
How Apple Works - pmarin
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/howappleworks
======
insidepitch
It's amazing to me how so many people outside Apple think Jony Ive could be a
credible candidate for CEO, when no one inside Apple would believe that for a
second. The only product-focused executive who would even have had a chance is
Scott Forstall.

To the naive observer, Apple seems like a hardware company. But it is really a
software company monetized through hardware sales, just as Google is a
software company monetized through advertising. As Steve himself said,
differentiation through software is the key to all of Apple's products. Ive
doesn't have much experience, credibility or interest in this area.

On the other hand, Scott Forstall is the most powerful and credible software
executive at Apple. More specifically: the Human Interface team that does all
the HI design for iOS and Mac OS X reports to Forstall, not Ive. Ive isn't
even one of the executives present at executive HI reviews, whereas Forstall
is the one driving the decisions when SJ is not there. The HI team may get
less outside visibility than Industrial Design but they make a much bigger
difference to the experience of Apple products.

Furthermore, it's clear from watching company politics that Forstall has the
ambition to go to the top (as does Phil Schiller), and Ive just doesn't have
that kind of drive. Ive has the trust and affection of Steve for being an
artist, and that's the main reason he is on the executive team. He hasn't had
to fight for it like the other execs. Note for example that Eddy Cue (iTunes,
iCloud) and Craig Federighi (Mac OS X) still aren't on the executive team,
despite heading critical product lines and much bigger departments than ID.

~~~
richcollins
Ah so that is why the hardware is so much more aesthetically pleasing than the
software.

~~~
richcollins
Come on who in their right mind would claim that iTunes and iCal look as nice
as the iPhone 4?

------
irons
Steve Jobs wore a lot of hats (ruthless tastemaker and keynote impresario
among them) not because the CEO must hold these roles but because he happened
to be best at them. Arguing that they must be held by the guy with the
organizational power to fire anyone is daft.

No one person replaces Steve Jobs. Tim Cook and Jony Ive know it.

~~~
rockarage
Someone has to be CEO and for the long term is Tim Cook really the best person
for the job ? Steve Job is an irreplaceable part of Apple's lore, but that
does not stop Jony Ive from making his own major mark. He already has a rich
history of designing great products. To understand Aarons point better you
have to watch Steve Jobs interview, see:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOgOP_aqqtg> . There he says the only problem
with Microsoft is that they have no taste. Steve recognize some questions it's
importance, he says having good taste is important for Apple. According to
Steve having good taste is key to Apple's culture and success, Steve Jobs said
it. A company can have great financial success without good taste, Steve Jobs
said that about Microsoft. But as Aaron mentioned in the article that is not
how Apple works. Tim Cook is great at operations, perhaps he should have
stayed COO. The interesting move would be to appoint Jonathan Ive's as CEO. Of
course to many that would seem unconventional and perhaps even risky. But that
would be authentic Apple, that would be thinking different.

~~~
niels_olson
Implicit in your argument is that Tim Cook doesn't have good taste. I suspect
he does. After all, look at his choice of employment.

~~~
rockarage
He recognize good design but he does not have great design taste to make the
tough calls. That only comes with experience of designing, building products.
Steve has the design experience so does Ive. When presented with competing
designs, he has to have great design vision to chose the one that would be the
most successful. Being and editor is not easy.

~~~
replicatorblog
Well he has been "designing" right along side Steve and John for the past 13
years right? While he might be "just" an ops guy, I'd argue that as much (or
more) of Apple's design brilliance comes from the willingness to embrace and
invent new industrial processes rather than the radius of a curve on a design.
The candy colored iMacs required inventive injection molding at the time. The
Cube, Unibody Macbooks, the Air, iPad battery life, etc. As nice as the ID is,
it is the willingness to invest in and incorporate new processes that makes
Apple's design special.

