“In a rare interview, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that society, including the tech community, is not moving fast enough on issues like equal rights and diversity,” Anita Balakrishnan reports for CNBC.
“‘I think the U.S. will lose its leadership in technology if this doesn’t change,’ Cook said to The Plainsman, the student newspaper at his alma mater,” Balakrishnan reports. “‘Women are such an important part of the workforce. If STEM-related fields continue to have this low representation of women, then there just will not be enough innovation in the United States. That’s just the simple fact of it,’ [Cook said].”
“Apple has pledged millions to support historically black colleges and universities, and also supports the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, National Center for Women & Information Technology and the National Society of Black Engineers,” Balakrishnan reports. “But as of June of last year, 32 percent of Apple employees are women, and 22 percent are underrepresented minorities, according to Apple’s website.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Would that such depth of thought and intensity of conviction have been given to certain Apple products and services over the last several years.
Hey, how about a woman CEO who not only understands and cares about professional Mac users, but who can also manage to ship and launch timely products on schedule with adequate supply?!
That said, as we wrote back in July 2014:
Diversity is good, but getting the absolute best should remain the goal. Forced diversity carries its own set of problems. Would the group be comprised of the best-qualifed people possible or would it be designed to hit pre-defined quotas? Would some employees, consciously or unconsciously, consider certain employees, or even themselves, to be tokens meant to fill a quota? That would be a suboptimal result for all involved.
The best and desired outcome is for this to work in Apple’s favor. Truly looking at qualified people from a larger pool would result in delivering different viewpoints and new ways of looking at things and tackling problems than a more homogenized workforce would be capable of delivering.
Regardless and of course, someday it sure would be nice for everyone to just be able to evaluate a person’s potential, not measuring and tabulating superficial, meaningless things like skin color and gender.
Apple’s “Inclusion and Diversity” page is here.
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s board has urged shareholders to reject proposal to tie executive compensation to racial diversity quotas – February 27, 2017
Apple Inc. fights shareholders group demand for more diversity – February 15, 2017
Apple’s Board of Directors says a call for diversity is ‘unduly burdensome and not necessary’ – January 15, 2016
Apple leads Facebook, Intel, Cisco, Google on gender diversity among Bay Area companies – November 17, 2015
Apple’s latest diversity report shows progress – August 13, 2015
Tim Cook is ‘personally involved’ in improving diversity at Apple Inc. – July 14, 2015
Apple donates over $50 million to diversity efforts – March 10, 2015
Apple CEO Tim Cook met privately with Jesse Jackson regarding diversity – December 9, 2014
Apple adds Vice Presidents, more diversity to Executive Leadership Team – August 15, 2014
A message from Apple CEO Tim Cook on diversity – August 12, 2014
Jesse Jackson calls on Obama to scrutinize tech industry’s ‘lack of diversity’ – July 28, 2014
Tim Cook: Apple will release diversity data ‘at some point’ – July 9, 2014
Jesse Jackson targets tech’s lack of diversity; sends letter to Apple, Google, HP, others – March 19, 2014
Apple changes bylaws after facing criticism about lack of diversity on board – January 9, 2014
Let’s change the wording.
Apple will lose its leadership in tech if Apple doesn’t put out new products.
Yup.
And there is a difference between just “hiring women” and “hiring trained women.”
Our public school systems in general are not getting students, and particularly young women, into STEM subjects.
Of course, that means if you ARE a well trained woman in technical areas, your job prospects look very bright.
So Tim Cook is blaming Apple’s women for Apple’s failures? Obviously, the current cadre is its failing leadership role miserably. Couldn’t be a lack of direction and inspiration from Apple’s CEO.
Frank, it appears that your reading comprehension skills are quite poor. You are incorrectly interpreting the article. Cook is *not* blaming women for Apple’s failures.
You folks seem to enjoy getting all worked up about things, as if Apple is intentionally seeking to screw you over. Relax and get some perspective.
I work in a high school administering a program which is designed to get students up to speed in terms of credits necessary to graduate.
The unmistakable pattern that is verifiable if someone wants to lose the politically correct lens over the eyes and look at the truth is this: We are receiving a group of students, radically increased over the last 10 years, and accelerating, who can barely print their own name, and are offended by having to put their last name on a paper.
In other words, they have early elementary school work habits that have not been corrected, and by high school it is almost impossible to correct, especially with the lack of involvement by parents. “It’s your job to raise them, I need to live my life”
The big concern is the number of boys with maturity issues, girls, who have always been more mature than boys at that age, are better…….but falling fast due to cultural influences that do not value achievement, but being “like everyone else” meaning that if you are an achiever, there are subtle pressures for you to keep quiet about it.
True everywhere in the country, less so in some than others. But none of them are getting the education that I got.
Let the flames begin, I can handle it.
