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I’m not underestimating what he does, I’m asking what does he actually do to make it happen beyond setting priorities and holding subordinates accountable? I’m not questioning that he does many things well and right and even genius, I just want to know what those are!

I’m sure Isaacson will cover it well in his bio!

5 comments

I think a major difference is that Apple doesn’t see factories purely as stores where you buy the stuff they advertise they can make; it cooperates with manufacturers to get them to build things that they couldn’t make before.

They are willing to pay billions up front to get production lines built to their specifications and guarantee that they will buy X products over Y time, in exchange for exclusivity.

For example, when Apple decided they wanted to use CNC aluminum milling to build laptop frames, no factory could do that at their scale and desired precision.

And yes, you can only do that if you have lots of cash flowing around, but that’s not sufficient. You also need a process that gives you a very good chance that such investments pay out.

> Apple doesn’t see factories purely as stores

At Apple's scale, you basically can't operate like this. Placing an order for 50 million iPhone screens is not a consumer-grade request, you have to customize and coordinate your orders to get all 50 million delivered. It's hard to see the genius in this, the advantages you've listed are all courtesy of scale and liquidity.

Huh, courtesy of scale is because of 50 million customers were convinced that iPhone has quality enough to pay premium over 100s of other phone models. No one is stopping Dell, Acer, Asus, Samsung etc of the world to put order of 50 million widgets and get best quality at cut throat price.

> No one is stopping Dell, Acer, Asus, Samsung etc of the world to put order of 50 million widgets and get best quality at cut throat price.

That’s why I argue that’s something Apple does different. Dell, Acer, Asus, Samsung go to a manufacturer and ask them to make what they know they can make, preferably at cut throat price, while Apple goes there and says “we think you can make this, too; let’s discuss how we can get there, and how much money you’ll need for it”.

Of course, reality is more nuanced. Samsung, for instance, experiments a lot with folding displays (I expect Apple does, too, but is not satisfied with them yet), but I think it is correct in the large picture. Other manufacturers would say “we need a laptop body; let’s see who can build them, and what quality they have, Apple says “we want a laptop body made of one piece of aluminum; let’s see who we can work with to make that possible”.

And yes, having loads of money and high-margin products helps in that regard, but as I said and the post I reply to seems to acknowledge, that’s not sufficient.

Indeed, and if we pay that courtesy to it's original owner then Steve Jobs was the "genius" behind that. Tim Cook inherited the empire, and steered the resources Jobs left for him.

> No one is stopping Dell, Acer, Asus, Samsung etc of the world to put order of 50 million widgets and get best quality at cut throat price.

I don't think you are familiar with Samsung's ball game, including them in a list like this.

Samsung literally makes and sells a lot of those displays to Apple. What are you talking about

I would earnestly suggest reading Apple In China:

https://www.amazon.com/Apple-China-Capture-Greatest-Company/...

It both captures Tim's genius and the genius of the person much geniuser than him: Xi Jinping.

I bet it's more about what he didn't do. Like how a stable marriage seems boring but is the accumulation of many many right (by necessarily genius) decisions.

I mean sounds like you are asking the question "What is the job of a CEO?"

Not really. I’m asking why he’s a genius. When I was told that WW2 wouldnt have gone the same without George C Marshall or how amazing Teddy Roosevelt was at getting stuff done, I went and read their bios and now I understand. Cook does things different than other CEOs apparently so what are those? Other have recommended Apple In China so I’ll start there!

I think this is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory fallacy. There is a correlation to Cook and the performance, but the idea that this was all because of one single guy at the top is survivor bias. For example, other companies didn't fail at outsourcing to China because their CEOs weren't as personally involved as Cook, it was because the team as a whole didn't perform.

Looking today, Trump is as much a symptom as the problem. He didn't get there just because of who he is, he rode on the backs of all the people who voted for him, the state legislators who gerrymandered for him, the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, etc...