Bloomberg Story Breaks Down Apple's Unrivaled Success Under Tim Cook's Leadership

Bloomberg has published an in-depth piece by journalists Austin Carr and Mark Gurman about the rise of Apple under Tim Cook's leadership, covering several attributes of the CEO that took over from Steve Jobs, including his diplomatic acumen, operational prowess, eye for detail, and manifest success in making Apple one of the biggest companies in the history of modern business.

apple park 416 security
The story touches on a number of topics in the recent history of Apple's meteoric rise under Cook's leadership, including the political sensitivities of outsourcing production to China, Cook's relationship with current and former U.S. presidents, his cost-conscious approach to new products, and the strategic difficulties of managing Apple's product diversification in a global-spanning supply chain.

Other highlights include:

  • Steve Jobs' blunt response when President Obama asked him why Apple couldn't make the iPhone in the U.S.
  • ‌Tim Cook‌'s unrelenting work ethic.
  • Cook's unlikely friendship with President Trump, and Apple's silence in the face of falsehoods propagated by the former president about Apple production coming back to the U.S.
  • Supply chain managers' alarm upon seeing the initial design of the 2013 "trashcan" Mac Pro.
  • Internal pressure at Apple to decouple from China over censorship, human-rights violations, and criticism about labor conditions at mainland factories.
  • Apple's continued success in the face of the global health crisis.

  • Apple's fightback against claims of the company's "monopoly power" and its ongoing feud with big name software developers and social media platforms like Spotify, Epic Games, and Facebook.

For all the details, be sure to check out the full long read over on Bloomberg.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Popular Stories

iPhone SE 4 Vertical Camera Feature

iPhone SE 4 Rumored to Use Same Rear Chassis as iPhone 16

Friday July 19, 2024 7:16 am PDT by
Apple will adopt the same rear chassis manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 that it is using for the upcoming standard iPhone 16, claims a new rumor coming out of China. According to the Weibo-based leaker "Fixed Focus Digital," the backplate manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 is "exactly the same" as the standard model in Apple's upcoming iPhone 16 lineup, which is expected to...
iPhone 16 Pro Sizes Feature

iPhone 16 Series Is Just Two Months Away: Everything We Know

Monday July 15, 2024 4:44 am PDT by
Apple typically releases its new iPhone series around mid-September, which means we are about two months out from the launch of the iPhone 16. Like the iPhone 15 series, this year's lineup is expected to stick with four models – iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max – although there are plenty of design differences and new features to take into account. To bring ...
bsod

Crowdstrike Says Global IT Outage Impacting Windows PCs, But Mac and Linux Hosts Not Affected

Friday July 19, 2024 3:12 am PDT by
A widespread system failure is currently affecting numerous Windows devices globally, causing critical boot failures across various industries, including banks, rail networks, airlines, retailers, broadcasters, healthcare, and many more sectors. The issue, manifesting as a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), is preventing computers from starting up properly and forcing them into continuous recovery...
iphone 14 lineup

Cellebrite Unable to Unlock iPhones on iOS 17.4 or Later, Leak Reveals

Thursday July 18, 2024 4:18 am PDT by
Israel-based mobile forensics company Cellebrite is unable to unlock iPhones running iOS 17.4 or later, according to leaked documents verified by 404 Media. The documents provide a rare glimpse into the capabilities of the company's mobile forensics tools and highlight the ongoing security improvements in Apple's latest devices. The leaked "Cellebrite iOS Support Matrix" obtained by 404 Media...
Apple Watch Series 9

2024 Apple Watch Lineup: Key Changes We're Expecting

Tuesday July 16, 2024 7:59 am PDT by
Apple is seemingly planning a rework of the Apple Watch lineup for 2024, according to a range of reports from over the past year. Here's everything we know so far. Apple is expected to continue to offer three different Apple Watch models in five casing sizes, but the various display sizes will allegedly grow by up to 12% and the casings will get taller. Based on all of the latest rumors,...
tinypod apple watch

TinyPod Turns Your Apple Watch Into an iPod

Wednesday July 17, 2024 3:18 pm PDT by
If you have an old Apple Watch and you're not sure what to do with it, a new product called TinyPod might be the answer. Priced at $79, the TinyPod is a silicone case with a built-in scroll wheel that houses the Apple Watch chassis. When an Apple Watch is placed inside the TinyPod, the click wheel on the case is able to be used to scroll through the Apple Watch interface. The feature works...

Top Rated Comments

djcerla Avatar
45 months ago
Most Apple’s “failures” according to MR dudes are the hits other companies would kill for.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dwaltwhit Avatar
45 months ago
It baffles me to watch people argue the successes of the most profitable company in the world. Apple makes a bazillion dollars a year and people are talking about butterfly keyboards and a mac pro from 8 years ago.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
svanstrom Avatar
45 months ago

Second rule: blame everything on China.
Sometimes the thing getting blamed a lot deserves it (and more).
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
threesixty360 Avatar
45 months ago

On there other hand, Apple lost the A.I. race (to Amazon and Google). The lost the cloud race (to Amazon and Microsoft). They lost music to Spotify. They lost video to streaming above all to Netflix but also to Amazon. They lost home/virtual assistant to Amazon and Google.

It's interesting that you use the word "lost". Like its a negative. I think if you look at Jobs' philosophy its always about focus. What you say "no" to is more important than what you say yes to.

The reason Apple versions of those services exist is to support the sale of Apple hardware mostly. The reason AWS/Spotify etc.. is to make money by being as globally dominant as possible. Very different things.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Abazigal Avatar
45 months ago
I have on numerous occasions in the past opined that different people are needed at different points in a company history.

It’s taken 10 long years to prove it, but it’s clear that Steve Jobs made the right move in handing the reins of Apple over to Tim Cook, who in reality was already overseeing most of a CEO’s traditional duties even when Steve Jobs was still around anyways.

Jobs was right for his era, but he would have been a disaster for the Cook era. Cook is amazing, and has been responsible for most of the achievements of Apple, though not the initial innovation and concept that Jobs provided. Cook has refined the culture and expanded it, and has done as fine a job as any CEO in American history, if not world business history.

He's Eisenhower, not Churchill.

And Apple is better off for it.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Tozovac Avatar
45 months ago
Simpler answer: It’s all about the product, regardless of whoever’s in the corner (or round) office, and here the product(s) are still better than Windows & Android to enough people, despite awful decisions under his leadership: butterfly keyboard, the war on ports/thin-ness, design decisions to be different seemingly mostly just to be different, etc.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)