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The Curse of Culture

stratechery.com

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Re: The Curse of Culture

#31

Post by scholia »

mathattack wrote: post #20
Jerry2 wrote: post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

One big difference - Microsoft's stock price languished under Ballmer, while Apple's is doing fine under Cook. (I haven't compared versus the market, but I suspect that it will still hold) Cook's legacy will be if Apple pulls off the bet on autonomous cars. Auto manufacturing is very much a logistics challenge, which plays to his strengths. It's too early to write him off.

> Apple's is doing fine under Cook

Apple's stock price peaked at $132.54 just over a year ago and recently bounced from $90.

Over the past year, Apple is down about 20% on NASDAQ and the S&P 500....

Re: The Curse of Culture

#32

Post by r00fus »

justinh wrote: post #11
Animats wrote: post #2

That's a great scene, with Jobs announcing that Internet Explorer would be the default browser on the Macintosh, and the crowd booing. Jobs has to stop speaking, twice.

I had somehow missed that gem in past viewings. I only focused on the "Bill Gates as BB" aspect. For the curious, it starts at 28:36.

Probably because that aspect of the scene was so central to "Pirates of Silicon Valley"? It's etched in my memory too.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/

Re: The Curse of Culture

#33

Post by mathattack »

scholia wrote: post #31
mathattack wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big difference - Microsoft's stock price languished under Ballmer, while Apple's is doing fine under Cook. (I haven't compared versus the market, but I suspect that it will still hold) Cook's legacy will be if Apple pulls off the bet on autonomous cars. Auto manufacturing is very much a logistics challenge, which plays to his strengths. It's too early to write him off.

> Apple's is doing fine under Cook Apple's stock price peaked at $132.54 just over a year ago and recently bounced from $90. Over the past year, Apple is down about 20% on NASDAQ and the S&P 500....

It was ~54 when he became CEO in August 2011, and now it's ~98. So ~100% return when you factor in dividends.

SPX went from ~1280 to ~2080, so it's close, but not quite as much.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#34

Post by mathattack »

PeCaN wrote: post #26
mathattack wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big difference - Microsoft's stock price languished under Ballmer, while Apple's is doing fine under Cook. (I haven't compared versus the market, but I suspect that it will still hold) Cook's legacy will be if Apple pulls off the bet on autonomous cars. Auto manufacturing is very much a logistics challenge, which plays to his strengths. It's too early to write him off.

Microsoft's net income increased dramatically under Ballmer¹ however. Dude made money. Apple's stock has stagnated lately, though that may very well be temporary. I think people discredit how smart Ballmer actually was, given how badly Microsoft did technology-wise in that period. Ballmer was as logistically talented as Cook is, IMO. I agree with you on cars though. Apple could strike gold on that one, and Cook may b…

The dude made money, but it was already baked in to the stock price. People already saw the money coming in. (Monopoly on office, growing market for technology, etc) The mark of a CEO is how they do above and beyond the hand they were dealt. Ballmer underperformed expectations.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#35

Post by SiVal »

bluedino wrote: post #6

>> I’m worried for Apple…If the landscape shifts to prioritize those big-data AI services, Apple will find itself in a similar position as BlackBerry did almost a decade ago: Maybe Apple is betting that AI won't be achieved in the next 15-20 years.

Apple has been hiring AI people for a while, and there is a possibility that the openness of the rest of the world (academia, open source, other big companies working with academics and open sourcers) will diffuse AI discoveries fast enough for Apple to make almost as much use of them as Google & Facebook.

Of course, that still leaves the question of access to data, and the best of today's AI algorithms get their power from data more than clever logic. Google and Facebook have a huge lead in customer data, but how much data is enough? Presumably it depends on the product, and for some products (say, image processing magic in a smart camera), Apple might be able to come up with all the data they need.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#36

Post by eropple »

siyer wrote: post #15
L_Rahman wrote: post #3

I'm a huge fan of Stratechery and Thompson. They've given me powerful ways of thinking about the world. Are there others out there? While Thompson does talk a lot about the intersection of technology with business strategy, he tends to focus on large, well-known technology companies that primarily have consumer facing offering. I'd pay to read something like Stratechery for biotechnology, or enterprise software but t…

Within pharma, Derek Lowe has been blogging for many years, with a mix of posts focusing on new developments as well as broader strategic questions. http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/ The comment section there is also typically informed.

Derek Lowe also has the tremendous "Things I Won't Work With", which is laugh-out-loud funny.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#37

Post by mrep »

snowwrestler wrote: post #27
Jerry2 wrote: post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

Apple Watch and Music have barely been out for a year; it's a bit early to say they haven't succeeded. Likewise, it's a bit early to high-five Google on the Deepmind aquisition. The Go achievement is great, but how will it help Google's business? IBM holds the previous big AI-beat-human trophies (Deep Blue and Watson) and neither has done much to help their bottom line. And of course Microsoft Research did a bunch of…

Have you used apple music?

If you'd like to see how you shouldn't design your UX, then try it out. It's by far the worst design I have ever used.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#38

Post by Steko »

Jerry2 wrote: post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

I think you've oversold the similarities between Jobs and Gates and undersold the fact that Tim Cook is doing basically the same job at Apple that he did during most of 2004-2011 when a number of hit products were developed and launched. I also think you're underselling the Watch et al and forgetting about lots of underwhelming products that Jobs introduced. Is Apple Music a failure compared to Ping or MobileMe ... or only compared to Spotify a company that had dominated the category for 5 years? What % of the smartphone market did the smash hit iphone have 1 year in again? 2 years? 3 years?

Re: The Curse of Culture

#39

Post by abritinthebay »

Jerry2 wrote: post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

> I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft.

Doubtful. Cook seems well aware of his limitations in vision and abilities. You see a microcosm of this at the Keynotes: he wisely hands off to other experts as soon as possible.

You also see this in his handling of senior roles in Apple. He's not the visionary Steve was but he hires to keep the vision active in the culture by finding domain experts. This is true in retail, in industrial design, in chip design...

He's nothing like Balmer in how he actually handles the company and it's staff, and that's why I think you'll be surprised.

I mean, the "me too" thing is symptomatic of this line of thinking: Apple has always followed on; it's what they are best at. They see a market, see how it works, then take what works and distill it down to a product that is narrower in scope but "just works" for the general market.

First to market isn't a big deal, it never has been, it's getting the product right that's important. Apple is very good at that.

Re: The Curse of Culture

#40

Post by paulcole »

Jerry2 wrote: post #10

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now beco…

Is 13 million paying subscribers for Music really a failure?
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