Tim Cook is a "Keep things ticking along" CEO, not a "Change course to a new destination" CEO. Initiatives like this will probably require different leadership to succeed.

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reactordev 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Exactly, Tim Cook is a finance guy - he knows the numbers and how to keep Apple profitable. What he lacks is product vision. His one opportunity (ironically, vision) fell flat.

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pstuart 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

The Apple Car fiasco happened on his watch too.

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specialist 4 days ago | parent [-]

I would not want to be an auto manufacturer right now.

Recall Solyndra's fate.

A single US-based manufacturer with very modest govt support vs China's all-in strategic industrial policy, commitment to dominating the market, spinning up the entire supply chain composed of 100s of companies.

Its the same situation with batteries and automobiles.

	▲	pstuart 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I agree they're in a horrible bind. In a different timeline, we'd have a "master plan" of how to ensure industry (and the populous) is able to thrive in the future. I believe it's technically a solvable problem but it requires adults in the room, who value the the country as a whole. We do not have that, and I'm afraid it's possible we never will.

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ljlolel 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Don’t downvote this guy! Interesting to note that he probably constantly got criticized for not having vision, so he took that literally and called the product Vision Pro.

It’s the kind of mistake an LLM would make. Very Lacanian.

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reactordev 5 days ago | parent [-]

I wouldn’t go that far. Tim Cook doesn’t really care what people think of him, he only cares about one group of people - shareholders. It was probably marketing that came up with it. Tim is totally fine being the finance guy and the vision he sold the board was “I’ll keep Apple from imploding” which he has been very successful at.

Like Nadella, you need someone from the early years, who knows the business, to run it.

Cook lacks product vision because 1) he’s no Steve Jobs. He was hired. He didn’t create. 2) He doesn’t have an Jonny Ive to make something as boring as a computer be as sexy as an Italian vase. Or as sleek as a pencil. Or as flat as paper. Or whatever metaphors were used during the Ive years to describe his design process.

But he has been there long enough to know how it works.

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nchmy 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Nadella seems to have incomparably more vision...

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mensetmanusman 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Ads in my start menu, amazing vision.

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reactordev 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Different character of person though. Nadella was engineering, former Sun Microsystems, he understands cloud, having led initiatives within Microsoft in that area. He also opened the door to open source that Microsoft had shuttered for so long.

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acomjean 5 days ago | parent [-]

But as I’ve started using windows again, it’s shocking that he allows a lot of the unprofessional upselling crap in.

Windows seems to be a platform for selling cloud services… lamentably it probably works.

	▲	reactordev 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		You might enjoy this then… https://next.content.town/p/unfucking-windows-for-fun-and-pr... There’s a lot of settings and things you can regedit to make it great again, sane again, plain again.

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emchammer 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Maybe, um, computing devices and operating systems are intrinsically special devices due to the way they shape the world, and a company manufacturing them needs to be run by someone who takes more care than their superficial shape or optimizing shareholder value. If I wanted a typewriter with a sexy design, I would buy an Italian typewriter.

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buyucu 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Tim Cook is the guy you hire to squeeze more money from your existing customer base. He is not the guy you hire to create new cool things.

	▲	jauntywundrkind 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I both don't disagree with this really, but also, as an ops person, yes it is crazy hard building some of the most micro miniature systems on the planet and having someone who can see to the details of production is a pretty vital skill. Still not a customer facing / product development role. At the same time though, again, so much of what makes Apple's products so good is that they have been amazing at product having to work with manufacturing to push the bounds of what is possible. Apple Vision for example taps this intersection: part of the product very much was figuring out physically what it was you could build. (Something about the past year has really really shifted my perspective, enhanced the already huge respect I have for people making physical things.)

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nojito 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>not a "Change course to a new destination" CEO.

Based on what exactly? He led the overhaul of a massive amount of Apple under his tenure.