Apple CEO Cook on President Trump, Steve Jobs’ legacy, and more

104 Comments

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple Inc., was interviewed in San Jose, California, on June 5 by Bloomberg Businessweek Editor Megan Murphy. Following are excerpts from their discussion, which appear in the June 19, 2017, edition of the magazine.

Murphy: You’ve talked about Steve Jobs and how you revere him. How much time do you spend thinking about what people will say about your legacy at Apple?

Cook: Steve’s DNA will always be the base for Apple. It’s the case now. I want it to be the case in 50 years, whoever’s the CEO. I want it to be the case in 100 years, whoever’s CEO. Because that is what this company is about. His ethos should drive that — the attention to detail, the care, the ­simplicity, the focus on the user and the user experience, the focus on building the best, the focus that good isn’t good enough, that it has to be great, or in his words, “insanely great,” that we should own the proprietary technology that we work with because that’s the only way you can control your future and control your quality and user experience. And you should have the courage to walk away and be honest with yourself when you do something wrong, that you shouldn’t be so married to your position and your pride that you can’t say, “I’m changing directions.” These kind of things, these guardrails, should be the basis for Apple a century from now. It’s like the Constitution, which is the guide for the United States. It should not change. We should revere it.

In essence, these principles that Steve learned over many years are the basis for Apple. It doesn’t mean the company hasn’t changed. The company’s going to change. It’s going to go into different product areas. It’s going to learn and adjust. Many things have changed in the company, even in the last six to seven years. But our “Constitution” shouldn’t change. It should remain the same. I think of it as a North Star. It’s always important to have that in mind as you make decisions. It ­actually makes decision-making much simpler.

Murphy: What’s been your experience of working with Donald Trump?

Cook: I feel a great responsibility as an American, as a CEO, to try to influence things in areas where we have a level of expertise. I’ve pushed hard on immigration. We clearly have a very different view on things in that area. I’ve pushed on climate. We have a different view there. There are clearly areas where we’re not nearly on the same page.

We’re dramatically different. I hope there’s some areas where we’re not. His focus on jobs is good. So we’ll see. Pulling out of the Paris climate accord was very disappointing. I felt a responsibility to do every single thing I could for it not to happen. I think it’s the wrong decision. If I see another opening on the Paris thing, I’m going to bring it up again.

At the end of the day, I’m not a person who’s going to walk away and say, “If you don’t do what I want, I leave.” I’m not on a council, so I don’t have those kind of decisions. But I care deeply about America. I want America to do well. America’s more important than bloody politics from my point of view.

Let me give you an example of this. Veterans Affairs has struggled in providing health care to veterans. We have an expertise in some of the things at the base level that they’re struggling with. So we’re going to work with them. I could give a crap about the politics of it. I want to help veterans. My dad’s a veteran. My brother served. We have so many military folks in Apple. These folks deserve great health care. So we’re going to keep helping.

Tons more — including Apple innovation, corporate taxes, the HomePod, augmented reality, Siri, Apple in the enterprise, and more — in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Keeping Steve Jobs are the company’s “North Star” is imperative.

SEE ALSO:
Made in America iPhones, after all? Apple supplier Foxconn considering iPhone plant in Wisconsin – June 15, 2017
President Trump’s offshore tax plan may mean extra perk for Apple – June 12, 2017
Apple CEO Cook, other tech CEOs to attend President Trump’s Jared Kushner-led summit – June 9, 2017
Apple CEO Cook slams President Trump’s decision to withdraw from climate deal; says it’s ‘wrong for our planet’ – June 1, 2017

104 Comments

  1. Not too much of a fan of Trump, so I’m concerned about how he will treat Cook, especially since he is a major homophobe. I think Steve Jobs would have been a better president than Trump. Even then, it’s still a silly comparison because it’s like comparing apples to oranges!

    Reply

        1. Because he agrees with Pence on most of the issues, not all. Newsflash: Nobody has 100% agreement on everything. Only an idiot would expect a candidate to be able to clone himself in order to pick a VP running mate.