Certainly you speak the truth. The flamers are just that. Name calling is all they have because they are incapable of confronting real life situations and working on a permanent solution for the greater good. Flamers are safe space snowflakes. In the old days they would not be given the time of day. Sadly, the media landscape today has transformed to identify BS and away from objective truth …
And the best , technologically most advanced products and comprehensive product Line.
Including Pros on both MacOS and iOS platforms.
Bring on IOS-PRO. , with a roubust user managable file sys and I/O … and capabilty to run full fledged application and not just 1000 fragmanted snippts of apps.
Bring it on or watch MS slowly but surly over take…
Its bewildering to see the richest tech company in the world make such haphazard decisions like they did with the power user/pro demographics… one if their stong foundations.
why should it even have been a choice to consider..
Why Either/or?
What ?! u cant afford to do both Apple/ not enough resource?
Hope Apple realizes that at this point they are slowly running behind… and that time is not on their side. …. and that they should put all their resourse into play to gain back their reputation as the best computing platform .. regardless of what ones application may be!
Wake up .. get your head out of the clouds… forget Johnny Ives, self promoting, gloating, self published, gold leafed 350 dollar books.. ( distasteful and arrogant move )
kerp your feet on the ground and head down on the work that needs to be done.. and get it done !
and lets have that razer sharp focus on Products (not activism ) Back.
🤞🤞🤞
Whoa … Your best post yet, Jimbo! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Tim Cook is a blowhard and has no business running this company. What a fuxking loser. Tim “Political Crusade and Pipeline” Cook.
Shut up Tim, and leave.
15 of 18 of the Apple executive team is comprised of white males.
6 of 8 of Apple Board of Directors is comprised of white males.
Pipeline Timmy failed to mention that.
further, I submit that if half of the board of directors were female, The Hint Of Mint Hypocrite, Pipeline Timmy, would’ve been sent packing long ago.
You may have a point.. one that I made here years ago, but which didn’t catch on, possibly due to its extreme subtlety. Women are lie detectors. Moreover, a diverse group of directors is more likely to hold executives accountable than a homogeneous group who tend to overlook the shortcomings of folks who look like them, think like them, and socialise with them.
Possibly you had a different notion, subtle in itself, but in this case I think our ideas converge.
I know, despite the fact that both of us are delicate flowers, that we agree that political correctness is out-of-control BS. But the underlying human instinct to protect the helpless from insult and injury is a just and long-standing moral tenet. It’s terrible that it was co-opted by political operatives and given such a bad name.
Thank you for pointing out the blatant HYPOCRISY of Pipe Dream Clueless Cook. The sooner he is gone, the better …
Thank you.
The only loss here would be Clueless Cook.
We don’t need a liberal CEO that consistently puts liberal identity political issues front and center for a company that historically had the common sense to stay out of politics under Steve.
We don’t need a liberal CEO to ignore the most important segment of Apple customers since the beginning of Apple. Earth to Timmy: That would be the PRO market. Not the impulsive self conscious credit card spending of bling fashionistas.
We don’t need a liberal CEO to pander to women, blacks and gays to the exclusion of all others that contribute everyday to Apple success. All are equal, all are important and welcome — got it Tim?
We don’t need a liberal CEO with a faulty supply chain genius reputation that cannot deliver products consistently on launch day, year after year.
We don’t need a liberal CEO that profits from cheap labor in a communist country, to the EXCLUSION of American workers, for the sake of the almighty dollar and says nothing regarding women’s rights in China. Then goes on to lecture the rest of the world on rights. Got it, total business hypocrite.
Bottom line: We don’t need Tim as Apple CEO, liberal or otherwise. Compaq your bags and please move on to a warm sunshine island and turquoise waters.
Vaya con dios … 😎
Vaya con dios to you, too. I don’t think that somebody who thinks that Bill Cosby is an innocent victim of political correctness has the right to criticize anybody.
Cosby has absolutely NOTHING to do with my comment. Only morons bring up strawman arguments. Read carefully: I don’t care care what you think. Not now, not ever …
I don’t care what you think so I need to tell you that. Progress though, you’ve begun to lay off the snow flake emojis.
❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️💦☔️💤
Let’s change it again: it will lose its leadership if Silicon Valley continues to insist on greed, arrogance, moonshot hype that accomplishes nothing but wasting obscene amounts of resources, disrespect for people’s (ALL people) personal rights/intelligence/needs, and accepting being disingenuous as acceptable business practices. Gender/ethnicity/sexual orientation are not factors in picking the right people for the jobs in question, skills, interest, and passion are, regardless of those things. It doesn’t matter how much you push STEM if a lot of girls just aren’t interested in the subject. It’s more libtard nonsense, and I say that as a staunch independent who did not vote for either major candidate in the election. I could really care less about what Tim Cook has to offer on these matters at this point. Not one iota. It’s all hot air, get off your high horse, already. Address the issues at the top of this comment FIRST.
