Charlie Rose Interview - Apple CEO Tim Cook

[MBAustin]

Just watched this fascinating interview

Charlie Rose | charlierose.com

Lots of tidbits about Apple products and its DNA, and how Steve Jobs' legacy lives on (his office is still as he left it with his name on the door!).

Worth the time for anyone with interest in Apple.

(Note: The interview is in 2 parts, you need to look below to see the 2nd part, which is shorter.)

 

[Midpack]

I watched both days and also thought they were interesting. The Rose-Cook interview reviews I (accidentally) read said part 1 was good, part 2 was not. I thought part 2 was good, topics I've never seen discussed (insights in privacy and education from Apple POV), whereas part 1 was nothing new for anyone who follows Apple at all. Part 1 was just promoting the most recent product roll outs mostly. But all interesting nonetheless IMO.

Almost everyone is replaceable, but not Steve Jobs IMO. Tim Cook and Jonny Ive was probably as close as they could come when Jobs passed away...

 

[ERD50]

Just finished watching. One statement that really struck me, Tim Cook said that you could put a sample of every product Apple makes on the table in front of them, yet they do over $100B in sales. What other company can say that?

-ERD50

 

[clifp]

Just finished watching. One statement that really struck me, Tim Cook said that you could put a sample of every product Apple makes on the table in front of them, yet they do over $100B in sales. What other company can say that?

-ERD50

Proctor and Gamble, Coke, and McDonalds all come to mind but when I checked none were over 100 billion. P&G was close at 86 billion. I than thought of Microsoft and Google (the Xbox fits on table as do all of Google products) but again not 100 billion, Even IBM barely does 100 billion in revenue and obviously you'd need a huge table

After looking the list of companies with revenue over 100 billion I only found one German insurance giant Allianz. I think all of their products would fit on a table, but only kept their insurance contracts in digital form. If you printed them out I am sure they'd fill rooms.

 

[photoguy]

Just finished watching. One statement that really struck me, Tim Cook said that you could put a sample of every product Apple makes on the table in front of them, yet they do over $100B in sales. What other company can say that?



-ERD50

At times this has annoyed me ( it has been years since apple made a mid range desktop without built in monitor) but I think overall it has been a good strategy. In contrast, going to dell is nightmare with multiple similar configs and home/business lines.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[ERD50]

Proctor and Gamble, Coke, and McDonalds all come to mind but when I checked none were over 100 billion. P&G was close at 86 billion. I than thought of Microsoft and Google (the Xbox fits on table as do all of Google products) but again not 100 billion, Even IBM barely does 100 billion in revenue and obviously you'd need a huge table. ...

And I probably didn't get the quote exact, I didn't replay it. I think he may have used an even higher $ figure, like 150B which would limit it further, and I'm pretty sure he left it open, like 'What other company can say that?' - I don't think he said it definitively, like 'No other company can say that'. So I think he was just trying to get the point across on how focused they are.

And even if Caterpillar made only one model earth-mover, it wouldn't fit on a table!

At times this has annoyed me ( it has been years since apple made a mid range desktop without built in monitor)
...

I agree, but as you say, who can argue with success?

When Jobs took over, the Apple product line was a real mess. There were so many models, with overlapping features/specs - a real nightmare. You might try to go up the line in one area (CPU/RAM), and the higher $ model dropped other features that the lower $ model had. It was a mess.

But I thought Jobs took it to extremes wen he stripped the line down to just a few models. I thought maybe once they had their bearings, they might broaden the range a bit, w/o going to extremes again. It's one of the reasons I went with Linux and stopped buying Apple products for myself - they didn't have a cheap, low end netbook when I wanted one. So I bought a little ASUS for $280 that came with a weird Linux on it (Zandros, Xandros?), I replaced that with Ubuntu, and I've been there ever since.

But Apple seems to be doing fine w/o me

-ERD50,