
The Job After Steve Jobs: Tim Cook and Apple - spking
http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304610404579405420617578250
======
caycep
Here's the rub, there's a lot of "Cook is an unknown", "Jury is still out on
Cook" type memes being populated by the media.

Cook has been running the company since the late '90s. I'd say he's a pretty
well-known by now. Ruthlessly competent operations chief, who saved Apple from
operational incompetence (by the "Adult Supervision" who fired Jobs in the
first place), and probably the biggest reason why the iPod, iPhone, and iPad
are successes - by giving Apple the capability to design (through operating
capital), market and produce them, and make a margin on every unit they sell.

Apple being a black box due to secrecy, it's hard to tell what's going on
inside, but by all we have seen, it's been pretty confident at doing what it
feels it's good at. I doubt there's a "Jobs haunting" mentality there. But
hey, if Yukari Kane wants to sell books...

~~~
gnaffle
I think the main problem is that you could say exactly the same about Ballmer
at Microsoft. He also ran Microsoft very well from an operations point of
view.

What we know for certain is that Apple can still _execute_ very well and stay
competitive in a certain market. The latest offerings of Macs, iPhones and
iPads are ample proof of that.

The question which is still unanswered is whether Apple, with Tim Cook and the
other leaders, has what it takes to stay innovative. It's too early to tell,
and I think it's certainly to early to write a book about it.

Since Tim Cook has gone on record saying that we will wee new product
categories within the year, my guess is that we'll know for certain in 2-3
years time.

~~~
rimantas
What new products did Balmer bring in which would go from zero to being main
profit generators?

~~~
gnaffle
Well, that's my point (although you could say Xbox was an exception). Tim Cook
is very well known quantity when it comes to execution, just like Jony Ive is
when it comes to product design, but for innovation, we don't know how the
team stacks up.

~~~
nostromo
Minor quibble: the Xbox was started under Gates, not Ballmer. It was publicly
announced 2 months after Gates stepped down as CEO.

I think this fits with your larger point however: Ballmer was not a product
visionary.

------
stcredzero
_Meetings with Cook could be terrifying. He exuded a Zenlike calm and didn 't
waste words. "Talk about your numbers. Put your spreadsheet up,"_

Okay, why in the world are we, supposed 21st century intellectuals, supposed
to be looking at a leader who asks for quantification and hard data as somehow
unusual and harsh? If I assume that the writer knows his audience well,
implications of this for how WSJ readers generally think is, frankly,
breathtaking.

We don't live in the world wishfully imagined by the Romantic Era! We live in
a world ruled by mathematically-based laws best understood from first
principles. The "Rule of Cool" is not going to suspend the laws of physics and
economics for you just because you greatly impress a bunch of bipedal primates
on a particular planet. <
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV3sBlRgzTI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV3sBlRgzTI)
>

 _This is especially true for startups!_ However many of us fail to comprehend
this because we forget that _human beings are not omniscient._ Just because we
don't yet understand how market forces are going to respond to an entirely new
product category or an entirely new class of transaction or entirely new kind
of company doesn't mean that the laws of nature and economics have been
suspended for the rule of cool. It just means our squishy little chemical-bag
brains haven't processed the new situation enough to codify it and share the
information through our culture. Not fully understanding something _Does Not
Justify Woo!_ (And disturbingly, you don't have to search very hard in the
startup scene to find some programmer-branded or startup-branded woo!)

Ignore this at your peril. The Rule of Cool won't protect you any more than
respecting pilot seniority kept Asiana Airlines Flight 214 from crashing.
(Korean American here, and yes, the example makes me get angry and cringe.)

~~~
IBM
Because it fits the narrative. Tim Cook is being cast as the operations guy
that may be a good manager but isn't a transformative leader that Steve Jobs
was.

The title of her book is Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs. This is a
book that could only be written 5-10 years from now, but who knows where Apple
could be then. She's striking while the iron is hot; if Apple is irrelevant
and no one is interested in the company in 10 years, she wouldn't sell nearly
as many books.

~~~
stcredzero
_Because it fits the narrative._

In other words, "The Rule of Cool."

------
bigmario
To be honest, I think Cook is doing a damn good job considering the big shoes
he had to fill when Jobs left. Tim Cook will never be the dictator that Jobs
was, nor will he command the same "respect" that Jobs had. When you not only
founded a company, but also brought them from the brink of bankruptcy to the
most valuable company in the world (a few months ago), you have a certain
gravitas that your successor will never have.