      2. You post a single video to refute the idea he he is a homphobe, yet every action taken by him and his cabinet has been anti-lgbtq. I prefer to judge a politician by his actions rather than his words. Especially from their campaign.

        Reply

        5. Just wanted to let you know that it’s not just crickets in response to your query.

          I wouldn’t expect Breitbart to cover this, so I am not surprised you did n’t know they are lots of people… different from you, admittedly… but people who are frightened by Trump’s appointments.

        8. lol, yeah got into to it with fired contributing writer Ben Shapiro over Turd Cruz at beginning of campaign…now I let the Bush Crime Syndicate toady have it over on Daily Mail.

        11. Despite the homosexual obsession with gay sex, they still welcome the people that would murder them with open arms. Mike Pence isn’t going to shoot gays or toss them off buildings, your average Muhammad believes that should happen.

        12. Yes, please name one action taken by President Trump or any member of his cabinet to deny or denigrate the LGBT community.

          I’ll save you the trouble — NONE EXIST …

    2. I don’t think it’s exactly right to call him a “homophobe.”
      The problem with Trump is that he doesn’t care about anybody except what makes him feel good. If saying terrible things about a person or a group makes him feel good, he’ll do that. If saying nice things about a group wins him praise, he might do that, depending on whether he gets more praise for harming them.
      He’s thoroughly amoral. I don’t think he hates anybody. It’s just that he has no real empathy for other human beings.
      Terrifying to give a person like that so much power.

      Reply

      1. What Trump says at any given moment has nothing to do with what he “believes.” He doesn’t appear to actually believe anything, or have any principles, good or bad.
        He can say one thing today, and the complete opposite later today. He doesn’t see a contradiction, because it felt good when he said it, and the new (opposite) thing feels good when he says that.
        So, he neither supported gay rights in the past, nor truly believes gay people (or anyone else) shouldn’t have rights. He absolutely doesn’t care about them, either way. He will just say/do whatever he wants in any given moment. That could include policies that kill large numbers of people. He doesn’t care.

        Reply

      1. President Donald J. Trump has done more than Obama and Clinton at this point in their presidency to help Americans, including Democrats. I don’t understand irrational HATE …

        Reply

        1. If he ever runs for POTUS, I will gladly vote for him. He supports gay rights, open borders, and equality for all. Trump is racist, wants a wall on our southern border, has Mike “Disco Inferno” Pence, famous for his homophobia, and he hates Autistics like me. Only Cook can save America.

        2. President Donald J. Trump supports gay rights and equality for all. Just because you are uninformed of his policy positions on these issues does not translate into reality. You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts.

          You are correct, he does not support open borders the same position as the overwhelming majority of Americans. Building a wall is not racist, only Libtards hold this view. The wall in Israel is the gold standard of stemming the tide of unauthorized immigration and importing terrorism.

          “Only Cook can save America.”

          ROTFL. 😂 He can’t deliver ear pods and iMacs on launch date as well as iPhone order deliveries 6-8 weeks out. And he can’t deliver Pro Macs since 2013? All this with resources and profits no other company in history achieved.

          Time to take off the rose colored glasses and get REAL …

    2. f you botty…nobody has nor is ever likely to elect you anything…anything worthwhile anyway.
      Tim Cook however, has to face a yearly vote of confidence by shareholders and demanding investors over his leadership of the world’s biggest company.
      Whereas you….well you get to look in the mirror and bathe in self appointed reflected glory.
      What a nonce you are.

      Reply

      1. uh, I don’t think you know what that word means, dullard…

        nonce 1 |näns|
        adjective
        (of a word or expression) coined for or used on one occasion: a nonce usage.

        Reply

  3. I have only used Apple products and own Apple Stock.
    Why, does everything we read start with .. what do you think of the
    President? The media is toxic and it’s time to change what we are saying
    To the public. People will get hurt. It’s sad that our country is so toxic.

    Reply

      1. I simply disagreed with you until your last point.

        Now I know you’re delusional. 🙂 🙂 🙂

        (PLEASE note the smilies; this is not meant to be anything but light sarcasm, not an actual criticism.)