I am glad that Tim Cook has convictions and speaks his mind. I wish he could speak his mind and run Apple at the same time. I cannot believe the Board and stockholders have allowed him to run all over the place sharing his politics when while Apple languishes on the vine. I agree with some of Tim’s politics, but if this is what he really wants to do, he should resign and run for office.
Amen
Right, because making sure that the most qualified applicants are available for hiring has nothing to do with the CEO’s duties.
To listen to you lot, it would be perfectly acceptable if 50% of the American population wasn’t given a fair shot because they are female, 10% because they are LGBT, and 40% because they are from a religious or ethnic minority. That leaves only 27% of the population, even without taking into consideration non-Americans that might be available for employment. But—of course—the straight male white American applicants will always be the most qualified for every position.
Not necessarily. In the real world, non-male non-straight non-white non-American people are the great majority of the employment pool and trying to attract the best applicants from that wider pool is distinctly in Apple’s best interest.
Apple can hire all the women they want without Tim out doing interviews chiding American industry about its hiring practice. Prove its the good thing to do by doing it at Apple and everyone else will mimic Apple’s success. If TIm doesn’t want to make running the fu*king company his first priority, he should get out of the way and let someone that wants to live and breath Apple, like Steve did, take over the reins.
Say it brother! As I ever rant:
-> The only question is:
Are They Qualified?
BUT we humans remain, to my mind, remarkably primitive. We’re still tribal. As such, each tribe looks after its own at the expense of those considered to be ‘NOT US’. Therefore:
• Women are, with out any sane basis, considered to be inherently non-technical. That’s utter nonsense. There is just as high a percentage of techno women as men, with regard to innate talent.
• Men, often for juvenile reasons, consider women to be object to be manipulated for the benefit of male-kind. I’m not talking about the natural differences between men and women, including child birth and mothering. I’m talking about marriage or mating as purchase and ownership. There’s more than one form of female slavery and abuse.
• As is now well know, when women are able to become part of a techno team among the traditional male tribe, they are commonly hazed or outright abused by the male tribe. Again, juvenile male concepts come into play.
• Women and other ‘Not Us’ are deliberately kept out of or hazed/abused out of education opportunities in tech. This is insane, as if hiring some dumbass just because he’s male is of any benefit to any project. It’s obviously NOT. Thoroughly equal, top quality education opportunities are required for ALL. (I’ll deliberately leave out the obscene student debt indentured servant hell imposed on today’s students, brilliant or not).
Because of all the crap above and more, I continue to consider it critical to strive for diversity in everything. As need be, work within teams to figure out what diversity is for and how it is consistently a benefit to projects if that diversity is put to use in pursuit of creativity and perspective.
There’s been contention, certainly around here, about potential down sides of diversity. Every time I’ve had to confront these arguments I’ve found that the person in opposition is basing their argument against diversity on some primitive meme stuck in their head. I can only *sigh* that they don’t get it yet, hoping some day they’ll have gained enough experience to figure out that they’re wrong IF we can ALL grow up out of our tribal warfare state of primitive thinking.
But again, having said all of the above, the only question is: Is the person qualified? If they’re not, don’t hire them. I don’t care what/who they are. Hiring the UN-qualified is an outrageous blunder.
Need I point out Judge Clarence Thomas on the US Supreme Court? How did THAT happen? Oops. Total dead weight.
Clarence Thomas was qualified. It turned out that he just didn’t have any ideas. Who knew?
I wasn’t qualified during my first job interview — lo, these many years ago. I used persuasion skills taught me by my father, a career army bureaucrat, to secure the position. I employed subtle flattery, admiration for the achievements of the people interviewing me and the quality of the questions they asked. I radiated approval of their rank within the organisation and made it plain that I would follow their lead. With all that approbation, they forgot I was a woman just long enough to secure their vote.
No, I wasn’t as qualified as other applicants, but I got in; not because of a quota system but because of strong interpersonal skills. That’s the key variable in any sort of negotiation, HR formulas and demographics be damned. And when I got in, I worked hard and proved my mettle.
Mind you, not every female or minority job applicant had a coach like my father, or a preternatural seductiveness like mine, so I do have sympathy for the principle that rules are needed to level the playing field for them. Emmy Noether, one of the most important mathematical geniuses in two hundred years, couldn’t get a decent job even with the support of Albert Einstein. Of course, that happened before we all arrived at the enlightened, egalitarian society we now enjoy.
baloney, you undid the top three buttons of your blouse and leaned over.
I didn’t see you there, you rascal! Where were you hiding? And it was only two buttons.
Yup!
More word salad baloney …
Yes, I talked myself into an engineering job, and when I started out it was mostly men (as you’d expect) in the industry in those days (1980s) but they were of two kinds, the ones who wanted to open doors for me (they were probably from the South) and the ones who let the door slam in my face. I had to work harder than all of ’em to get accepted as one of the guys. And I was, eventually. Adversity made me stronger and better. But I also had help from mentors, women and men who had gone through the same process of team integration and were interested ONLY in the mission and the wondrous technology. The pure joy of problem-solving in a like-minded group can erase everyone’s preoccupation with trivial differences like biology. This theme appeared in two recent movies, Hidden Figures and The Imitation Game.