Also, Tim Cook seems to be passionate about the company, especially given his
emotional rebuttal of activist investors at the last shareholders meetings.[1]

[1] [http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/tim-cook-soundly-
reje...](http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/tim-cook-soundly-rejects-
politics-of-the-ncppr-suggests-group-sell-apples-s)

------
PakG1
This reminds me of Ben Horowitz's article, _Ones and Twos_ :
[http://www.bhorowitz.com/ones_and_twos](http://www.bhorowitz.com/ones_and_twos)

I have to say that it seems darn hard to be a One. Not that it's easy to be a
Two, but Ones have this mystical aspect about them that seem to ascribe their
traits and success to something almost like genetics/luck/natural talent that
hard work can never touch.

As creative as I think I am, I know that I lack the vision for being a really
top-tier One. I'm good at analyzing problems, finding solutions for them,
streamlining stuff, etc. So you could say that I'm a Two. And yet, here I am
running a bad startup (and maybe it's because I don't seem to be a One that
it's not going amazing? :D).

That being said, I'm really impressed with what Tim Cook is doing so far.
Wooing and hiring the Burberry CEO seemed like a total upgrade on trying to
get back the guy they lost to JC Penney (who later was fired anyway) to run
their retail operations. All the medical-oriented rumors about the iWatch make
me think that Apple hasn't yet lost its touch for making something
mindblowing; it will be really interesting to see if they truly are
introducing a totally new product category yet again. And the fact that Tim
Cook can get all fiery during a public shareholder meeting to defend what many
people will agree is the right thing to do demands respect.

Tim Cook may be a Two, rather than a One. But so far, I would not yet count
Apple out just because he's a Two. I get the impression so far that he really
can keep it together. I'm not making a prediction here, I'm just saying that I
wouldn't count him out. So far, he has not done anything significantly bad
enough to make me think he's the wrong guy for the job. In fact, I think he
has done some good things.

And let's face it. I don't think even Steve Jobs would have been good enough
to consistently introduce new product categories for the rest of his life,
were he still here. That kind of track record is really tough to match for a
single person. I may be wrong, but I think you need to ingrain that way of
life into an entire organization for there to be any chance of continually
doing it. And hopefully, that's what Tim Cook inherited.

------
allochthon
Jobs, Cook, other CEOs -- we fall into fundamental attribution error [1] when
we give them too much credit for the success of a company, something Americans
are particularly susceptible to (which I say as an American). Not infrequently
the best thing they can do is to get out of the way. By contrast, a bad CEO
can do much to sink a company.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error)

EDIT: clarify meaning.

~~~
philthesong
That's what you get for being a leader. It isn't all glorious, either.

Think about music composers, movie directors, athletes, political leaders,
etc.

~~~
philwelch
The entire definition of being a leader is that you are individually held
responsible for the results of everyone you lead. It's not fair, but it works
because holding someone to that level of responsibility and the level of
autonomy that goes with it means they can use all their creativity and
resourcefulness to deliver results and overcome obstacles.

------
37prime
The article to me is like an empty can that rattles really loud. There is more
of the author’s wishes than reality.

------
exo_duz
Obviously everyone has differing opinions about Cook, his management style and
ideas but I think that since taking over Apple has lost a lot of its ability
to be exciting. A lot of the things coming out has been quite textbook and
boring and didn't command the excitement it did when Jobs was at the helm.

Is this just way Cook is? Or is this a forecast into the way Apple is?
Everyone has said that Jobs was the visionary behind Apple, can Cook be the
visionary after Jobs?

I think that Apple needs another visionary to drive the way it innovated in
the late 90s and 00s when Jobs was there.

I know it might sound one-sided towards Jobs but I'm still yet to see the kind
of innovation Apple had ever since Cook took over.

------
capkutay
I think the jury is still out on Tim Cook..and that jury will report the
verdict some time early 2015. If Apple does not break into a new product
category this year, it's clear that Tim Cook cares too much about operations
and too little for innovation and pushing Apple products to the next level.
You can tell by the particularly insignificant iterations of the iPhone.
Either he has an excellent poker face and is keeping their new products a
secret, or he just set out to turn Apple into a cash cow: sandbagging existing
products to maximize profit.

~~~
bennyg
What product category do you expect Apple to jump into?

The only viable one I can think of is wearable tech, and definitely not a damn
watch. I think Apple won't cater to as niche a market as wearable medical, and
let 3rd party use their hardware to attack that market space.

~~~
threeseed
Everyone is going to say iWatch. But that's nothing.