Given that we know almost nothing about the guy except that Steve picked him
as his replacement, I'd say he'll do ok:)

~~~
philwelch
According to an interview with Jony Ive in _Objectified_ , part of industrial
design is designing the manufacturing process. Of course, implementing and
enforcing that process involves the ops team.

On your second point, you're almost certainly right. Aside from the
appointment of a certain Mr. Sculley almost 30 years ago, Steve's track record
in hiring the absolute best people to work with is as good as his track record
in shepherding innovative products into the marketplace.

~~~
replicatorblog
You are right that industrial designers should specify the manufacturing
processes. That said, it is rare to see designers have SO much sway over how
things get built.

------
GavinB
Tim Cook has been playing a certain role to date. He has been in charge of
execution and organization. Does this mean that he doesn't have taste? Does
the fact that he is not a genius public speaker mean that he doesn't have
great taste?

It's possible that he does, and possible that he doesn't, but it's entirely
possible that Cook has talents that simply weren't being tapped in his old
job. I suspect that following up on the vision of Jobs and the design group
actually takes a lot more of this magical "taste" than is immediately obvious.
There are a huge number of decisions that need to be made even in the later
stages of the process.

It seems like we're assuming that because he was a COO, Cook doesn't have the
talents that it takes to be a CEO. How can we possibly know that? The only
evidence given is that he's a COO now, and doesn't have the showmanship that
Jobs does.

~~~
extension
We don't know that the assistant janitor at Apple doesn't have the killer
taste required to run the company, but without any particular evidence of it,
it's probably best to assume he/she does not.

But we don't really know who was, is, and will be running the show at Apple,
or how those matters of taste are truly decided. All we know is that this is
the time they chose to officially announce Jobs' succession and that Cook is
the person who they felt investors would have the most confidence in as CEO.
The ultimate power is with the BoD, and probably with Jobs for the rest of his
life.

~~~
ssharp
>We don't know that the assistant janitor at Apple doesn't have the killer
taste required to run the company, but without any particular evidence of it,
it's probably best to assume he/she does not.

Steve Jobs did not specifically request that an assistant janitor take over as
CEO. With Job's blessing, it's safe to assume that either Cook, or some system
Job's put in place, is expected to continue Apple's taste.

------
far33d
"Here’s how Apple products are created: a team of designers decide exactly
what a product should do and how it should look and feel, their work is
ruthlessly edited by Steve until he approves, and then the entire rest of the
company is given the task of moving mountains to make that dream real."

Unsurprisingly, this is exactly how Pixar works. But Pixar was essentially run
by Ed Catmull, who is much more like Tim Cook than Steve Jobs. Yes, Steve was
CEO, but he wasn't the tastemaker at Pixar. As long as the CEO trusts someone
else to drive the taste and works hard to preserve that culture, Apple will
continue to be successful.

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tptacek
There's a certain degree of arrogance built into the idea that the person best
suited to run the world's most successful company is the one whose skills we
can best appreciate.

There's a connection, but one I can't well articulate, between that point and
the success of the iPad. I know I'm not the only one who occasionally
scratches his head at the popularity of a device that's too big to pocket and
too small to compete with a laptop. But it's Apple's execution in the _mass
market_ that matters, not what the geekerati think.

------
bignoggins
I disagree with this post.

Jobs is still Chairman of the Board. I imagine decisions regarding "taste"
will still run through Jobs. Ive is likely to have an increased role as well.

Tim Cook does not have to take over all of the roles that Steve Jobs had in
order to be successful. He just needs to execute on Job's vision, and other
top executives like Forstall and Ive will step in to take over some of Steve's
day to day.

~~~
kalleboo
I think most people are taking on this debate with the ghoulish yet all-to-
possible assumption that Jobs is not going to be with us for much longer.

~~~
talicni_tom
[http://www.tmz.com/2011/08/26/steve-jobs-apple-photo-
resigna...](http://www.tmz.com/2011/08/26/steve-jobs-apple-photo-resignation-
ceo-sick/#.TllQFl1ghJE)

TMZ got a recent photo of him, take a look.