        Reply

        4. Herself: that is funny–I burbed on myself. But please, as an A-List dumpster diver myself, I find the association disagreeable. She’d get in, but never get out. Someone would have to deliver her Chardonnay, but Bill would have more fun.

        5. Now why would anyone take that deplorable racist over Clinton is a mystery to me. Clinton supports Black Lives Matter, Trump could care less about what happens in our inner cities. Trump is gonna set back civil rights by a few decades trust me on this.

  4. Regarding the “Paris Agreement,” you’d think that, as the CEO of the world’s most valuable company, Tim Cook would be able to perform a simple cost-benefit analysis.

    The Paris Agreement that Tim Cook and the rest of the SJW love(d) so much would have resulted in over $2.5 trillion in lost U.S. GDP by 2035. The agreement would have cost Americans an extra $30,000 per family of four (in higher energy prices) and some 400,000 lost jobs (200,000 in manufacturing alone).

    ‎Since Obama signed the non-binding Paris Agreement without congressional approval, American taxpayers – WHO WERE NOT REPRESENTED DUE TO OBAMA’S UNILATERAL MOVE; i.e. TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION – have forked over nearly $1 billion to a green energy slush fund that will be redistributed to most of the other 170 nations who have signed the pact.

    Even if the Paris Agreement were implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it would only produce a two-tenths of one degree Celsius reduction in global temperature by the year 2100.

    0.2 Celsius is not worth $2.5 trillion; $30,000 per family of four; 400,000 lost jobs.

    Reply

      1. Yes, most of his numbers are actually wrong. It is truly disappointing to see how easy it is to make up numbers and post as facts. Note: he didn’t make them up himself; he simply copy-pasted from one of the fake news sites.

        The disappointing part is that these numbers are so easily debunked with 60 seconds of googling; yet, people simply buy them without any effort to check.

        And that is, my friends, how fake news are made.

        Reply

      1. “Everything in the Paris accord is voluntary and without any penalty for failing to achieve it…”

        In other words: More liberal feel-good bullshit that accomplishes pretty much nothing at a huge cost.

        Like many of Obama’s crapfests, it was too fscking stupid for the President and the country to bear.

        Reply

        1. What, pray tell, was wrong with Obama’s administration that it warranted calling it a “crap fest”? He did more for black people than George Bush and Ronald Reagan in the 2000s and 1980s, when the crack epidemic was destroying the South Bronx. I know Donald Trump is going to cause more problems for the black community too. A man who was backed by the KKK deserves none of my respect.

        3. Not this again….. Nobody disputed what you said. There was a time when Democrats were more conservative than Republicans. And none of that is really relevant to what he is talking about today (find me one KKK member who is a democrat today).

        5. You are correct. Democrats have indeed, evolved.

          They have evolved into the NEW HATE.

          They have evolved into Political Correctness as the party religion.

          They have evolved into Democrat identity groups that only care about themselves and shun the other half of the electorate.

          They have evolved into government obstruction on every level and abandoned working for the PEOPLE …

        7. More stupid with each post is spot on. You shouldn’t talk about yourself that way. Stupid is as stupid does.

          No intelligent argument to my post. Not ONE WORD of disagreement to my post. Not at all surprised. Just your normal routine hit and run insults blast du jour. I count five insult blasts this morning.

          MDN, please suspend this STALKING conservative INSULT poster that never has anything constructive to say …

        11. I knew you were too smart to take Citizen Zero’s BRAINLESS BAIT.

          FYI: In a response to X-CON, I asked MDN to suspend his account, for a little while at least. This morning I count at least seven blithering blasts STALKING and in drive-by style INSULTING posters that don’t agree with left-wing views. This is not normal behavior and not the first time, either.

          You know as well as I do, you can’t reasonably and rationally argue with a FOOL …

        14. Apollonia. You would think a computer discussion site would be about that but for the past 8 years it’s been a racist fest because a Black Man dared be President and save them from the last right wing nut jobs horrible job. All the racist cartoons you would expect to see from tRumpanzees have been on here, over and over again.

          Now that they have a chance to undo what that Black Man did, they are having an continuous circle jerk.