Good to know, thanks …
My cat is staring at me to go to bed. But I’ll point out that Judge Clarence Thomas does essentially nothing at the US Supreme Court except give tours. It is big news any time he opens his mouth while on the bench. I am unaware of him ever writing either a judgement or dissent for any case while on the Supreme Court. He is just a ‘Yes Man’ for you know who. The end.
You, on the other hand, are remarkable. I am well aware of your ‘preternatural seductiveness’. 😉 No offense to your sweetie. I see nothing wrong with your approach. I also suspect your employer didn’t either. They may well have considered your personal wiles to be a bonus beyond their skills requirement. People people people.
What you’re saying, in other words, if I understand you, is that my arguments don’t change yours, because I am some kind of outlier that doesn’t invalidate the statistical hoax you are involuntarily perpetuating.
We are all ourselves. Ourselves are all. There’s always that.
Outlier? Statistical hoax? I’m not thinking absolutely or statistically. Exceptionally? That’s a better word, vague enough but meaningful enough, for me at least, to be helpful.
But please tell me the hoax being perpetrated and an alternative generalization. Thanks.
I apologise for being unfair. ~ I’m lashing out at everyone lately – suffering from the Mac Pro debacle. I became wrung out – the lack of catharsis is devastating.
It was like when I was dating, and there was this one guy I really liked, (his name happened to be Phil), and whenever I’d run into him he promised me he’d call, but he never did, and I’d hear about his other dalliances and sulk. Then one day he did call, and said soothing things, and kinda-sorta said he was sorry, and that he’d like to get together, so I said, When!? And he said Soon. Like maybe next year. So I hung up on him.
I understand. Thank you for a very kind reply. And I always appreciate being called out. Cracking the egg open to new things is consistently useful and fruitful in my adventure experiences. *Hugs*
I was listening to the NPR program “Wait, Wait, Don’t Shoot The Piano Player” and they asked this question:
Q: What is the difference between Ability and Capability?
A: A regular hero has Ability. A superhero has cape-ability.
Therefore, I believe my jabbering is blasted open by asking what ‘qualified’ means. Ability or Capability?
“You’re capable. At this wage rate, we consider you qualified.”
I’m getting lamer by the minute. But I’ve stated my point, or at least point of view from the perspective of my imagined ideal employer.
I recall years back working for a friend for several months. He’s a coder. I suck at coding. But he knew I was capable of putting together solid databases. And so I was! For me, that’s easy. He wrote the enveloping code. I filled in the busy work. Ability achieved on the job.
“Ability achieved on the job”
True on 99% of all jobs and job positions.
And I work in education, but don’t spend the majority of my time in the self-worship of the educational system.
Unless you are picketing for your next raise …
ouch…heh.
An excellent point. Growing is living.
Derek Currie is a pure and simple racist. He hates all black people. Racist.
I’ll be sure to let him know how you feel.
[Idiocracy: IASSOTS]
Derek is typical of the double standard LEFT. They don’t see their own folly and only know how to point it out in others they disagree with. Psychology 101 …
Not sure you want to admit that.
You are a joke, FAKE CONSERVATIVE.
We have been through this before, GoeB. Every time you (falsely) call me a Fake Conservative, I will point out (truthfully) that you are a rape enabler, who thinks that Bill Cosby and Donald Trump’s attitude towards women is socially acceptable.
For third parties that may have missed it, on another thread GoeB argued that drugging women and having sex with them while they were unconscious was just a part of the Sixties lifestyle. No, we recognized that as rape in the 1960s and most decent humans still do. I do not regard the thirty years I spent prosecuting rapists as “pandering to women.”
By defending sexual assault, you have lost any right you might have had to comment on sexual discrimination. I will point out, however, that your attitude on the one is consistent with your attitude on the other.
Real conservatives have often been accused of demeaning women by placing them on a pedestal, but never of supporting sexual assault and adultery as acceptable life choices for our national leaders.
“I BELIEVE: women should be put so high on a pedestal you can see up their dress.”
Steve Martin
LOL!
Now the FAKE CONSERVATIVE is making FAKE accusations and conflating statements to reach a FAKE conviction.
In your feverish over-zealous and self righteous mind only, my dear Libtard in disguise …
I pointed out that you have defended Bill Cosby as a victim of political correctness. You have also attacked efforts at providing equal employment rights as “pandering to women.” Which of those facts is fake? You have now suggested that sexual assault and sexual discrimination are only connected by “conflating” unrelated concepts. Is that also fake?
I have suggested that all persons have equal rights before the law, including equal rights to employment and equal rights to avoid the violation of their bodies. The fact that you think that only “libtards” and “fake conservatives” could make that suggestion says a lot more about you than about me.