I'm not a doctor but he doesn't look good.

~~~
Udo
If you know anything about pancreatic cancer and the other glimpses of Jobs'
medical history, you don't need tasteless photos to figure out what is going
on. People keep saying stuff like "get better Steve", which is a nice
sentiment but at some point it's not appropriate anymore to talk about a
terminally ill person that way.

This guy has already survived a very long time with an illness that kills most
people within months. He has now chosen to take a bow and exit the stage
gracefully, a decision that I'm sure was made as late as possible. I'm certain
that resignation letter has been sitting in a drawer at his lawyer's office
for quite some time. The truth is this man will be dead within the next few
weeks, let's give him the privacy to go out with decency. Paparazzi shots and
discussions about how "not good" he looks are completely unnecessary.

As far as this thread's topic is concerned, the question boils down to the
point of whether Apple can thrive on execution alone. We'll see. Ideally, Ive
will reconsider scaling back his role as a creative lead. I think together
with Schiller's enthusiasm and Cook's organizational talent, there is no
reason why Apple shouldn't continue to put out great innovation. But even if
they _do_ enter a creative slump, they have a lot of momentum and cash to
carry them over any dry spell that might happen.

~~~
angstrom
An overflowing warchest is probably one of the most dangerous enablers of
complacency. Screw ups and missed targets get glossed over as "There's money
to cover it." Eventually, it becomes business as usual.

------
mashmac2
Question: Why does the 'tastemaker' have to be CEO? A traditional CEO's role
is to provide vision for the company, sure, but Cook clearly knows he's not
Jony Ive, and I'm sure is willing to keep people like Ive around to make those
'tastemaker' decisions. I don't think tastemaker == CEO at all, necessarily.

~~~
fab13n
Operational depts have a natural tendency to answer "that's not possible" when
challenged very hard, and to try and negotiate compromises. You don't need the
top guy to be the tastemaster, but you need his arbitrages to be heavily
biased in favor of designers, not operatives.

For this reason, it sounds worrisome to put the chief _operative_ officer at
the top position, generally speaking. Now I don't know Tim Cook, maybe he's
able/trained to let the visionaries call the shots.

~~~
philwelch
I think if you're the COO at _Apple_ , of all companies, you're used to making
the impossible happen.

------
dr_
It's not just about taste though, is it? WebOS was beautifully designed, but
has basically been unsuccessful. It's really a combination of taste and the
ability to execute on it. Jobs wasn't as successful with Next, despite his
tastes. He may not have had the right team in place to work with, to execute
on his vision. And with Apple, he already had a well established brand to work
with. Even all of the products released by Apple under Jobs' reign were not
successful, such as the G4 Cube, the first Apple TV, the ROKR iTunes phone -
and who is to say that products he nixed wouldn't have gone on to be
successful - no one really knows.