          For some reason their lives were pathetic, living hells the last 9 years.

        16. See bot. Give you a dried cat turd and all you can do is play with it. focus child. Let it go. I took an alternate route to wisdom than you. Big deal. You and what is probably your fake phd. I knew your mind couldn’t handle more than one racist concept at a time.

        19. Typical Dem/Lib/Prog. You lie (when you’re not pretending to behead and/or actually shooting people you disagree with).

          As opposed to unsourced numbers from a infantile fool with thinks “tRump” is witty, here are actual numbers from a respected pollster:

          The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday, June 15, 2017 shows that 47% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-three percent (53%) disapprove.

        23. Rasmussen surveys 500 likely voters every night and reports those results on a three-day rolling average basis.

          LOL.. keep hope alive bot. you and your butt buddy tRump don’t have anything else going for you.

        24. Sure, you can call it “liberal feel-good bullshit” if you want, but the fact is that it was agreed to by every government on Earth but two prior to Trump’s action makes a liberal + conservative + socialist + communist + libertarian + every other political idealogy issue.

        26. You most certainly can have it both ways as the propositions are not mutually exclusive. The Paris Agreement is a perfect example of liberal feel-good bullshit that costs us trillions in return for nothing.

    3. Actually, Trump appeared, and sounded remarkably sane and level-headed on this one. He is not a crazy man. He said America would continue its effort to reduce emissions and so forth anyway, and the US is actually leading green technologies in many areas. What Trump is saying is that he does not believe that the US should be unduly bound by global restrictions imposed equally to everybody, “for now”. As usual, he is speaking his ind, not overly influenced by political misinformation. He cannot be bought, and not influenced by hysteria either.

      Reply

  5. …and stop telling us about how many countries have signed on as some kind of validation! As a wealth redistribution scheme, why wouldn’t all the poor countries want in? I’d have my hand out too…

    Reply

    1. Every country in the world has signed the Paris Agreement except for two, Nicaragua and Syria. America is withdrawing from that agreement. It’s nothing to do with rich or poor countries. Every other country on the planet except for America supports those aims.

      Nicaragua supports the aims of the Paris Agreement, but refused to sign because the agreement doesn’t punish those countries who don’t fulfil their obligations. However Nicaragua plans to use 90% renewable power by 2020.

      Syria wasn’t able to sign because of the ongoing civil war.

      Reply

  6. I hope Tim Cook whips up Donald Trump into shape. This fool is going to set back all the progress Obama has put in over the past 8 years. I noticed that race relations have started to fall as soon as this man started running for president. If Martin Luther was livin’, he would not let this be.

    Reply

      1. I know that, silly white boy. And yes, America would be a different place if MLK lived. I don’t know what your problem is, but if you talked like that in the South Bronx, you’d get a good smackdown. Typical Trump supporter.

        Reply

        2. Yeah, I’m no racist. I dealt with racism all my life, so I know how it feels. I tell it like it is. I keep it real. I’m not gonna let any sucka talk to me like that.

        4. It’s called Black Power. We our fighting back the oppressors who enslaved us for more than 500 years. It’s time we take what’s ours back! There is nothing racist about that. I don’t even know if it’s even possible for a white man to deal with racism. Have a blessed day.

        7. What party was the signer of the Emancipation Proclamation, racist? What party defended slavery by succession from the Union, racist? How many Americans died in that war, racist?

        8. Lincoln only did that because of his own interests. He just wanted to keep the US from splitting apart. He didn’t care about blacks. I can’t believe people still believe that myth. Get woke.

        11. Blacks unsatisfied with America should go back to Africa. Have fun. We’re tired of paying for you to play Xbox on 60-inch HDTVs. You outlived your usefulness decades ago and your culture here in America failed to overcome your inherent laziness and unending victimhood.

        13. You know NOTHING about the honorable President Lincoln. He freed the slaves and guided the country through the bitter aftermath of the civil war.

          The problem you have with Lincoln, I’m guessing, is he was a white male Republican. Sticks in your craw, no? Tell me again who is racist …

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