for granted today in both Mac OS and Windows were first introduced in NeXTSTEP.
Also, it occurs to me that it's been a long time now, so younger people might need to be specifically informed that before iMacs were released in 1998 literally every computer that had ever been released was a beige or gray box.
Well done. I started out with something more relevant to the piece, but since i had the opportunity it devolved into a love letter to the iPod Classic. I tried to wring out a workable analogy and failed miserably. This time. Thanks again!
From Tim Cook, today:
"I’m heartbroken by the events in Minneapolis, and my prayers and deepest sympathies are with the families, with the communities, and with everyone that’s been affected.
This is a time for deescalation. I believe America is strongest when we live up to our highest ideals, when we treat everyone with dignity and respect no matter who they are or where they’re from, and when we embrace our shared humanity. This is something Apple has always advocated for. I had a good conversation with the president this week where I shared my views, and I appreciate his openness to engaging on issues that matter to us all.
I know this is very emotional and challenging for so many. I am proud of how deeply our teams care about the world beyond our walls. That empathy is one of Apple’s greatest strengths and it is something I believe we all cherish.
Thank you for all that you do."
No, Mr. Cook, I respectfully disagree. This is a time for escalation; for standing up for what is right, and moral, and just. It is not a time to "treat everyone with dignity and respect"; it is a time to show those who are failing to treat everyone with dignity and respect that their behavior will not be tolerated in this society. It is not a time for having "a good conversation" with a madman intent on turning our Republic into a dictatorship. While I am sure you are proud of "how deeply Apple teams care about the world", I am disappointed that you appear to care for nothing more than Apple's bottom-line next quarter profits, and will appease dictators on both sides of the Pacific to preserve and increase them.
(Sent to tcook@apple.com, because I have no fucks left to give.)
I think your comment is a far better directive than simply providing a diatribe against the lack of ethics of Tim Cook. I want emails and phone numbers to voice my dissatisfaction or my abhorrence towards the behavior of specific people that are not speaking up for that which is obviously right.
So I will share the email address that you have provided for Mr. Cook, and I will write to him as a physician, as a Vietnam vet, as a dedicated user of Apple products for the last 30 years, and tell him how disappointed I am in what he has expressed to the world in his actions and his words regarding Donald Trump.
Wow....just WOW. What an incredibly insightful article. Thank you. You frame the issues we are dealing with in our society perfectly...issues that were becoming increasingly pernicious before Trump, but now that we have a full-on fascist assault on our democracy, these monster companies and their leader/oligarchs are gorging on what prosperity we have left here in the U.S. And the way you discuss what the real purpose, or value, of money should be... you have created many quotable quotes that I will use (with full credit). Thank you for your insights. Thank you for writing this. This is a piece that should be featured in Harvard Business Review.
This resonates so much with me. I've been an Apple ever since the first Mac came out in 1984 and now I feel trapped by my all the time and money I've invested, especially in the absence of any alternative that isn't as bad or worse.
I reluctantly bought a new iPhone just now, but I really want to shift to something that isn't evil when I next buy a computer. Not Chrome or Windows obviously, but Linux still seems too hard for me
I, too, have been an Apple user since the first Mac came out in 1984. If I had time on my hands, I'd go with Linux, but in my experience it requires far too much tinkering just to find the right distro, much less to make it usable on a daily basis, especially on mobile devices, but even on desktop computers. This, however, is why I have invested in a Commodore 64 Ultimate (commodore.net) - "the future we were promised".
Thank you so much for your well written analysis. I have asked in print for cook to step down. He needs to, even if it takes two years to find a succession plan.
I bow to your expansive picture of Steve Jobs. He was a visionary. I have had to bow to the weakness of human beings abilities to predict anything, carrots types of beatific predictions you made about jobs had he survived to this time. It feels good to entertain those notions. I believe someone or some ones can emerge to improve our lot on this planet. When we see and hear them we must nurture them.
Mike this is such a superb post, capturing the Leadership and passion of a rogue entrepreneur who bootstrapped his success through one of the boldest tech visions I experienced in my 'boutique' software development that started on a DECmate ....then an Apple; for my clients, I had to develop in the Microsoft environment starting with Turbo C.
It was so clear to me that Jobs had the highest form of truly creative and inspirational vision that Leaders like Washington, Patton, and many more. None particularly known for kindness, but omg, such brilliant innovation that swept the imagination of generations around the world...! Apple had genius level integration from hardware to grade school through college "give away to get Apples used early as a key marketing strategy.
