
Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple (2016) - IBM
https://steveblank.com/2016/10/24/why-tim-cook-is-steve-ballmer-and-why-he-still-has-his-job-at-apple/
======
oflannabhra
>The problem is that a supply chain CEO who lacks a passion for products and
has yet to articulate a personal vision of where to Apple will go is ill
equipped to make the right organizational, business model and product bets to
bring those to market.

The author makes the argument that because Tim Cook does not demo new
products, Apple is incapable of innovating, and is just cruising on the
goodwill of the brand.

What a crock. Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs, and Apple is most definitely
different without Steve. But, under Cook the following has happened: Apple
Watch, AirPods, HomePod, iPhone X, ARKit, Siri Shortcuts, FaceID, iMac Pro.
Everything in that list might not perfectly suit every user, but the argument
"Without Steve Apple can't innovate!" totally falls over.

Steve gets a lot of attention for his innate sixth sense for product, his
masterful presentations, and more. But, I think this era of Apple proves that
he was _also_ great at creating a culture and ecosystem that can perpetuate
without his presence.

~~~
taurath
Depends on your definition of innovate I suppose. I can't quite articulate why
but I have stopped feeling excited about apple events or product launches. It
never feels like there's some new capability, only improvements on previous
capabilities. There's not really been a new exciting product line in a bit, I
don't think?

~~~
snowwrestler
I agree with you, but most Apple launch events even under Steve Jobs were
boring incremental affairs.

Seems to me that the entire legacy of Jobs at Apple is colored by one launch
event: the iPhone, which was probably one of the top 5 best demos in the
history of technology. It was a really great presentation in the moment, and
of course now we can recognize it as an enormous pivot point in the industry,
and arguably in human society. But most Steve Jobs Apple events weren't like
that.

The iPod, iPad, and Macbook Air are good examples or products that have had a
big impact (and done big sales), but were underwhelming when they launched. I
would put the Apple Watch in that category. I think its long-term impact is
underappreciated right now.

~~~
taurath
Oh I know, I’m the person that chose a helio ocean over the original iPhone
because it came with Yahoo instant messenger out of the box and had a physical
keyboard. Maybe there’s something more there - it’s it just doesn’t make me
want to run off and get a thing.

------
SpikeDad
This is old and nonsense. It highlights correctly the upcoming AI revolution
but it misses entirely the point that Apple is innovating in this space -
processing on the phone rather than within Google or Amazon verse.

In other words Apple is simultaneously building an on phone AI while at the
same time retaining it's mission of privacy for the user.

I'll take the little hit on functionality in exchange for a massive upgrade in
privacy.

So in the end Tim Cook is carrying on the customer and privacy centric DNA
that Jobs imbued into Apple using innovation that other companies just dream
about.

~~~
rayiner
It’s not just about privacy. Having to go over the Net to process simple voice
commands makes Siri almost useless. After a few times of giving a command to
Siri, only to be confronted with a long delay or an outright error because
you’re driving, or in an elevator, or under a bridge, or whatever, it stops
being a tool you reach for instinctively.

~~~
hndamien
I think the big companies got the edge processing memo, however Apple
certainly has a good lead. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

------
ChuckMcM
I remember reading this in 2016 during 'peak skepticism' on whether or not Tim
Cook could ever fill the shoes of Steve Jobs and the author, Steve Blank,
makes a lot of really good points (mostly how you can see Ballmer as an
excellent CEO if you set the metrics to do so).

It reminded me once again of how what you believe gives color to the narrative
you're trying to communicate. More importantly, what the _reader_ believes
also colors the narrative and sometimes it wasn't exactly what the author
intended.

I resonate strongly with the notion that there are good times and 'late' times
to innovate. I also agree strongly that it takes someone who is taking a wider
and longer view of the situation to be good a calling the shots on that. But
it is also quite important to be able to turn those opportunities into
products and learn from that effort to really ride the 'change' (what ever it
is) into a leadership and profitable position.

When I read this in 2016 I was not convinced that "AI" was the big innovation
it was being hyped to be, however since that time I've come to a different
conclusion. While I still think "AI" is hype, I see the ability to use machine
learning algorithms to take the digital exhaust of a system and post process
it into an algorithm for anticipating the outputs of that process to be quite
powerful, and is having an impact on a lot of systems today.

I see the work that Apple has done to improve the efficiency of the A12X SoC,
which was announced today, for executing algorithms based on machine learning
to be pretty innovative.

In 2016 machine learning was still 'party trick' status as far as I was
concerned but here in 2018 it is looking more and more like 'core thing all
computer systems will do'.

As a result I'm willing to give Tim Cook more innovator points than Steve
Blank was willing to do back in 2016.

(misc: I love how the user handle 'IBM' posted this)

~~~
thewarrior
I see the ability to use machine learning algorithms to take the digital
exhaust of a system and post process it into an algorithm for anticipating the
outputs of that process to be quite powerful, and is having an impact on a lot
of systems today.

