[throwaway5752]

Yes. I wish I hadn't made the comment. I think it's just obvious that certain classes of products and companies that build them that have longer planning cycles

Maybe rossdavidh's comment was reasonable in general. But with Apple you have a long term CEO under essentially no pressure for succession. You have product cycles that are going to push two years. You have supply chains that are going to involve dozens or more firms. You have a premium luxury brand. There is so much working against the idea that Apple, specifically, is make short term decisions at the expense of the long term. Still, Apple is not special, per se. It's executing astonishingly well, but I'd expect other capex heavy companies (auto manufacturing, vertically integrated oil e&p, and other hardware-weighted electronics, among others) to approach similar classes of decisions with similar care.

Part of the reason I regret engaging is because this thread is pretty far off topic. This is a low volume product and it's going to an existing partner. It's a minor decision and say nothing about stability in the US or China. The only reason it's getting coverage is because it moves their only US manufacturing to Taiwan or Shanghai.

edit: rossdavidh - I think we're wading a bit too far into hypotheticals. Moving Mac Pro production to Quanex closer to their existing supply chain is not an example of the behavior you described (but I won't deny happens)

[rossdavidh]

While I am not suggesting that Tim Cook is in imminent danger, the idea that an Apple CEO does not have to worry about the board yanking him if the numbers go bad is, given Apple's history, in need of some defending.

Again, I'm not saying Tim Cook's in danger. But, if Steve Jobs can get fired from Apple, and several CEOs have, I don't know why we would expect that he is immune if Apple stops being profitable. Which, granted, it shows no signs of.

[Krasnol]

Jobs resigned after a coup went wrong. Even with that the board wanted to keep him.