Take another toke on your pot pipe FAKE CONSERVATIVE. Maybe then, your imagination will become reality. Wait, it is already reality in your world, pity …
I think what Goeb meant about Cosby is that we don’t know for sure if he did it. The women who accused him of sexual assault could be lying for a number of reasons:
1: To get their ten minutes of fame
2. To take down a hero
or
3. To get revenge for something else.
The same goes for the Trump sexual assault allegations.
At this point, I cannot take any rape accusation seriously without evidence.
How many accusers is it up to now? About 50 I think. They can’t ALL be lying.
That’s exactly what they said in the 1990s about Bill Clinton sexual assault accusers …
And there was a time about everyone said the earth is flat…
your point?
Precisely! Thanks, jfblagden.
Definitely suspicious of motives 50 years later. How anyone can remember events with accurate precision after all that time given lack of evidence and only based on he said, she said — is seriously troubling.
The free love era of the 1960s (Woodstock at the height) was certainly a different time and to be judged by today’s political correctness is absurd, ridiculous and could lead to dangerous revisionism.
Should we go back to the 1950s and accuse wives and husbands of indentured servitude against their will (mental cruelty) because one of them stayed home to raise children? My mother never complained about it and eventually took a part time job when we were all in high school.
Back to your points. Cosby evolved from a liberal to a more conservative tone later in life. I suspect a black conservative celebrity speaking out about young black male shortcomings present day did not sit well with some in politics and some in the media.
Clarence Thomas was also accused of sexual harassment and coined the phrase “high-tech lynching” in the media. Same parallel construction: Black conservatives speaking their minds. Don’t know if that is the motive, but certainly something to consider.
Your last point is spot on. Accusations minus proof is just too easy, many motives can drive them for personal gain and in some cases result in a miscarriage of justice.
That ALL said, if you prove your case then certainly convict to the fullest extent of the law …
Of course, Cosby himself swore in a deposition that he occasionally drugged women so he could have sex with them without their effective consent, as some 40-50 women have testified that he actually did. GoeB knows that because I have repeatedly pointed it out.
That is rape. It is rape now. It was rape in 1960 (when rape was a capital offense in most states that had the death penalty). It has always been rape. If you think otherwise, your fantasy life has overcome your ability to comprehend reality.
As for saying someone should be prosecuted “if you prove your case,” really? You have just said that the joint testimony of multiple victims and the rapist himself is not adequate proof of rape. If so, then no rape prosecution could ever succeed and we might as well abolish the laws against it. I suppose that is what you all want.
Prosecutors do not regard rape as essentially a sex crime. It is all about power, about a man who fears being weak asserting control by demeaning another human being in the most personal way possible.
Defending rape is just an extreme form of defending sexual discrimination. They are both ways for men who question their own power (and masculinity) to assert it by subjugating females.
It is very sad to see somebody who equates “true conservatism” with approving some form of sexual assault, whether subtle like hiring discrimination, blatant like “grabbing them by the (privates),” or extreme, like drugging and having sex with them while they are unconscious.
It is no wonder that GoeB calls me a “fake conservative” for labeling sexual assault as exactly what it is.
Thank you FAKE CONSERVATIVE for making another LIBERAL argument, time and time again. You FOOL NO ONE …
“As I said above, straight white males constitute about 27% of the American employment pool, not counting non-residents who might apply. They are overrepresented something like three-fold in the ranks of those who are actually employed in better jobs.”
Over overrepresented? Says who FAKE CONSERVATIVE?
“That is the problem that Cook is addressing.”
Problem? Says who FAKE CONSERVATIVE?
“Underrepresented groups represent nearly three-quarters of the population, and their talents are not being fully utilized.”
Please provide data statistics to back up your specious percentage accusations.
“Making a deliberate effort to hire women and minorities only seems strange to those who lack the imagination to visualize a workforce that looks like America.”
I have no problem with a workforce that reflects the DIVERSITY of America.
I do have a problem with FAKE CONSERVATIVES like yourself that advocate social engineering and ignore REALITY.
You simply HIRE the best! All sexes, races and sexual orientation applicants are welcome. You do not impose quotas based on census data.
But of course, only a Libtard like yourself who hides behind a FAKE CONSERVATIVE label would advocate as such.
You FOOL NO ONE …
How about hiring the brightest no matter what their gender or race or ethnicity is.
Anen^2
Sorry typo………..Amen ^2
Race nor religion have anything to do with talent or whether a tech company that produce tech items will affect sales or industry leadership. Just ask that Syrian refugee who fathered Steve Jobs.
Amen^2
..and promptly abandoned him.
Moron… companies should be allowed to hire whomever they want. Stupid companies will hire quotas, colors, genders, sizes and shapes.
Smart companies will – shocker coming – hire the most qualified people, and look no further, period.
Love sees no color, so should companies.
