I'd also add that from the perspective of an employee in the industry, Tim Cook has had a remarkably steady hand throughout multiple business cycles in the industry that have made Apple a much better place to work than many of the other very large tech companies: no massive over-hiring after covid, no massive layoffs to correct for that, average tenure at the company BLOWS other companies out of the water, a reputation for a strong engineering culture

I say this as someone who hasn't worked there, but has a large number of friends and peers who currently do or have in recent years.

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ebbi 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Agree. With the cash balance that Apple has, CEO's usually get tempted to make moves that let them flex, but he was very disciplined in that sense.

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spacebanana7 2 days ago | parent [-]

For example, Tim had the discipline to get out of the EV projects. Which was likely wise given the challenges the sector has faced in profitability, and Apple's long term outside option to accrue vehicular services revenue through CarPlay. Yet someone in his position could have burned $200B pretty easily to try and build a business there.

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leetharris 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The only mistake he made was not buying Tesla around the M3 launch. Elon was desperate and would have sold it to him for cheap. He didn't take the meeting.

Otherwise I completely agree, once Tesla reached takeoff, it's too hard for anyone else to do it without burning mountains worth of cash.

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wayne 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Yet he did still launch Vision Pro.

	▲	jodrellblank 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		How much did that burn compared to the Metaverse?

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spacedcowboy 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

yep, I worked there for 20+ years, only retired due to health. I was about middle of the park in my group’s tenure there…

	▲	sizzle 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		How do you see AI playing out there? Are you glad you got out before AI coding became a thing? What are you up to in your retirement years, anything fun? Thanks.

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lurk2 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> a reputation for a strong engineering culture

We’re talking about the company that shipped the storage bug?

	▲	simplyluke 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Every software team ships bugs. That is not exclusive with a strong engineering culture.