At some point during its attempt to recruit her, Apple arranged a meeting between CEO, Tim Cook, and the then Burberry CEO, Ahrendts:
“I’ll never forget the first meeting with him because he is such a man of peace,” she said. “And I remember leaving him saying, ‘How do you do this? How do you run something so Titanic but yet he’s so centred?’”
“I had tremendous admiration for that after the first meeting.”
A year later, Cook convinced her to join Apple when he mentioned watching her TED talk on Energy. “You know, you’re meant to be here,” he said.
MacDailyNews Take: We’ve heard about the TED talk connection before, but it seems very interesting that Ahrendts has so much faith in Apple’s controversial CEO, Tim Cook…
I really like Tim…. he IS a good man !
Yes, most excellent good man of peace.
That said, BEANCOUNTER CEO and products illiterate CEO.
Scott Forstall for CEO…
Centered. Is that a compliment or an interior design term randomly dropped from someone who is still faking it? Does it mean decisive? Clearly no, this is Cookie she’s referring to. I think she meant to say bland tasteless and clueless.
It’s easy to remain inoffensive/centered as the Titanic goes down. You meander over to the ballroom and listen intently as the band plays, convicting yourself that everything is just great because the entertainment division is still operating … Ignore everything else. Keep cashing in the easy money from app sales your predecessor gave you.
In between social justice speeches, be sure to remind legacy Mac users through sheer neglect that Apple doesn’t want to do the hard work of providing solid support for hardcore computing users. Don’t delight them with continuous innovation or empower them with control over their own workflow, data, and security. Push ads trying to convince everyone that they must rent their software and media and cloud storage, all on tiny screens. Put First Mate Eddy Cue in charge of the future focus: subscription media and disposable portable junk. when you get called out on it, wait 6 years and then roll out an over designed monolith that costs the same as a good condition used Honda. Instead of ensuring Navigator Ive is penning a solid future roadmap, you let him go AWOL playing with silver art books and other extracurricular activities. The vast majority of the crew has no concrete strategy to follow and are actually working at cross purposes much of the time.
Hey, we’re Apple. we don’t need no lifeboats. we happily let legacy stuff that just works rot and die. Only Apple has the “courage” to ignore user requests and pump up prices on hardware with features removed each generation. We give $75 million signup bonuses to blonde bimbos to rearrange the jewelry shoppe on the main deck. We shove the antique Macs to the back room behind the white plastic Lightning adapters and overpriced iOS accessories. Be sure to get your disposable portables while the iPhone platform goes adrift under a mess of bad hardware choices and in-app purchase games. Pretend that the 8% market share for personal computers is good, and ignore how the the Mac platform is slowly dying from scatterbrained hardware and lack of user friendly power applications (Aperture!?!?) that just work.
Apple will instead steam straight ahead with its plan to rent audio and video, while Youtube and Netflix have already negotiated through the icebergs. How nice that airhead Ahrendts was kind enough to thank inept Cook for handing her a winning lottery ticket in exchange for nothing. If you want to talk to a Genius, take a number.
These are exactly the type of comments I would pay to have spammed. Bloviating, overlong loser drivel.
Ahoy!, Ahrendts sucks. You must be exhausted after that post of yours. If you haven’t already, sounds like it’s time for you to jump ship.
It’s pretty hard to disagree with “Ahrendts Sucks” last two paragraphs. They shout out the frustrations of many long term Apple customers—37 years in my own case. They should be placed on Tim’s desk some Sunday night so he can discover them early on a Monday morning and let them sink in as he starts a fresh week and he can be shocked at how he is perceived by many of us who have stayed with Apple for decades in hopes of renewed innovation and disruptions like we saw in the early days.
“has so much faith in Apple’s controversial CEO, Tim Cook”
I don’t think Cook is controversial except in the eye’s of a few whiners and trolls. Please do list a mere THREE tech CEOs who are better.
Since you asked:
Lars Rebien Sørensen
John Chambers
Pablo Isla
Stephen Luzco
Jon Fredrik Baksaas
George Scangos
Fujio Mitarai
Alexander Cutler
Jen-Hsun Huang
Mark Benioff
Martin Bouyues
Jacques Aschenbrioch
Let me guess, you’ve heard of perhaps one or two of these acclaimed leaders because your Apple blinders are on so tight…..
2018 Lars Rebien Sørensen Novo Holdings made a profit of around 1.6 billion USD
Apple made US $60 billion.
It’s like a guy running 1 restaurant vs a guy (Tim Cook) running 40.
Well by that logic whoever inherits the biggest company is automatically the best ceo ever.
Does that make sense to you?
Here’s what I found on Jon Fredrik Baksaas in Wikipedia: he had acted as one of the primary actors in a bribery and corruption scandal at VimpelCom (where he was a director), in connection with the purchase of wireless licenses in Uzbekistan.