Amen^2
You’re missing the point. Companies ARE allowed to hire whomever they think is the most qualified. The problem is that white men typically think other white men are the most qualified (especially in instances of similarly qualified people – they tend to choose people who look like them). Diversity helps foster innovation and diverse thought, which leads to better products, processes, etc. Also, quotas are illegal, but don’t let that stop you from making white men feel like victims of non-existent ‘reverse racism’.
This is so racist I don’t know where to start – and not true at boot.
And, if white men are racist, and only hire white men, let companies do that and fail – because they will not get the best and brightest…
Oh, and never mind white men carry more degrees than any other group… that would never have anything to do with it, right?
Ugh…
Don’t like something? Start your own business – it is still – mostly – America!
A bit defensive, huh? And how was what I said racist? It is true, whether or not you want to believe it (that’s the beauty of facts!) – people tend to hire those who look like them, and white men are typically in positions to influence hiring – its a circular problem. They don’t ‘only hire white men’ and I never said that.
Part of the hiring process especially if they have to work in teams is compatibility or at least the personality that is comfortable working in one. The potential hire could be a genius at his job but if the position is not solitary he/she would be a worse choice than one that can work in a team though skills are lower.
Internal strife as we observe wastes a lot of potential, and not in just a single employee. For lack of a better idiom, don’t add a bad apple to the barrel.
The tendency to hire more ‘like’ employees (white hiring white, etc.) is probably due to this idea overriding having the best tech skilled employee.
Exactly, Martin.
As I said above, straight white males constitute about 27% of the American employment pool, not counting non-residents who might apply. They are overrepresented something like three-fold in the ranks of those who are actually employed in better jobs. That is the problem that Cook is addressing. The underrepresented groups represent nearly three-quarters of the population, and their talents are not being fully utilized.
It is hard to explain that if companies (and the society that created them) really saw no colors.
This is a waste of human resources that an Apple executive should quite properly be addressing. Making a deliberate effort to hire women and minorities only seems strange to those who lack the imagination to visualize a workforce that looks like America.
Some historians have gone further, making the case that countries in the Middle East have lagged the West in economic development since 1500 because of their fundamentalist subjugation of women, which effectively reduced their workforce by 50%.
Not just historians, but one quite successful general who made history:
“To me it seems certain that the fatalistic teachings of Muhammad and the utter degradation of women is the outstanding cause for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700..”
– George Patton
George C. Scott played Patton in the movie of the same nme and won an academy award, but refused that honour. I thought he was absolutely riveting in the role when I saw the movie years later so it made sense for him to win the award, but I always wondered why he turned it down.. it wasn’t political, my mother explained, but his way of keeping his own ego in check.. I had never heard of a man trying, or caring, to keep his own ego in check and didn’t believe her. But eventually I grew up and discovered such men did exist. Mostly in monasteries, but they do exist.
Great Jerry Goldsmith score in that film…however, my favorite George C. Scott role was Bert Gordon in “The Hustler.”
Fast Eddie: So you figure you’re still my manager, huh?
Bert Gordon: I’m a business-man, kid.
How about “The U.S. will lose its leadership in technology unless more school children actually learn math and science instead of dumbing down the tests so no one feels bad when everyone gets D’s.
Amen^2
Ok. Tim. I hear ya. The truth is it’s not the sex or gender of the engineers that matter, but the number of engineers. So how about Apple fund a 1 billion dollar scholarship program that is blind to race, creed, sex, etc., and only looks at grades and accomplishments.
Hey what happened? Why isn’t MDN running a story on the horrible jobs numbers for March where we only added about HALF the jobs projected.
Tim Cook is a typical Lib.
As for “horrible jobs numbers,” you’re as confused as Tim Cook:
The number of employed Americans increased 472,000 to 153,000,000 in March, setting a second straight monthly record; and the number of unemployed persons dropped by 326,000 to 7.2 million.
That brought the nation’s unemployment rate down two-tenths of a point to 4.5 percent.
Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs. Don’t worry neither is anyone else. But Apple seems to have learned very little form him.
Trump as not done a damn thing to help this economy. That’s the job of congress. The GOP congress in turn has done nothing to help this economy other then healthcare head fake they tried to pass off that was nothing more than a massive tax give away to the wealthy & corporations & gutting of Medicaid.
You’re as confused as the typical repub. Your ‘news’ source is CNS (ha!), which uses a metric that no one else does (and it’s not clear where it even came from). God damn. Nice try.
Job Growth Loses Steam as U.S. Adds 98,000 in March …Jobs report shocker http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/07/jobs-report-shocker-dashes-hope-for-better-growth.html US created only 98,000 jobs in March, vs 180,000 expected http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/07/march-nonfarm-payrolls.html
The jobs numbers released today were quite disappointing. Apparently financial markets agree and everyone except you and CNS seem to understand facts without some BS spin ladled on top
CNS News? hahahahahahaha
You’re still all butthurt over HRC losing, aren’t you?
Tim Cook, Steve’s biggest mistake
100% correct. Hey Tim, shut up and run your phone company you dumb ass.
