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Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

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Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#151

Post by bane »

zyxley wrote: post #79
Olscore wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> get less than zero sympathy if they talk about having difficult lives You just proved this part.

coldtea's point is that "difficult" when you can walk away from it and never have to work another day in your life, and "difficult" when getting it wrong means that your life and your childrens' lives are ruined for years, live in two entirely different strata of meaning.

Let's be honest, a billionaire could walk away and their next several hundred generations wouldn't ever have to work and they'd all live very comfortable lives.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#152

Post by wojt_eu »

mchan wrote: post #117
Chinjut wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everyone deserves sympathy, because everyone is a human being. Larry Page's life as a CEO is surely stressful and he deserves sympathy for it. But I bet there are plenty of "poor single mother"s and "40-something factory worker"s with very stressful lives too, in many cases even more stressful than any billionaire CEO's. That can't be denied.

But think about the sort of pressure that would be on Larry's shoulders. If he quits, or makes the wrong decision, that potentially affects thousands of his employees, and their families. For a poor single mother or 40 something factory worker, their stress is more localised to their own family's well-being. I think the problem here is that people try to compare or value stress on a scale of entitlement. I don't thin…

Personal anecdote: I've experienced worrying about finishing project so that my two employees would still have a job next month and so that people who invested their personal savings in the project would get at least most of it back. I have also experienced worrying about getting next check as a freelancer supporting a family.

The latter was far worse – even though I knew we had a family safety-net.

I think it's reasonable to have more sympathy to problems of people struggling for well-being of their own family than "it's lonely at the top" kinds of problems.

"I have fired people. It is brutal. I have been fired. It's worse. So managers, please: Never solicit sympathy for the pain of firing people." – Reginald Braithwaite.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#153

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

coldtea wrote: post #72
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly don't agree with it. Wearables have a lot of potential, but wearable watches are fundamentally not a great idea - for practical reasons (screen too small, limited battery life) and for marketing reasons (can't compete at the low end, certainly can't compete at the lifestyle/status display high end). Watch isn't even primarily a watch - it's an iPhone remote. And that's getting into rarefied meta-product t…

> I certainly don't agree with it. Wearables have a lot of potential, but wearable watches are fundamentally not a great idea - for practical reasons (screen too small, limited battery life) I'm not sure I follow. A wearable watch will have the biggest screen and better battery life combo than any other kind of practical wearable device I can think of (e.g. when not strapping a 3" screen and a battery pack the size o…

Wearables don't necessarily need a screen, and if they do have a screen, a more elegant version of Google Glass is going to be more persuasive - when someone finally gets it right, which they will in the next few years. (Could be Apple. But I'd put money on someone like Huawei.)

The watch format is a dead end.

The user benefit of the iPhone was obvious. The user benefit of a wearable watch is not obvious at all. As soon as you call the product a "watch" you're constraining the possible design and the user expectations, and also competing with hundreds of years of history.

As for health - for now, FitBit does it better.

A permanent on-wrist health lab with medical record sharing would be amazing, but the technology for that is a long way away.

Meanwhile Pokemon Go has done a lot more for health than any wearable has.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#154

Post by cmelbye »

feelix wrote: post #42
apozem wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cook has his edges. He's supposed to be a demanding, logical boss. > One day back then, he convened a meeting with his team, and the discussion turned to a particular problem in Asia. “This is really bad,” Cook told the group. “Someone should be in China driving this.” Thirty minutes into that meeting Cook looked at Sabih Khan, a key operations executive, and abruptly asked, without a trace of emotion, “Why are you s…

Aside from all the other issues with this, you need a visa to get into China. And you need a ticket out to get in. I imagine this applies to you even if you're pretty high in Apple management.

The Chinese government issues 10-year multi entry visas for business and tourism.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#155

Post by sangnoir »

ufmace wrote: post #123
roksprok wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Alphabet's P/E twice that of Apple? 13 vs 25 if I remember correctly. Doesn't this imply that it's Google, not Apple, that people are counting on to 'produce industry-changing smash hits over and over again'?

Interesting, I didn't know that actually. Seems GOOGL has a market cap almost as high and 2.5x higher P/E. Would make me wonder about Google a bit too. In my opinion, they don't really innovate at the market level like Apple does. They have the Search cash cow, Gmail was moderately innovative at the time, and most of their other stuff comes off as well-executed me-toos. Technically innovative, but not exactly opening…

> Gmail was moderately innovative at the time

Say what now? Perhaps you do not remember that most free email providers had a 2 or 4 MB mailbox limit and you had to delete emails as soon as you read them. When I signed up, Google was offering a whooping 1 gigabyte of storage - an improvement of 3 orders of magnitude. Gmail allowed attachments of up to 25MB which only served to make Hotmail's 4MB mailbox look absurd.

Other email providers (free and paid) struggled with spam filtering (and still do). GMails spam filters are magic, as far as I'm concerned - I never get spam and I also don't even bother checking my spam folder for false positives.

These 2 innovations alone can't be "moderate" by any stretch of the imagination.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#156

Post by codefolder »

coldtea wrote: post #124
codefolder wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2/3 of Americans are considered to be overweight/obese . And before you say, 'that's even more of reason to own one,' no matter how sleek the advertising campaign to peddle a broadly useless piece of technojunk, you're never going to convince the populous that exercising is fun. Unless it detects cancer, it's just a toy. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statisti...

