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Bloomberg Story Breaks Down Apple's Unrivaled Success Under Tim Cook's Leadership

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Bloomberg has published an in-depth piece by journalists Austin Carr and Mark Gurman about the rise of Apple under Tim Cook's leadership, covering several attributes of the CEO that took over from Steve Jobs, including his diplomatic acumen, operational prowess, eye for detail, and manifest success in making Apple one of the biggest companies in the history of modern business.

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The story touches on a number of topics in the recent history of Apple's meteoric rise under Cook's leadership, including the political sensitivities of outsourcing production to China, Cook's relationship with current and former U.S. presidents, his cost-conscious approach to new products, and the strategic difficulties of managing Apple's product diversification in a global-spanning supply chain.

Other highlights include:

  • Steve Jobs' blunt response when President Obama asked him why Apple couldn't make the iPhone in the U.S.
  • ‌Tim Cook‌'s unrelenting work ethic.
  • Cook's unlikely friendship with President Trump, and Apple's silence in the face of falsehoods propagated by the former president about Apple production coming back to the U.S.
  • Supply chain managers' alarm upon seeing the initial design of the 2013 "trashcan" Mac Pro.
  • Internal pressure at Apple to decouple from China over censorship, human-rights violations, and criticism about labor conditions at mainland factories.
  • Apple's continued success in the face of the global health crisis.

  • Apple's fightback against claims of the company's "monopoly power" and its ongoing feud with big name software developers and social media platforms like Spotify, Epic Games, and Facebook.

For all the details, be sure to check out the full long read over on Bloomberg.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tags: Bloomberg, Tim Cook

Top Rated Comments

djcerla Avatar
djcerla
67 months ago
Most Apple’s “failures” according to MR dudes are the hits other companies would kill for.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dwaltwhit Avatar
dwaltwhit
67 months ago
It baffles me to watch people argue the successes of the most profitable company in the world. Apple makes a bazillion dollars a year and people are talking about butterfly keyboards and a mac pro from 8 years ago.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
T
threesixty360
67 months ago

On there other hand, Apple lost the A.I. race (to Amazon and Google). The lost the cloud race (to Amazon and Microsoft). They lost music to Spotify. They lost video to streaming above all to Netflix but also to Amazon. They lost home/virtual assistant to Amazon and Google.

It's interesting that you use the word "lost". Like its a negative. I think if you look at Jobs' philosophy its always about focus. What you say "no" to is more important than what you say yes to.

The reason Apple versions of those services exist is to support the sale of Apple hardware mostly. The reason AWS/Spotify etc.. is to make money by being as globally dominant as possible. Very different things.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
S
svanstrom
67 months ago

Second rule: blame everything on China.
Sometimes the thing getting blamed a lot deserves it (and more).
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Abazigal Avatar
Abazigal
67 months ago
I have on numerous occasions in the past opined that different people are needed at different points in a company history.

It’s taken 10 long years to prove it, but it’s clear that Steve Jobs made the right move in handing the reins of Apple over to Tim Cook, who in reality was already overseeing most of a CEO’s traditional duties even when Steve Jobs was still around anyways.

Jobs was right for his era, but he would have been a disaster for the Cook era. Cook is amazing, and has been responsible for most of the achievements of Apple, though not the initial innovation and concept that Jobs provided. Cook has refined the culture and expanded it, and has done as fine a job as any CEO in American history, if not world business history.

He's Eisenhower, not Churchill.

And Apple is better off for it.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Tozovac Avatar
Tozovac
67 months ago
Simpler answer: It’s all about the product, regardless of whoever’s in the corner (or round) office, and here the product(s) are still better than Windows & Android to enough people, despite awful decisions under his leadership: butterfly keyboard, the war on ports/thin-ness, design decisions to be different seemingly mostly just to be different, etc.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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