Tim Cook Sold Out Steve Jobs
Anil Dash argues that Tim Cook's recent Oval Office visit, where he fawned over Donald Trump and presented a golden trophy, betrays the legacy of Steve Jobs. Jobs, the son of a Syrian immigrant and a counterculture figure, embodied a defiant spirit against authority. Dash contends Apple had the power to resist, citing its massive user base and the precedent of Uber's public challenge to NYC's mayor. Instead, Apple's capitulation is both embarrassing and strategically foolish, as it will still face tariffs and other pressures while losing the respect of employees and consumers.
There's no point in having fuck-you money in the bank if you never say "fuck you"!
- jfb
The real problem, to me, isn't that Cook sold out Jobs; he sold out his customers, by the increasing rents extracted by the App Store and the services division in general. I'm a long time Apple user, and the idea that ads have any place in my computers is appalling, but now they're in Maps, and they're in the OS as non-dismissible upsells, and I mean, Windows is right over there, all of this is unnecessary strategy taxation on what Apple does well (hardware and software).
- kvuj
> I’m not an uncritical Steve Jobs fan. I know, from having worked closely with people who worked directly for Jobs for many years, that he could be a mercurial, and brutish, boss.
That's a pretty big euphemism for Steve Jobs being a piece of shit. What I've realized throughout the years of working is that being able to work as a team is almost more important than your technical capacity. You can always become better in your field, but becoming a better human is a lot harder.
- ezekiel68
So many things that could be said about this. For one -- I truly enjoyed the accidental repetition in the article that marked the effort as likely not aided too much by AI.
But I couldn't help, most of the way through it, to crystalize the respone, "How did we get the idea Tim Cook was chosen because he was likely to be much like Steve Jobs?" Honestly, having watched the Steve Jobs commencement address several times, I kept going back to his declaration that "Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new."
- gnuplustoejam
Bill Burr has the only reasonable take on Steve Jobs:
- detourdog
Totally off topic. I think it's important to point out that this is the first planned CEO transition at Apple. Every other CEO was fired or died.
- newAccount2025
2025-09 would be helpful context for the article link
- cmiles8
The article is a bit disingenuous.
Steve’s main claim to fame was Apple 2.0 when he brought the company back from the brink of bankruptcy. He had almost no choice but to take radical bet-the-farm bets as the status quo was the company goes bankrupt.
Tim Cook inherited a company on an upward trajectory and kept it going. His core job was don’t $&@? it up, and at that he was very successful. Was Apple potentially less innovative during his tenure? Yeah probably, but it was stable and grew massively under his oversight, which was the job. Most shareholders that held their stock after Steve left are very happy with their returns since then.
- knivets
2025 Apple is a perfect representation of 2025 America.