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Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

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Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#81

Post by hyperpape »

protomyth wrote: post #15
zekevermillion wrote: post #11

Even if I generally agree with disappointment at the apparent "maintenance mode" of Apple's product line, I am not sure Ballmer is the best analogy. My understanding is that Tim Cook actually is responsible for many of the supply chain innovations behind Apple's dominant product lines. This is an incredibly hard technical feat, not just blustery MBA crap. I suppose it remains to be seen whether Apple can put its enor…

If you take a look back, Steve Ballmer was responsible for a lot of the success of Microsoft. He mostly got hate because people hated Microsoft. I'm don't think Ballmer's list of accomplishments at Microsoft is fully appreciated particularly compared to the good press Tim Cook as enjoyed.

But Tim Cook had tons of bad press. Back when the stock was falling in late 2012-2013, there was a cottage industry of people calling for him to resign.

I wonder if Ballmer really got bad press outside of geeky circles until relatively late in his career, when hindsight showed that Microsoft was missing out on a lot of new products.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#82

Post by ncallaway »

Spooky23 wrote: post #34
bad_user wrote: post #12

The article is short on details why he thinks Tim Cook is like Steve Ballmer, except for saying that Apple is slowly missing the boat on AI. I don't know what Amazon does for AI, I haven't seen anything convincing from them, but I'll trust the author that they are working on it. However it's tough to beat Google in this space, because AI and machine learning is what Google has focused on since their beginnings . Goog…

AI is, like it was the first time around, a really speculative bet that will probably disappoint. IMO, Apple's approach is more honest and has a clear path to profitability. Everyone else is promising the world and not delivering much at all.

This is the truly hard thing with disruptive innovation.

It looks like nothing at all, until it suddenly disrupts everything. It's easy to spot with hindsight, but at the time it's not at all clear what's disruptive and what's nothing.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#83

Post by the_watcher »

bad_user wrote: post #12

The article is short on details why he thinks Tim Cook is like Steve Ballmer, except for saying that Apple is slowly missing the boat on AI. I don't know what Amazon does for AI, I haven't seen anything convincing from them, but I'll trust the author that they are working on it. However it's tough to beat Google in this space, because AI and machine learning is what Google has focused on since their beginnings . Goog…

> I don't know what Amazon does for AI, I haven't seen anything convincing from them

Alexa is easily the best voice assistant, at least in terms of actually understanding what is being asked. When it can't help, it's far more often because it can't find a result or because Amazon/the app builder hasn't built Alexa into the product yet (still drives me crazy that asking Alexa to play an HBO show only works with HBO Go, but not HBA Now, for example, but Alexa definitely understands the requests).

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#84

Post by alanh »

This title really rubs me the wrong way. To say one person “is” someone quite different seems like a reductive and clickbaity way to say that they are alike in one or two small ways. Better title: “Cook, Ballmer, and the Problem with Naming Successors Who Are Good at Execution”

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#85

Post by the_watcher »

cm2187 wrote: post #76

My opinion is that the failure of Microsoft has less to do with Ballmer than with the absence of a Steve Jobs. My experience with large corporations is that they naturally produce mediocrity. The ownership of the final product or service is too diluted, with too many people involved, pulling in too many conflicting directions. They employ people who individually know what "good" means and what should be done in an id…

> My opinion is that the failure of Microsoft has less to do with Ballmer than with the absence of a Steve Jobs.

This argument would be a lot stronger had Microsoft not begun making such major improvements as soon as Ballmer was replaced with Nadella.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#87

Post by the_watcher »

hyperpape wrote: post #81
protomyth wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take a look back, Steve Ballmer was responsible for a lot of the success of Microsoft. He mostly got hate because people hated Microsoft. I'm don't think Ballmer's list of accomplishments at Microsoft is fully appreciated particularly compared to the good press Tim Cook as enjoyed.

But Tim Cook had tons of bad press. Back when the stock was falling in late 2012-2013, there was a cottage industry of people calling for him to resign. I wonder if Ballmer really got bad press outside of geeky circles until relatively late in his career, when hindsight showed that Microsoft was missing out on a lot of new products.

He got plenty of bad press, but you're right in that it was countered by (valid) good press about his success in strengthening Microsoft's enterprise business.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#89

Post by adamlett »

throwaway420 wrote: post #61

It's a little weird for me that a company supposedly in "maintenance mode" has been ignoring the Mac for so long. Even a 5th rate computer company can manage to come out with a new model once in a while. How did Apple get to the point where a company in "maintenance mode" ignores a big product line like this for so long? Is Apple not capable of executing on more than 1 project at once?

Actually Apple is organized in such a way that it is not very good at executing at more than a handful of products at a time. Almost all companies comparable to Apple in size, are organized into product divisions, each with their own balance sheet, as well as sales and marketing departments. This is because it allows big companies to scale to a very large number of different products, ensuring that each product line gets the attention it requires. Apple OTOH is organized by function, e.g. hardware, software, sales, marketing etc. This allows products to be much better integrated, and it also means that there are no «sacred cows» product-wise. There was no iPod-division that was incentivized to obstruct the creation of the iPhone for instance. The trade off is that it is very hard to manage more than a handful of product lines.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#90

Post by the_watcher »

protomyth wrote: post #15
zekevermillion wrote: post #11

Even if I generally agree with disappointment at the apparent "maintenance mode" of Apple's product line, I am not sure Ballmer is the best analogy. My understanding is that Tim Cook actually is responsible for many of the supply chain innovations behind Apple's dominant product lines. This is an incredibly hard technical feat, not just blustery MBA crap. I suppose it remains to be seen whether Apple can put its enor…

If you take a look back, Steve Ballmer was responsible for a lot of the success of Microsoft. He mostly got hate because people hated Microsoft. I'm don't think Ballmer's list of accomplishments at Microsoft is fully appreciated particularly compared to the good press Tim Cook as enjoyed.

No, Ballmer got hate because Microsoft's consumer products consistently flopped. The stuff that those of us who flipped to Apple while he was in charge used (Zune, Windows Vista, original Surface, Windows Phone) were consistently underwhelming. However, Ballmer was simply inarguably an effective CEO from the perspective of investors. He grew the enterprise business consistently (which has a huge amount of value for legacy purposes), and some of the stuff he launched to support that (Azure, notably) positioned the company to grow in new ways that Nadella has really leveraged. He wasn't a visionary at all, but Ballmer was one of the best executor CEOs out there.
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