«not moving fast enough on issues like equal rights and diversity»
How does this stuff relate to “leadership in technology”?
That might be because we have people in leadership positions, rather than robots. Training, recruiting, and hiring the best applicants regardless of whether they “fit in” to a largely white male work milieu might have EVERYTHING to do with leadership in technology.
Tim is proving to the world that homosexuals make the stupidest CEOs. He must get up everyday and ask himself, “what can i say to show the world how dumb Steve Jobs was to hire me? But then, Steve was a heterosexual man, so who would expect anything from him?”
kent: you’re a kunt.
your comments says it all. i don’t even think you know anything about what you speak of.
Pretty fuqed up Kent. Come out of the closet and give up the self hating closet gay thing. It’s pretty obvious you are hanging on by one RCH.
Weird that the US was the world’s economic powerhouse for 50 years with even less female representation than today. It’s almost like the two things have nothing to do with each other.
Female representation in the workforce as a total was high back then, it was just not in higher positions. They did a lot of work in textiles and were the first ‘computers’ when the term referred to humans that performed calculations as their main job.
Morgan,
All we have to do to repeat that is arrange for a world war to devastate every other industrial country in the world while leaving the United States with enormous undamaged industrial capacity (and matching workforce) that could be converted to peacetime manufacturing.
Yeah, weird that people know history without comprehending its lessons.
Diversity for the sake of diversity is stupid! How about hiring qualified applicants regardless of what they look like and put out some updated products.
Better yet, hire qualified applicants that are able to work together regardless of what they look like even if their individual skills are slightly less than a better skilled candidate that is unable to work well with others.
That’s what we’ve been asking for all along, but management hasn’t managed to do it without putting some new rules into place to regulate the hiring you’re talking about, because without guidelines they can’t help themselves; they’ll be regulated by their natural, unconscious biases, which leads to hiring less qualified, but more amenable applicants. Human nature is what it is, and it operates against corporate interests.
like I wrote elsewhere:
Steve Jobs Laser Focus. Jobs didn’t want Apple to do too much social work or charities (although he did it privately with his wife), under him Apple only matched staffers contributions. That is so that managers did not have to THINK about what charities to contribute too, he only wanted laser focus on PRODUCTS.
Jobs did not even want to celebrate Apple’s 30th anniversary when staffers suggested a big bash with celebrities. He gave a short one line note dismissing it.
People have argued with me that T.C might not spend a lot of time on social work but see… Jobs and SVPs didn’t have to spend much time on the 30th celebration’s organization either, flunkies could have set it up, but he knew IT WOULD SEND THE WRONG MESSAGE to everyone working at Apple. To him Apple Apple had to laser focus on PRODUCTS and the future.
(Today we got SVPs making furniture, Christmas trees, Coffee Table books, Apple sponsoring fashion shows like the Met Gala (where Apple products are NOT front and centre) , constantly making speeches at NON TECH events , parties, and spend millions on weird stuff like Planet of the Apps etc etc )
What is Tim Cook suggesting to his 100,000 staffers after Apple’s VERY unusual mea culpa on Macs and SVP’s saying they will try harder .. he doesn’t attend but goes out and gives speeches on ‘social’. If I was a staffer my impression is that to the boss Macs aren’t that important but social work is. My focus if I was a ‘management climber’ would be to focus on Social and not so much on stuff like the Apple TV remote…
So the thing is .. IS Apple firing on cylinders today with shift and just product laser focus… On my side of ‘No’ I give you besides the Apple TV REMOTE there is also the desktop Mac line, the LG monitor, the months for the simple Wifi to be solved, the destruction of Apple’s presence in Education, the lagging in Cloud, Siri home integration, etc. Even revenues have been sagging (after continuous growth under Jobs), last quarter after several quarters it was up but due to the extra week in the quarter’s accounting…
Lotta complaining here from folks that make less money with less successful companies than Tim Cook and Apple.
Obviously the way to make a lot of money is to be a staunch Social Justice Warrior? All the big companies are doing it. Get with the program and get paid!
note that 90+% of all revenues of Apple today are made by Products created by Steve Jobs.
T.C after years has come up two new hardware platforms the Watch and Airpods (both iPhone ACCESSORIES) . the Watch and Airpods are good but Macs made almost twice the revenues of Watch, Apple TV, iPods, Airpods, Beats and accessories COMBINED (the ‘other products’ category in Apple’s financials).
Tim cook has a tough job and is doing well in some respects but we can’t ignore the above.
Also Apple’s financials have stalled. It was only up last quarter due to the extra week in the quarter.
Completely wrong regarding last quarters financials. Comparative analysis for equal time periods still reflected record numbers. Analysts projections which were blown out were based on the extra week being included. You may have a good point regarding product development under Cook, but with respect to the financials you have no idea what you are saying. Next time stick to the pot and don’t take a meaningless potshot the isn’t backed up by the facts.
