[kire2345]

Isn't it a little bit sad to see that Tim Cook in this situation still looks backwards and talks about Steve Jobs in half of the email? Instead of being forward looking and laying out his vision of the future of apple and the products to come? He really is still simply maintaining Jobs' business, trying to repeat what Jobs said as often as possible so that he sounds like him.

[snowwrestler]

Every culture has its myths, and in Apple's culture today, no myth is bigger than Steve Jobs. It might be wise of Cook to invoke Jobs at big moments.

He knows he's never going to match that legend... so why try? Instead of fighting it, he uses it to foster a common purpose within the company.

In terms of "maintaining" the business, Apple's share price when Cook became CEO seven years ago was about a quarter of what it is now. Pretty good maintenance.

[rm_-rf_slash]

I asked Tim once what the hardest thing was for him, personally, to fill in Steve’s shoes.

He told me that Steve was his friend, and he believes that no true friend can ever be/replace their friend, so he chose to run Apple like Tim.

From his emphasis on privacy to his masterful supply chain management, it is clear that he has stuck to that position.

[leesalminen]

I was just having a conversation with a friend about Tim and his role at Apple.

I posited that Steve probably wasn’t the right person to grow Apple to $1T in market cap and that Tim really made it happen. My friend took the opposite side believing that Tim is just running of Steve’s ideas and that Tim had relatively little to do with making it happen.

Curious to see what HN thinks.

[snowwrestler]

I think they're different people with different strengths, so it's futile to compare them.

I think Steve Jobs was an incredibly talented person and it's not really fair to ding Tim Cook for not being Steve Jobs. Apple is obviously not the same company without Jobs, but is that Tim Cook's fault? I don't see how.

It seems to me that a lot of the "analysis" of Tim Cook vs Steve Jobs is really just people wishing Steve Jobs was still alive. I wish he was too.

I will point out that Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 and hired Tim Cook in 1998. So Jobs' incredible 2nd run at Apple was also, to some extent, Cook's incredible run too.

[thereare5lights]

This kind of debate is like who's the GOAT of the NBA, Lebron or MJ. It's gonna be a lot of cherry-picking of data, subjective thoughts, etc. Not that the debate wouldn't be fun or illuminating, just that an objective answer is probably out of reach.

[leesalminen]

For sure. It’s not a black and white topic.

This is an interesting topic for me as I find myself asking similar questions about my role at a company I founded.

I founded a company currently valued in the low-mid 8 digits. I successfully brought the company through an acquisition and have doubled revenues since.

I keep coming back to an article I read on HN years ago talking about the 4 types of CEOs: founder, growth, maintenance, death (bankruptcy). While I’ve found success in 1 and 2, I don’t enjoy 2 as much as 1 and I don’t think I’d be any good at 3 or 4.

I’m probably experiencing a form of imposter syndrome as the board & leadership are all satisfied with my performance, but the thoughts still linger.

[raleigh_user]

Read Rocket Fuel. Its a book I am sure the HN crowd will critique but it has made a large difference in how my biz operates and how multiple founders fill roles. I am very much an "integrator" from the book. I am less of the massive, big picture and more of the day to day execution. Good at growth/maintenance. Not great as a true "founder". And I have managed through near death and it seemingly took years off my life so I'd prefer not to go back to that one!

[atarian]

I disagree. I think Tim recognizes that Steve's legacy has a mythic quality that people want to relate to.

[adfm]

Bummer that Tim Cook didn't mention Woz. Heck, nobody here on "Hacker" News has mentioned Woz in the context of this article or Tim Cook's email. Way to go, folks. (and yes, Ronald Wayne deserves a shout out, too.)

Posthumous reality distortion field in effect. Can you feel it?

[meowface]

Woz got Apple off the ground and gave them their "magic seed", but he did not and could not bring it to such incredible business success. I doubt he would've wanted to. I think nearly everyone on HN still recognizes the amazing contributions he's made to computing.