Could you elaborate on that ? What does that mean ?

~~~
ChuckMcM
Sure, here is a trivial example of the concept. Let's say you have a system of
comments like you do here on HN with upvotes and users and topics. Let's
pretend that system just runs "open loop" as it were and things are posted and
up voted and down voted and commented on.

The operation of the system leaves behind a trail of its activity (some
explicit like new comments, some implicit like karma changes). Collectively
this data set is the "exhaust" or "wake" (in the sense of a boat wake that
shows up when a boat passes by) of the system running.

A machine learning system can process that data set and make predictions about
future behavior of the system. People do this all the time to predict things
like "when is the best time to post" "what happens when something makes the
front page" etc. Internally predictions can be made about vote fraud or spam
or what have you.

You can use machine learning in an active feedback mode where its predictive
outputs can then be tied to administrative controls to achieve a desired
improvement.

Let's say you wanted to remove the 'front page bias' of articles posted at a
particular time. If you have a tool for boosting or demoting stories in a
fairly fine grained way, and you can deduce the natural tendency of stories
based on submission time to reach the front page, you can have your code
'boost' stories that are submitted during "weak" times and 'attenuate' stories
that are submitted during "strong" times. The effect on the system is
surfacing a wider variety of stories and a better user experience (for readers
at least).

At the meta level, this is no different than control system theory with an
error amplifier and a summation amplifier tied into a feedback loop. But
Machine Learning brings with it the ability to characterize, and base feedback
on, variables that aren't really visible to people nor completely independent.

Coding the variables, their interrelationships and their impact on the output
is a time consuming and non-economic thing to do, so it isn't done. But with
machine learning, the ability to do that analysis algorithmically and just
train for the outputs of interest, is quite inexpensive.

Makes it a very powerful hammer in everything from language translation to
truck load planning to autonomous driving.

------
gesman
This is BS.

Ballmer was a worst thing that could happen to any company of a Microsoft
scale.

Under his guidance Microsoft stock stalled in a trading range for more than a
decade, he was always late to any big game and had that "me too!" laggard
strategy for the biggest innovations (cloud, search, mobile) thinking he can
buy his way ahead to compensate for the lack of vision and boneheadedness.

It was funny watching MSFT stock to suddenly pop up 8-10% at a slightest rumor
of Bill Gates returning.

Tim Cook is nothing like that. He may not be Steve Jobs, but he is not
screwing AAPL either.

~~~
zeroname
Looking at stock price is a poor indicator of performance, it's too tied to
market sentiment. Remember when Elon Musk smoked that joint and Tesla stock
took a 10% hit? It's all nonsense.

Look at revenue, look at earnings per share. Steady growth for Ballmer across
his tenure. He did a good job.

~~~
gesman
As a shareholder (disclaimer: i am not) I'd rather have stock rising with bad
numbers than stock stalled with good numbers.

Having said that, my hands are itching to (disclaimer: i am not financial
adviser) buy leap puts on TSLA.

~~~
zeroname
That's because you'd rather reap the benefits of market irrationality than
solid business fundamentals. Admittedly, that attitude has worked well in the
past _ahem_ fifteen years.

The thing with irrationality is that it's hard to predict. The people that
make the right bet get hailed as genius visionaries, the losers are simply
forgotten. A good CEO is not a gambler, they're consistent and they can
execute, but alas that's not good material to dramatize in the media.

------
zeroname
_" In 2014, Microsoft finally announced that Ballmer would retire, and in
early 2014, Satya Nadella took charge. Nadella got Microsoft organized around
mobile and the cloud (Azure), freed the Office and Azure teams from Windows,
killed the phone business and got a major release of Windows out without the
usual trauma. And is moving the company into augmented reality and
conversational AI."_

Okay, but:

\- Microsoft is still irrelevant on mobile

\- Azure already was four years old when Nadella took charge

\- Windows 10 was not actually well-received

\- Microsoft is irrelevant in Augmented Reality and conversational AI, which
are already by themselves not that relevant

Microsoft can't be Apple because Microsoft is uncool. It _always_ will be
uncool. It can't do the transformation to a fashion brand like Apple.

I'll make another prediction: The days of "revolutionary" consumer products
are over. People won't be living in VR/AR, they'll keep watching stuff on
their phone/tablets/TVs. There will be more innovation in B2B and Microsoft is
actually in a better position here in the long run.

~~~
abakker
Prediction noted.

Per AR, I suppose hololens doesn't count? It sure felt like a step in the
right direction when I used it.

Honestly, the least cool thing MSFT makes is Sharepoint. They need to just
abandon that line of thinking, and think of something else. Compared to the
rest of new MSFT, that whole product needs a drastic upgrade, not just the
Teams UI. They missed an opportunity in workplace tech when they bought Yammer
and Skype and just sat on them. Maybe they'll get another shot.