“. Next time stick to the pot and don’t take a meaningless potshot the isn’t backed up by the facts.”
why people call me names when you don’t know what you are talking about?
eh?
Last quarter : Q4 2016 EPS weekly results EPS/14 = $3.36/14 = $0.24 per week.
year before: Q4 2015 EPS weekly results EPS/13 = $3.28/13 = $0.252 per week.
GET THAT? last quarter results 0.24 per week, quarter year before 0.25 per week. It went DOWN.
Market watch Feb 2017:
“Measured on a per-week basis, Apple’s revenue, iPhone sales, and EPS were all down on a year-over-year basis. In other words, without the extra week, Apple would likely have posted declines rather than increases for all three key metrics. ”
comparison numbers by Thomas Kee:
“In the fourth quarter of 2015 (what the company calls its fiscal first quarter), there were 13 weeks in which revenue and earnings were generated, one less than in the most recently reported period. See this table and this story.
On a prorated basis, Apple would have needed to report earnings per share of about $3.53, higher than its reported EPS of $3.38 a share, to account for the extra week of business. (Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected $3.22.) Likewise, revenue would have to have come in at about $81 billion versus the reported $78.4 billion, which was a meager 3% increase anyway.”
“Conclusion: Apple did not grow in Q4 2016 versus Q4 2015. In fact, the rate contracted.
The only reason it seems as if Apple grew is that there was an extra week added to Q4 2016 results that was not there in Q4 2015. So the company had 7.6% more time to add to revenue and EPS, but instead the net result was a weekly run rate contraction of 4.11% and 4.76%, respectively.”
Please Note the Above I’m only pasting the articles the Q4 2016 mentioned in the quotes is actually Apple’s Q1 2017 as stated in the text ““In the fourth quarter of 2015 (what the company calls its fiscal first quarter),”.
——–
the only thing that pushes the numbers back into T.C’s favour (a gain last quarter) is that the year before there was large half billion earned for one time patent infringement suit and some issues with channel inventory (which makes year to year comparison’s hard. ).
On the other had Samsung’s self destruction over the burning phone might have aided iPhone (70% of Apple’s revenue) a lot in the last quarter which is also probably a one time gain like the patent suit.
so to me the two one time events cancel each other.
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I’m an aapl investor, I want Apple to succeed and it’s great that people think apple had a great quarter and the stock is up but I’m only quoting the facts.
Fire Tim Cook!
Replace him with Angela Ahrendts!
Bring back Scott …
Yes I’d go with Scott over Angela, even though she has CEO experience and Scott doesn’t, because Scott more closely resembles the brilliant, tempestuous, charismatic tyrant we had in Steve Jobs, and we need that chemical combination to blow the doors off this heaving, sighing, labouring conveyance we call Apple, and get back to the future.
Why did Tim Cook think it was necessary to say what he did now? Was it to try to stir away from the real issues at Apple? Tim, let me help you. Hire the best. Be blind to race, gender, sexual preference and ethnic origin. Have an environment where these people can grow. Develop world class products for your customers for without them you have no company at all. Talk less, produce and lead more.
Tim the idiot is at it again. He’s on social crusade high horse under Apple umbrella. Why doesn’t he do that on a personal basis and try to run Apple like, or somewhat like Steve did. Maybe, just maybe we would see some new and innovative products and regular updates to current products. Steve is trembling in his grave right now because of the way Timmy is running this company. I used to not like Apple products but have switched over in the last few years. Watching the molasses like pace of upgrades, especially to computers makes me want to go back to Windoze or better yet Linux. Run this company right and quit using it as a platform for your stupid crusades Tim.
Cook should follow through on his own idea. Add coding centers in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Memphis. Staff each with a mix of 100 relocated Apple employees and 100 new hires. Solve his diversity problem while creating local incubators that would spread the wealth beyond privileged Bay area. Each satellite office could be round, so staff there could be iHoles as well.
I did notice some good looking young Chinese babes when I visited the Apple campus 2 years ago. Guess the couldn’t find many qualified US females. STEM is the interests or strong suits of a minority of females in the US school system.
Maybe it’s because we tend to be so nurturing and caring that we major in Nursing and Social Work and don’t fall for the male game of Proving You Wrong. But women are not all the same. A few of us like to work on weapon systems, video games, and telescope arrays, and are kick-ass in roller derby and baseball. Just saying. Beware peddling the stereotype that gets your jaw broken.
Tim really should stop his social justice crusade and really focus on making good Apple products. They have not release new iMacs, Pro Macs, and the MacBooks are a fiasco.
Did he forget he runs a technology company?
Yes, Cook needs to get his priorities STRAIGHT!
Activism and fashion bling do absolutely nothing for my profession. I need a Mac Pro that is state of the art. While looks are nice — power, performance and expandability is more important.
Waiting until 2018 is unacceptable. With all the resources at Apple: money, advanced office space infrastructure, talented designers and engineers, supply chain contracts — this should take weeks or a few months, at most. If not, hit the trail Tim …