The two biggest for me will be an App Store for the AppleTV. This could put
the end to Nintendo's console hopes forever and open up a lot of new revenue
streams. And the biggest by far is payments. iBeacons is starting to take off
and with AppleID/TouchID they have the frictionless security mechanism.

~~~
lostlogin
frictionless? My touch ID is crap - try doing physical work (building,
digging, that sort of stuff) and it will never go. Or a hint of dampness. My
thumb print must be subtly different day to day or something, because I only
do building stuff at weekends, yet no matter how often I re set the touch ID,
even having all 5 prints set to my thumb, I end up entering password most
times.

------
simonh
Apple doesn't need to be as good as or better than it might have been if Steve
Jobs had survived, it needs to be better than the competition. Which other
company does anyone here think does a better job at competing in Apple's
markets than Apple? That's what matters.

Yes I'd love to see Apple move into new markets with new original products and
services. I don't see any reason Apple today is any less likely to be able to
do that than any other company.

------
LukeB_UK
A very good read. I've read Jobs' biography so I gained an insight into his
style, it's nice to be able to see Cook's style and how it contrasts.

------
ufmace
That's interesting, and makes me want to read more about Apple and Steve. Cook
seems to still be a big unknown in a lot of ways. My biggest question about
the future of Apple is whether they'll be the first with the next
revolutionary device. The iPod, iPhone, and iPad didn't have any fundamentally
new technology, but instead put together existing technology in a way that
redefined how we used and thought of the whole class of devices. Nobody made a
music player that was simple to use and just worked before the iPod. Nobody
made a truly finger-friendly touch-screen device before the iPhone. Nobody
made a tablet that was really practical until the iPad. I don't own or use any
of either of them regularly, but I can appreciate the effect they've had on
the market.

There will be more revolutionary devices in the future. Will they be created
in Cook's Apple? If they are created, is Cook the man to bring the right
device to the market at the right time? That's what'll be interesting to see.

------
reovirus
I just wanted to chime in and say "The Job After Steve Jobs" \- well played on
the title of this article.

------
twic
I rather like the way the WSJ's stock price annotations add a shade of meaning
to this quote:

> "Without the arrival of a new charismatic leader, it will move from being a
> great company to being a good company," George Colony, the CEO of technology
> research firm Forrester Research, _[FORR -0.08%]_ wrote in a blog. "Like
> Sony, _[6758.TO +1.31%]_ Polaroid, Apple circa 1985, and Disney, _[DIS
> +0.41%]_ Apple will coast and then decelerate."

So, the guy who runs the company whose price is falling says that Apple is
heading for trouble, just like those other companies whose prices are rising.

~~~
davidmr
If you can read meaning into a one-day price fall of 0.08%, you're a smarter
person than I am.

~~~
pazimzadeh
I've never understood why the WSJ has inline prices like that. It detracts
from the story while only giving a semblance of quantification. For it to be
useful, the price window should be at least one month.

~~~
eropple
It makes people click things. Clicking things means ad revenue, even if they
take you to stupid things.

User experience? Meh, who cares.

------
mwfunk
I don't understand why an established company failing to create new product
categories by some arbitrary deadline ("they better have something completely
new by the end of the year!") is seen as a sign of failure. If a company is
hanging onto old businesses that are withering away while failing to
rejuvenate those businesses or create new ones, that's failure, or the road to
failure at least (Blackberry being one example). But that's not what's
happening here.

For that matter, I don't see failure to maintain explosive growth as a failure
of any company. It might be a failure as far as the stock market is concerned,
but it's deeply screwed up that this is the dynamic driving the stock market.

The stock market for much of the tech industry is completely driven by growth
(or the promise of future growth). This is bad, this does not lead to a better
tech industry, and this is not healthy for any of the companies involved. It's
only healthy for short term investors, who unfortunately seem to be way
overrepresented in the tech industry.

The Greater Fool Theory
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory))
drives stock prices far more than the fundamental health or outlook for most
tech companies.

Anyway, whenever I hear a complaint about company X because they haven't
created some completely new product category in the past 12 months, I don't
hear a complaint about the company. I hear a complaint about the stock price,
which is driven by continuous (and possibly unhealthy for the company) growth,
which drives the stock price due to the Greater Fool Theory as much anything
else.

Such an opinion isn't even a commentary on the company- it's a commentary on a
number (the stock price) that is most likely to go up when companies do risky
and dangerous things (blow a ton of money trying to enter new markets or
create new markets), and is completely disconnected from the fundamentals of
the company, its profits, projections of its future profits, customer
happiness and loyalty, and any number of other things that really ought to
come in front of "short term explosive growth potential" when attempting to
answer questions like, "is company X performing well?" or "is the CEO of
company X doing a good job?".

