[alsetmusic]

> Can anyone point me to what he does, on a day to day basis, that makes him and operational genius? How does it manifest in him personally?

Under Jobs, he transformed the company from one that had hardware taking up space in warehouses waiting to be purchased and shipped to The iPod Company. Their sales of iPods were a huge part of their growth and resurgence. They had entirely new models and designs every year and they managed to get them into customers' hands in time for the holiday season every year after announcing the new ones every September. Every Mac was built after the online purchase, not before (obviously this doesn't count those going to retail).

That takes someone really knowing how to optimize. I don't know if it's "genius", but that was the point of the reference.

[doitLP]

Thanks, but how did he do it? Actually what does he do than saying “ok guys tip priority is moving these units”? Like do he come up with the strategies? Or is he good at picking winners when he sees them from proposals of his underlings?

[pjc50]

This is one of those things like becoming chess #1: all you have to do is make the optimal decision in a series of meetings, over and over again, for years.

[alsetmusic]

I don't know, but he was Chief Operations Officer when all of this happened, so whatever happened in those regards happened on his watch and should be credited to him (as well as those reporting to him).

It's not like Microsoft's head of gaming has no bearing on their horrible mismanagement of the studios they bought and shuttered. That person was responsible. Do I know what they did day to day? No. But there's someone new in that position and I think that tells us something.

[jklp]

I think this is something a lot of people who haven't managed others before find hard to understand

The easiest example I've found is comparing a manager to a conductor in an orchestra.

Most people will only see a conductor on the night of the performance, and they don't look like they do much, but a lot of the work is actually done before the night.

The main issue is that because there are so many musicians in an orchestra, it's hard to have an overall view of what everyone's doing and if a piece sounds good.

The main job of the conductor is to be the person who has that big picture. They make sure everyone is playing in time and in key. And if they're tricky parts of the piece - they make sure it's played properly. If it isn't, they hold individual practice sessions to make those parts smoother. If some musicians aren't performing well, they have conversations with them and maybe let them go. If there aren't enough musicians they hire more. And if the pieces aren't working they change them from the millions of pieces available to play. And they have to do it in a way so as not to make the orchestra angry and all quit!

So to answer your question what does Tim Cook actually do? Does he tell his staff the priority is moving xyz units, does he come up with the core strategy, does he pick up good ideas from his staff. The answer is most likely yes to all the above - but that's such a small part of it.

The big thing he needs to do is have a vision for how he wants the business to be, and then do those parts you mentioned, plus the hundreds of other tasks and decisions to get it there.

[raw_anon_1111]

Read the “Apple in China” book.

[greedo]

Can't agree more with this recommendation. As a long time Apple user (Apple ][c back in 1984 started my journey), I thought I knew a lot about Apple. But how they actually made the iPhone work was just an amazing read.

[Barbing]

The book’s Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_in_China

Some critique, but widely praised

[BeetleB]

I believe the idea was either his or Steve Jobs's.

I don't know how much of the details were his, but taking the risk and seeing it through deserves a lot of credit.

For most companies (even now), the idea of JIT manufacturing is terrifying. How will they guarantee there isn't a slowdown and you'll have a shortage at Christmas (or in any random month)? Most CEOs like always having some inventory. They went in the opposite direction and decided the ideal case was not having any inventory.

[colechristensen]

Compared to game consoles, graphics cards, and all manner of other electronics things... have you ever seen Apple products on those stock tracker websites? Has there ever been an actual problem with scalpers? Ever had to sign up for a waiting list?

No. Besides being a little hard to find some things for a period of days after a new release, you can just buy Apple stuff.

The PS5 was hard to find in stores for TWO YEARS

[alsetmusic]

I was overly sleepy due to prescribed sleeping pills when I woke up at 6am to preorder my M5 MacBook Pro. I got stuck on the order page for five minutes because I didn't notice that I had to pick the color and hadn't done so. I checked out ten minutes after preorders went live and that cost me a week on delivery whereas I normally complete preorders fast enough to have my product arrive on the day of release.

We ordered a MacBook Neo for my partner and she had to wait three weeks for it despite the company obviously expecting strong interest in the product at launch.

> The PS5 was hard to find in stores for TWO YEARS

Pandemic and supply chain issues surely contributed to that. It can't be cited without context.

[prewett]

"and supply chain issues" is what Apple didn't have. Well, I'm sure they had them, but they were able to navigate them.

The Mac M1 came out on practically the same day as the PS5, so I think it is a great example. The M1 was available in volume when they said it was going to be. What did Tim Cook do? That. Millions of products available when they said it was going to be, during pandemic-disrupted shipping.

[albedoa]

Interesting. Do you think that "I forgot to push a button and had to wait a week to receive a new release" supports or counters the claim that new releases are sometimes hard to find for a period of days.

[gordonhart]

I just bought an M5 Macbook from an electronics retailer because they actually stocked it, whereas ordering the same machine for the same price from Apple would have been a custom build delivered mid May.

[dmboyd]

Well you currently can’t buy a desktop Mac with decent ram at any price, and right now ebay and marketplace are full of people scalping Mac minis.

[dwaite]

define "decent"

[1234letshaveatw]

I've been waiting a few weeks for the blush Neo I ordered