Imagine if he were to become Apple CEO, the stock would tank.
As for Benioff, do you really want a SALES guy running Apple? Really!!!??
I’ll take whining and trolling over stupid blind fanboys defensive posts everyday of the week.
To answer your CEO question, there can be ONLY ONE — the Time Magazine reported heir apparent to Jobs — who has more tech design credentials in his toenail clippings than Clueless Cook.
Drum roll please, the ESTEEMED lieutenant to Steve Jobs and one of a kind master talents, Maestro Scott Forstall…
As well she should.
Hopefully the haters will shout up about this comment.
In 83 as the Byte Shop was gaining success we realized that we had to go from being a hobbiest computer store to a professional retail chain. When I say hobbiest, I mean nerds and geeks selling computers from a store with circuit boards, small parts, empty S-100 card cages and all the trappings of that kind of environment. The Seattle store had $165 million in sales and were #6 on Infoworlds top retailers nation wide. Even before the Computerland chain in San Diego.
I was the store manager at the time and we were all nerds. We loved what we were doing but we were the ‘product guys’ . At that time I started helping Lou with requirements for moving to a new location. Lou was like Cook. They guy that ‘managed’ the company but wasn’t a product guy.
We realized that in order to move forward, we needed to find a manager for the store to let us product guys focus on things like sales and training. and support.
One day Dave, who was an assistant manager came in with a resume from Jane. His idea was for her to take an HP-85 on the bus to downtown Seattle and go from company to company to try to sell them. Nobody ever bought the HP-85s so it was a way to move them.
I said no Dave. She could very well be the ‘operations’ person we need so we could be the ‘product’ people and focus on expanding our market.
We hired her. She eventually became manager before we moved into our new location going from being a computer hobby store to a professional sales organization. She is what we needed at the time. It didn’t limit us product people. We ended up on INC 500 fastest growing companies in the next year.
We product people depended on the operations people and as long as they listened, it worked out.
Cook is the same way. At some point, the product people need someone in ‘operations’ that lets them succeed. Conversely, the ‘operations’ people need to develop the ‘product’ people.
Has Cook done that. A trillion dollar company says he is at least managing it. Will it be that way in the future. I give Cook the benefit of the doubt.
I also think Ahrendts was a huge mistake.
Being a man of peace might be nice for certain positions like a monk or chaplain, but I think it makes a tech company CEO just appear weak to investors. I’d think investors would want someone who’s quick to throw punches and doesn’t take any crap from competing companies. Wall Street sees Tim Cook as nothing but a cream-puff of a CEO which I think is a huge drawback for Apple. No one respects a cream-puff CEO. Everyone was scared of Steve Jobs while I doubt anyone is scared of Tim Cook.
Most of the great conquerors of history were not men of peace and they managed to take over the world. I think that’s the type of person you want running a company. Men who are winners. I’m just looking at this in an abstract way and I may be completely wrong about running a successful business by way of completely eliminating the competition. It’s just that Wall Street endlessly praises Jeff Bezos for destroying any company he goes up against. I would consider Jeff Bezos a conqueror and not a man of peace. Meanwhile, Tim Cook lets every little company kick Apple’s ass.
There’s a problem with the perception of Apple and that is caused by two things:
1) Steve Jobs
2) The iPhone.
Many people have criticized Apple (I just saw the CNBC talking heads a week ago say it) that Apple “hasn’t had a success since the iPhone”.
Problem with that idea is that the iPhone is the most successful product in history. No single product in the world today is as successful as the iPhone.
The CNBC talking heads discounted the AirPods, the Apple Watch etc because they said that they didn’t compare with iPhone. But if you think like that NO company in the world has had a successful product since the iPhone since the ALL make less than iPhone. We can forget new Boeing aircraft for example, or new Mercedes cars etc because none of them is going to make as much as iPhone…
In revenue the iPhone makes more than Microsoft !
The Apple Watch by itself makes more money probably than several entire Swiss watch companies put together but CNBC etc considers it a ‘failure’ because they compare it iPhone. The Mac by itself is near a Fortune 100 i.e it was a company by itself it would be near a top 100 U.S corp (bigger than tens of thousands of other companies) yet most people think it’s ‘on life support’ and ‘should be cancelled’ !
So you see, the perception of ‘Apple failure’ when people compare it to iPhone.
As for Tim Cook similarly, we’re comparing him with the greatest tech innovator of the age, Steve Jobs.
Tim Cook can be replaced. I think some suffer from Cook Stockholm Syndrome. Also the phenomenon to stay with the known quantity you know than risk it with the one you don’t.