What's worse is that when that number (again, the stock price) goes down due
to a lack of growth in new product categories (Microsoft being the prime
example here), it can force such a company to do things that are actively bad
for it, because it is compelled to expend tons of resources floundering around
trying to reinvent itself when no such complete reinvention is really
necessary.

Just look at two companies that the stock market has been very kind to over
the last 10 years: Amazon and Apple. Did Apple's stock go up because of its
profit margins? Maybe somewhat, but I'm guessing that the market was really
just responding to growth. Obviously Amazon's stock hasn't benefited from fat
margins; growth is the only thing it has going for it, and it's done quite
well.

In the Amazon case, I don't think there's even any concept anymore that
someday it will slow down the growth and start fattening its margins. People
used to say this like 10 years ago to explain the disconnect between Amazon's
stock price and their margins, but I think at this point no one's even making
vague allusions to that theory anymore. People buy Amazon stock because they
think other people will buy Amazon stock based solely on growth. Someone might
buy Amazon stock thinking that the whole growth thing is a scam, but they
don't care because the stock price isn't based on Amazon's performance- it's
based on how the buyer thinks other people will perceive Amazon's performance,
scam or no. This is the Greater Fool Theory in a nutshell.

------
JadeNB
Here's Gruber's take on a related piece by the same author in The New Yorker:
[http://daringfireball.net/2014/02/fitting_facts_to_the_narra...](http://daringfireball.net/2014/02/fitting_facts_to_the_narrative).

~~~
JadeNB
I apologise if there was something inappropriate about the post—I thought that
the commentary might be interesting. So that I can avoid future downvotes,
what was wrong with this comment?

------
snowwrestler
Apple will never be the same as it was under Steve Jobs. Period. In a world of
A, B, and C players, Jobs was an A+++ player; you can probably count them on
one hand.

The thing is, no one can bring him back to life. He's gone forever and it
seems like a lot of folks have not yet reached the "acceptance" stage of
grief. And if I can be cynical for a moment, writers and reporters can make a
nice living off exploiting that, by writing articles and books like this one.

Apple can still be a great company. It does not need to change the world every
4 years to accomplish that goal.

Life is not black and white. There is a huge range between best company in the
world (how some people saw Apple toward the end of Jobs' 2nd tenure), and
failure.

~~~
stcredzero
_In a world of A, B, and C players, Jobs was an A+++ player; you can probably
count them on one hand._

How can we distinguish this statement from Jobs-worshiping woo? It feels like
the truth, but we 21 century thinkers now know that that's not nearly enough
to take something as actually being true.

Basically, this subscribes to the 19th century "Great Man" theory of history.
I think there is something to Steve Job's insight, but he was also around in
the right place at the right time.

There is a lot to be learned from hanging around a scene which is a little
outside the mainstream experience, like music. If you get a little behind the
scenes in a music scene, you'll find that there are a lot of people just as
talented or even more talented than the stadium tour headliners, but didn't
have the same strokes of good luck and/or weren't as good at marketing
themselves.

The problem I have with applying "Great Man" theory to Steve Jobs, is that it
tends to blind us to what he did right and what he didn't get right. Steve
Jobs was very perceptive and had a demonstrated track record showing that he
could analyze products in the marketplace from first principles.

[http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3533.html](http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3533.html)

Steve Jobs most certainly was a great man. However he wasn't a god, he didn't
possess an unknowable magic, and the harm to Silicon Valley done by people who
blindly imitate his surface qualities in the hope of somehow receiving the
same "cargo" is, I suspect, disturbingly large.

~~~
threeseed
> How can we distinguish this statement from Jobs-worshiping woo?

Results. He made Apple a huge success then come back and did it again. He took
Pixar to wild successes whilst masterfully cutting deals with Disney. Even
NeXT for all it's faults had some impressive technology back in the day.

He was indeed an A++ player not just for what he did but for what he
represented. Himself and Bill Gates are the parents of the modern computing
industry.

And I 100% that people who emulate him are just being idiots. His personality
makes no sense without his unique history to back it up.

~~~
stcredzero
_Results. He made Apple a huge success then come back and did it again._

Yes, but I could also posit that Jobs was the only visionary type who not only
had a POV that let him see under the surface of mainstream thinking but also
had the good fortune of founding Apple, which enabled him to found his later
enterprises. (If nothing else, than through the reputation it gained him.)