Microsoft seemed more like Tim Cook's current Apple culture that was reflected in its efficient, productive, well managed products...never as inspiring or team/ community that Jobs created.
Mike you did Steve Jobs such justice and honor. Truly was a joy to read! Thank you.
Wow! Mike! You hit a nerve, Man!
You are the philosopher for our time! Yes! When efficiency rules, freedom dies!
Peter Thiel exemplifies this rot!
Thiel, J.D. Vance’s, mentor, brags that “efficiency” requires that we must replace democracy!
Such arrogance puts robots in control of the future “culture”!
Excellent piece, Mike. Thanks. Even more fundamentally, what is an economy for? What ends do the businesses in an economy (like Apple) serve? If you haven’t read it, check out “Doughnut Economics,” by Kate Raworth…
Please share with Pivot podcast team - Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher
I feel like I'm too crass for their sensibilities, Pamela.
You can give Trump a tribute in gold and not show yourself, in doing so, evil? This notion that morality stops at the shore washed by the waves of capitalism -- how is that very claim, along with those who embrace it, not at least a bit evil? I'm a capitalist, to be sure. But to have a job should never be an excuse for betraying morality. The worst thing about religions with once-a-week services is the pretense that the rest of the week has different rules.
Mike: Your well-written and informative posts remind me of Heather Cox Richardson’s. She weaves her understanding of history into observations about current events to lay out a roadmap of moral dangers ahead. You sink us deep into the world of technology, connecting current events to crossroads in our future, opining on the repercussions when industry leaders choose the road to perdition, instead of democracy and freedom. Your essays are always an enlightening read. Thank you!
Well said. And if I may add another layer, Jobs would not have let Apple's Human Interface Guidelines die the death of a thousand cuts. It's another part of Tim Cook's legacy that under his watch, Apple violated its contract with its users, putting their experience behind so many corporate imperatives.
Regarding your culture over politics assertion, I both agree and disagree. Apple’s iconic “1984” commercial was indicative (a) of breaking the chains of sameness but also (b) making a political statement about corporate tyranny as a stand-in for government tyranny. https://youtu.be/2zfqw8nhUwA?si=e-FJ2AT_Q7Ex7aiC
I’m not sure Jobs wouldn’t have bent the knee. What I do think is that he might have objected strongly to the misuse of data and individual privacy. Who really knows. He was a complicated guy and perhaps didn’t quite deserve the reverence so many of his acolytes seem to bestow upon him.
Thanks for lifting the paywall on this, Mike. (I hope I can work you into my rotation of paid subscriptions some day - there are a lot of great writers on substack so I'm sure you understand people have limits.)
I agree with every word of this. I had gotten pretty cynical about Jobs by the end of his life, but the tragedy of his absence has grown more noticeable with every year that goes by.
You have articulated a value in the way he approached business that I hadn't considered - and maybe other corporate leaders would care to note that his "money isn't the point" philosophy enabled Jobs to take a company that was on the brink of failure when it re-hired him and turn it into the biggest company in the world. (If I had bought Apple stock with the ~$10,000 I spent on Macs in the 90s I would have almost $2 million today.) It's not even really a tradeoff! In the medium and long term, companies that are passionate about their products do better than ones that are pushing buttons.
But that wasn't the only loss. Every time we unlock our phones, our lives are diminished slightly by his death. Anybody who denied he was a UI and industrial design genius, and said he was just a businessman who knew how to push talented people around, has been proven wrong by the decline in the quality of Apple's software since his death. Every new release of iOS or Mac OS that comes out I see dozens of things that would have made Steve absolutely apoplectic. Cook says "good enough" all the time, Jobs NEVER did.
No, Jobs didn't design things, but he knew, in a singular way, when a design was right. And if it wasn't he would yell at people, in a pretty ethically problematic but effective way, until it was.
PS, fun fact about NeXT - the NeXTSTEP OS that was developed for NeXT computers was the basis for Mac OS X, which was a major paradigm shift from Mac OS 9 and earlier versions. (Acquiring NeXT and its IP was part of the deal that brought Jobs back to Apple.) A lot of features we take for granted today in both Mac OS and Windows were first introduced in NeXTSTEP.
Also, it occurs to me that it's been a long time now, so younger people might need to be specifically informed that before iMacs were released in 1998 literally every computer that had ever been released was a beige or gray box.
Well done. I started out with something more relevant to the piece, but since i had the opportunity it devolved into a love letter to the iPod Classic. I tried to wring out a workable analogy and failed miserably. This time. Thanks again!