Tastes are important, but there are a LOT of things that matter in addition to
good design taste.

~~~
fuzionmonkey
You make a good point. Execution is just as crucial to Apple's success as the
good taste.

Palm and HP never had much success because they couldn't execute on the
hardware front. They were continually behind the curve on hardware and
continued to push an unpopular form factor. As a former Pre user, webOS was a
pleasure to use but the phone itself was poorly made and had dated hardware.

HP/Palm was always too little, too late and they just couldn't execute.

Apple's excellent supply chaining and fabrication processes are a huge edge
against the competition. They can execute where other's can't.

------
eevilspock
It's funny how all of you armchair board members are second-guessing Steve
Jobs.

------
azulum
being able to deliver a good keynote ≠ having a critical eye. and just like
that, your argument vanishes in a poof of logic.

------
schmittz
Naming Tim Cook as CEO makes a lot of sense. Obviously, it made the most sense
to Jobs himself. People like to think that Apple's design alone is the only
reason the company's grown so large. It's easy to forget that without the
operational work of Cook, Apple could not even have built the products they
did. In that regard it makes more sense for Cook to be CEO because he can
insure that the company remains as profitable as it is, while also enabling
new devices to be realized. With great designs and weak organizational
leadership, Apple cannot thrive as it has.

------
maxniederhofer
Even if all your arguments are true, there is absolutely no reason to believe
that the "top tastemaker" also needs to be CEO of the company.

------
stcredzero
If Apple is to continue its revolutionary successes, then there needs to be a
well functioning "4-man band" to take his place. Mr. Ive can still supply the
vision part, but he'll have to work together with others to ensure software
design and execution are harmoniously in step. Fortunately, I think that's
what Steve has been planning all along.

------
fonosip
Ive might have been Job's first choice. But he wanted to quit, scale back work
a few years ago. He had to be convinced not to move back to England.

------
hmottestad
That is some mighty small font and large margins. I wish people would make
their text a bit easier on the eyes.

------
doomlaser
This person doesn't know wtf he's talking about.

------
nirvana
Steve Jobs worked on a lot of products in his life- not only the many that we
know about but probably several times that in products that didn't end up
coming to market.

But there is one product that is the most central to Steve's Life. In fact, it
is his masterwork. He started when he was young and is still working on it
today-- and that product is Apple itself.

Steve says Tim Cook is the right person to succeed him, and I believe that
Steve would never say this if he didn't believe it. He, more than anyone else
in the world, wants to see Apple continue to be what he wanted it to be.

Also, Tim Cook is gay (sorry but for me, that counts as an asset in the taste
department). He's a creative guy (you have to be) and he's a uncompromising.
You can't work as hard as he does and achieve what he has behind the scenes
without a kind of ruthlessness that sets a very high bar.

Tim's experience as COO is exactly what makes him the best man to fill Steve's
shoes, if ruthless focus on design is what Apple needs. After all, Steve isn't
a designer. Steve doesn't even, by all accounts, have a lot of natural taste.
He's acquired the taste over many years. What Steve has always had, and what
Tim seems to have, is an uncompromisingly high bar.

Jonathan Ive is probably going to be well compensated for staying at Apple
over the long term, and the skilled software designers and hardware and
software engineers and those who lead them as well are critical.

But the "vision" thing is not a mystical ability, and it isn't an innate
talent, or if it is, both Tim and Steve have it.

In fact, I think this is why Tim was the preferred choice by Steve, over
people like Ron Johnson and Jonathan Ive. I think Steve saw this in Tim's
nature, and not in Jonathans.

This makes sense, because I think a designer has to be more flexible and more
open minded and more willing to take risks. A designer has to produce some
crap in the process of producing brilliance because you can't know in advance
that it is crap. To be able to ruthlessly weed out the crap, you have to have
a different perspective.

So, Steve made the decision, and I think it makes perfect sense, but even if
it didn't, who better than Steve to know who the right person is?

------
bugsy
Aaron was right about what should have been done, but it's known that Ives
incurred the wrath of Jobs recently when he said he was tired of working in
the US and wanted to go home and Jobs said absolutely not. This put Ives on
Apple's "Disloyal" list.

Cook will be a disaster. He would have been fine as an exact opposite but
balancing weight against a visionary leader like Jobs, as Ives would have
been. But as the visionary leader, a man whose only contributions have been to
reduce costs and quality in order to increase profits, it's going to go down a
predictable path that other companies have followed.

The salary and $385 million signing bonus thing being reported are obscene for
Cook who has not a single case of innovation, because it is something he is
simply not capable of. This is not an insult against him, it is a simple
acknowledgment of his known strengths and capabilities.

~~~
tjogin
It never ceases to amaze me how much amateur advice people have for the most
successful tech company in the world.

~~~
hyperbovine
I find it's generally related to how much stock they own in the most
successful tech company in the world.

~~~
tricolon
I.e. large shareholders will contact Apple directly?