If Cook is not directly involved in the design and care and feeding of Apple devices, nor running the supply chain, nor dreaming up visionary possibilities just what is he giving Apple that’s anywhere near as special as what Steve Jobs delivered in that job? And in Apple’s case is particularly demanded of the job?
Cook’s unassertiveness and modest talents as CEO such as they are are simply NOT a feather in Apple’s cap nor are they irreplaceable. In fact he’s more run-of-the-mill as a leader. We don’t need someone who will equal Tim’s ability but someone who greatly exceeds it.
Good luck finding the next Jobs, or Einstein or Newton wandering the street. They are more than likely creating the next revolution rather than trying to live up to the last.
Jobs in the same sentence with Einstein and Newton. I admire the guy too but I think this is a bit overboard.
There are plenty of creative people out there who know you have to use a product to determine if it is ready to ship.
I’m sure you understand he intent of my post. So jobs was just a product tester? I’m not sure what you mean about the “ready to ship” reference.
No. I agree completely with you about Jobs, just not so much about Cook. Let me make this clear… Cook has skills that I cannot begin to comprehend, but they are still not what Apple is missing.
Compare “Man of Peace” to Wynton Marsalis’s description of Jobs…
Statement from Wynton Marsalis, jazz musician
“Steve Jobs was a man of absolute integrity. He pursued the deepest truths in his imagination with unabashed passion, uncompromising singularity of purpose, and unyielding urgency. Apple’s tenacious actualization of his transformative and lofty vision of integration brings us closer together. He was a force of nature.”
When I reach as deeply as I can and search for what I see whenever I see Tim Cook, the word “disingenuous” comes to mind. There is never a sense of passion, never even a sense that he knows what he is talking about. I’m sure he truly is a man of peace, particularly when compared to the “volcano” that Jobs was. Jobs knew what he wanted and it’s pretty obvious Tim leaves that up to everyone else. All that techno stuff. Tim is well liked. That’s usually a bad sign. Put it this way, men of peace don’t usually swing the hammer that dents the universe.
My choice of Gandhi was poor. He was a master of passive resistance warfare. I believe he was a student of Sun Tzu.
No social change happens without the threat of or actual violence. Gandhi understood that even though he practiced peace an non violence.
Again. Try to think different.
Meh…
Wow. I just don’t know what to say if this is supposed to prove some point. What ever that point may be.
One thing I do know and this was our motto as we ‘thought different”. “You can tell the pioneers by the arrows in their backs”
Pioneers didn’t say ‘meh’.
By the way.
I’m literally the guy packing an Apple II, monitor and drives into my car to visit teachers, school, school boards to tell them that that was the way to approach the coming Information Age. Not to be looking to be doing drill and practice but to use that remarkable tool to open their minds.
If you don’t see the value of that teachers words… then ‘meh’.
Replacing Tim Cook will end up being far easier than you and many others think. It’s inevitable in any case as was proved when Steve Jobs didn’t live forever either.
No good luck required. Talented leaders are out there. No one thought SJ could lead either.
CitizenX,
I don’t often agree with your postings but you’ve won me over today on this subject and I have a new-found respect for you. It’s good to know some of your history and insights—impressive, thanks.
We live in interesting times.
Wow, “a man of peace”. That’s got to be one of the most unpatriotic things to call Tim Cook considering what country he’s from.
Is a criminal record still required for entry into Australia?
¿ʇɥbıɹ ‘noʎ oʇ ןɐɯɹou sʞooן sıɥʇ
Only for people who can’t look it up on Google or DuckDuck go, and for those of course who can’t stay on topic. What Australia has to do with the topic at hand is beyond me but hey, it’s a pretty good indication of what country you are from.
A libtard RELENTLESSLY ATTACKING the greatest country of the world.
Must suck to be you and only play one note.
You need serious SHRINK HELP for your misguided OBSESSION…
Tim Cook is not the America you allude to. As a matter of fact, you can see that in many of the comments on MDN from the real ‘mericans’.
Man of Peace. Apple doesn’t freaking need Gandhi..
I seem to remember Gandhi in the “Think Different” commercial. Oh wait. I do know he was in it.
If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand Apple.
I forgot to say ‘BAM’!
Perhaps you need a reminder.
Let me ask you something. Why do you think Jobs took up calligraphy?
Cook doesn’t even know what calligraphy is. He was dumb enough to let the idiots of Cupertino lock down both ios and macOS fonts to their one boring sans serif. Why would any creative company do that????????
Apple isn’t a “creative” company. They make tools for the rest of us to be creative.
There was a reason #2 pencils were yellow. The purpose was to write. Not satisfy your need to have a thousand different color choices.
Rather want to have a 1000 different color choices.
Road Warrior is just another jealous hater. “Forget about it!”
“Road Warrior is just another jealous hater.“
Amen.
Always has been, always will…
Meh.
I think the phrase is BOOM!