~~~
zeroname
Hololens, Magic Leap, Google Glass, all of these will not become "must have"
consumer devices.

Reality is already augmented. Need more information than what your bare eyes
can see? Pull out your phone. You don't need it overlaid unto your vision.
That's a gimmick.

~~~
abakker
Funny - I once gave a presentation where I made the claim that the most common
Augmented Reality app used was spoken car navigation. Augmented Reality
certainly doesn't augment only your eyes. I also think the Apple Watch haptic
system is underutilized as a augmentation device. Total agreement.

------
sdegutis
> _" But Google and Amazon are betting that the next of wave of computing
> products will be AI-directed services"_

That seems like a stretch of a conclusion. Amazon has been excelling at
cutting out the middleman and reducing costs that are unnecessary in an
internet-centric age. Alexa feels like an experiment to see if they can make
that even simpler, while cashing in on the IoT fad.

Slight nit pick, using underline for emphasis doesn't work well on the web, it
just makes it look like a link.

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12778470](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12778470)

------
nicodjimenez
Steve Blank is amazing at short form business writing. Very insightful.

Of course the iPhone will continue to sell well in the short term, but the
trillion dollar market cap is a consequence of what Steve jobs was doing ten
years ago. If Steve Jobs were alive now, he'd be working on something totally
different. We'all never know!

~~~
gxs
It's understood that, to paraphrase Steve, life must goes and make way for the
new, but it really bums me out that we'll never know what new thing he might
have done.

~~~
nicodjimenez
We can speculate. In the device space, the trend seems to be special purpose
devices - vs a single device that's only OK at everything. How exactly that
would have been carried out by Steve, we'll never know.

------
IBM
Counterpoint: “We’re thrilled Apple Watch has become an essential part of
people's lives,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer. “The
completely redesigned Apple Watch Series 4 continues to be an indispensable
communication and fitness companion, and now with the addition of
groundbreaking features, like fall detection and the first-ever ECG app
offered directly to consumers, it also becomes an intelligent guardian for
your health.”

[https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/09/redesigned-apple-
watc...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/09/redesigned-apple-watch-
series-4-revolutionizes-communication-fitness-and-health/)

~~~
torstenvl
Only if you stretch the word "indispensable" to mean "kinda cool but
completely unnecessary."

~~~
IBM
In a few years doctors will be prescribing Apple Watches to patients and it
will be reimbursed by health insurers. #TimeStamp

~~~
torstenvl
Yeah. And that's kinda cool. But I don't think it renders it "absolutely
necessary; all-important; imperative; invaluable."

Antibiotics are indispensable. An EKG on your wrist is a nice-to-have.

------
dmode
The way I see it is that in the Tim Cook era, Apple releases good, solid
products. And I buy them religiously. But they don't really make great,
exciting, ground breaking products anymore (perhaps Face Id is the exception).
I wasn't really waiting in anticipation for today's iPhone launch as I knew it
will be a solid, well built phone, with a few incremental improvements.

------
maxxxxx
I don't get why Ballmer is viewed as a failure. He steadily increased revenues
and income under his watch. Maybe he didn't have the "vision" thing but he was
a damn good CEO if you accept that a CEO's job is to grow the company.

~~~
blihp
He was great at maximizing revenue and profit on the current thing but
absolutely terrible at positioning them for the next thing. The problem in
tech is that the next thing is often your cash cow 5-10 years out.

Name pretty much any major tech trend that took off during Ballmer's tenure
and look at how well Microsoft was able to capitalize on it. (think MP3
players, phones, tablets, search, social, web apps, cloud services, browsers,
etc). His stated strategy was 'fast follower' and we saw how well that worked
out. Microsoft has become IBM in that they are mostly legacy tech now and
virtually no startups use their stuff in a significant way which doesn't bode
well for where they'll be when the windows/office gravy train stops rolling.

Their new CEO has been working hard to fix things (they're no longer a
complete embarassment with browsers and cloud services, for example) but
Ballmer left them in a pretty inexcusable position given the resources he had
at his disposal.

I actually think the Cook/Ballmer comparison is apropos as I see a lot of
similarities going on. It's not about where the company is today, it's where
the company is likely to be 10 years from now.

~~~
maxxxxx
I think that's the destiny of any large corporation. I don't feel very
inspired by Google or Apple either these days. Amazon is starting to suck too.

------
empath75
The stock is up around 100% since he posted this fwiw.

~~~
ramenmeal
If you ignore the dot com bubble around 2000, Microsoft's stock rose quite a
bit under Ballmer, didn't it?

~~~
frandroid
Eh? It had a peak in 2008 but stayed at $25 the whole time.

~~~
ramenmeal
He left in 2014 right? I guess only the last few years it started going up