[adfm]

Amazing magic seeds or sufficiently advanced technology? Call it what you will, but that's like mentioning AC and Westinghouse, but ignoring Tesla or only mentioning one parent on your birthday.

[savanaly]

Isn't that a bit like asking why the Christians are still talking about Jesus every Sunday instead of looking to the future?

[kire2345]

Great way of looking at it. It even raises the question if it would be possible or desirable to match the legacy of Steve Jobs. Or if - from a business point of view - the best thing Tim could do was to manage Steve's legacy. Similar to the pope, to stay in your metaphor.

[empath75]

Steve Jobs is as much apart of the Apple brand as Walt Disney is part of Disney's.

[gspetr]

He literally isn't.

In 100 years when people hear Disney they will think about Walt Disney.

Why? Because it literally is "The Walt Disney Company".

https://www.nyse.com/quote/XNYS:DIS

Will they think of Jobs or Gates when they hear of Microsoft or Apple? It's far from certain.

How many CEO's from 100 years ago can you name that did not have their name in the company's name?

[pwinnski]

People know Ray Kroc = McDonald's. We know Rockefeller = Standard Oil. We know Thomas Watson = IBM.

I'm not sure how many CEOs from 100 years ago I can name, period. Most companies that old do seem to include a person's name. But I'd say Steve Jobs stands at least as likely to be remembered as Ray Kroc or Thomas Watson, and for many of the same reasons.

[bluthru]

It's recognition that Steve Job's vision was vindicated and his approach really did connect with customers.

[alaskamiller]

Isn't it awesome that he's making good on a promise to take care of the business to then pass it on to the next CEO? What if it's an 8 yr old African child right now looking up to code Swift 4 on YouTube?

[drb91]

> What if it's an 8 yr old African child right now looking up to code Swift 4 on YouTube?

This is an unbelievably tone deaf thing to say and a reason why people roll their eyes when techies talk about the future.

[ryanwaggoner]

Why is it tone deaf, exactly?

[drb91]

Not everyone believes that giving non-privileged people access to technology is a panacea to a better life for them, or for a better world. As a result it comes off to me a lot like justifying capitalist motives with (highly unrealistic) humanitarian ideals.

For a good example of how this type of rhetoric fails to persuade people, look for criticism of Steven Pinker. I'm not trying to discard his work so much as to point out that the values he takes for granted as being desirable are not universal.

[ryanwaggoner]

That doesn't make it tone deaf. That just makes it representative of a (widely held) perspective that you disagree with.

EDIT: for backup to my "widely held" claim, here's a poll on what people think has improved life the most in the last 50 years, as well as what they expect to improve it the most in the future. Technology and medicine / health (which is technology-related, of course) hold the top two spots in both results: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/12/four-in-ten-...

Also, just by way of info, Africa is now one of the world's fastest growing economic regions, thanks to capitalism: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/middle-east-and-a....

I genuinely don't get it. We just watched Asia lift literally billions of people out of abject poverty through capitalism, and now that Africa is on track to do the same, people are full of criticism. Unreal.

[drb91]

Well, an appeal to common belief has never held much water.

In any case, there are more things to measure with effects of technology than poverty, which is far from an objective measure and implies many things about the values of the person measuring it. You need to compare and contrast multiple views of the world to meaningfully conclude one is better. Steven Pinker has only made a readable argument for one perspective. Merely accepting that argument will not necessarily provide you with a better model. This viewpoint is inevaluable by itself; a pleasant bit of secular faith.

Anyway, it’s tone deaf because children are also mining our computer components, working in effectively slave labor factories, recycling our technology at great cost to their communities, likely because the power dynamics between nations are so skewed to wealth. This “progress” is paid for in the blood of children.... so, by producing such a simple view of the universe, you are implying your values and marginal life improvement completely justify the pain people go through producing your phone, sneakers, tv, all of which are designed to rapidly deteriorate and continue the cycle.

[TeMPOraL]

I read that comment as massive sarcasm.