> you're never going to convince the populous that exercising is fun You don't have to convince the "populous", just enough tens of millions, and it would be a huge profit center. And you don't have to convince them about exercise being fun or anything similar either -- just that not dying from heart attack and knowing your glucose levels and such is fun... (There are 30 million people with diabetes in the US alone f…

Such delusion. The personal computer was important; a well designed mp3 player was desired by many; the tablet, a new way to interface; the smart phone, a communication necessity. The watch is just a toy without a core reason for existence. Not just apple's, all smart watches. It's ironic that a company who made its business selling fashionable tech will peak and fall from relevancy selling a purely fashionable device. You can monitor your glucose level with a sub-$20 device from a pharmacy, not several hundred dollars and a iphone requirement.

It's okay. You're not an innovator. You're not a visionary. You can't see the horizon. You're probably fascinated by shiny objects; trapped in the superficial glaze, unable to comprehend the substrate.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#157

Post by aedron »

ufmace wrote: post #123
roksprok wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Alphabet's P/E twice that of Apple? 13 vs 25 if I remember correctly. Doesn't this imply that it's Google, not Apple, that people are counting on to 'produce industry-changing smash hits over and over again'?

Interesting, I didn't know that actually. Seems GOOGL has a market cap almost as high and 2.5x higher P/E. Would make me wonder about Google a bit too. In my opinion, they don't really innovate at the market level like Apple does. They have the Search cash cow, Gmail was moderately innovative at the time, and most of their other stuff comes off as well-executed me-toos. Technically innovative, but not exactly opening…

Most IT/technology companies trade above 20x P/E. That Apple is so much lower simply reflects how little confidence investors have in the company at the moment, as evidenced by the huge slide in share price.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#158

Post by aedron »

leoc wrote: post #142
Animats wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is in some ways easier, because there's no real threat to their cash cow, search ads. Apple has to stay ahead of competition in phones. That competition is now quite good, and usually cheaper. As CEO of Apple, Cook is expected to deliver the Next Big Thing. So far, he hasn't, and he's running out of time. (Cars? Tough, low-margin business. VR? Niche market. Watches? Tried that. Robots? Not ready yet. Voice AI?…

> Watches? Tried that. It's probably too early to write off watches thus. Technically they're probably in the 'not ready yet' category: another few rounds of improvement in size constraints, battery life and potential independence from a smartphone (especially as putting in more types of radio becomes more viable) could make a big difference. The aWatch really was too early, or at least too early to create Apple's tr…

> in a handful of years VR is going to reach the 'iPod point' where there are no technical or price barriers to Apple putting together a product that's strongly desirable to a mass market.

Apple under Jobs could do that. There is nothing so far to show that Apple can do that without him.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#159

Post by aedron »

6stringmerc wrote: post #80

CTRL+F "music" & "iTunes" - only one result, as part of the framing by the writer. Unless Tim & co. decide to confront the reality that they're stepping up "vertical integration" model using the Robber Baron playbook when it comes to the actual arts, I think his "social responsibility" comments mean fuck-all. Go ahead, build a new environmentally friendly compound, that's great, good on you. And how's about that 30%…

Big interviews like this come with a price. They are always puff pieces.

Re: Tim Cook, the interview: Running Apple ‘is sort of a lonely job’

#160

Post by coldtea »

codefolder wrote: post #156
coldtea wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're never going to convince the populous that exercising is fun You don't have to convince the "populous", just enough tens of millions, and it would be a huge profit center. And you don't have to convince them about exercise being fun or anything similar either -- just that not dying from heart attack and knowing your glucose levels and such is fun... (There are 30 million people with diabetes in the US alone f…

Such delusion. The personal computer was important; a well designed mp3 player was desired by many; the tablet, a new way to interface; the smart phone, a communication necessity. The watch is just a toy without a core reason for existence. Not just apple's, all smart watches. It's ironic that a company who made its business selling fashionable tech will peak and fall from relevancy selling a purely fashionable devic…

>The watch is just a toy without a core reason for existence. Not just apple's, all smart watches.

The basic idea, that you don't seem to comprehend, is that it's not about the watch functionality at all. It's about having a 24/7 gizmo on you, with appropriate sensors to read medical data, movement etc, with enough screen and size to do a ton of things, from home automation to payments, etc, and eventually, and with

Here are things a smartwatch already does better or will eventually (as battery capacities get up to it) do better, with less bulk and faster access than a smartphone.

24/7 health monitoring Home automation controls Remote control (for tv, hifi, etc) Wireless Payments Panic button (health issue, crime, rape, whatever alert) Total phone operation (through voice recognition + wireless headphones) Navigation Music player (again, wireless headphones + voice/screen control) Show urgent notifications etc etc... ...tell the time.

It's a form factor common from the past notion of the watch, and simultaneously perfect for being always on you, always monitoring, small and non intrusive, and still having a large enough space for screen and battery.

>It's okay. You're not an innovator. You're not a visionary. You can't see the horizon. You're probably fascinated by shiny objects; trapped in the superficial glaze, unable to comprehend the substrate.

It's ok. You're not sophisticated. You're rude. You think in slogans. You can't see anything beyond an object being shiny or being made by Apple. You're probably fascinated by your own superficial analysis, and think your use cases are the measure of everything.

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