Tim Cook on Mad Money
5 years ago
Published May 4, 2017 by

Apple's Tim Cook dumbs it down for Mad Money (video)

Sinking to the level of a campaign slogan is not a good look.

Am I the only Apple watcher who squirmed through Tim Cook's interview with Jim Cramer Wednesday night on CNBC's Mad Money?

If you missed it, here it is, 12 minutes on href="https://youtu.be/iTNHM7QeLB4">YouTube:

See the full 12-minute video on CNBC.

If Cook's purpose was to respond to candidate Trump's threat to boycott his company if it didn't start manufacturing iPhones in America, the Job Creation website that Apple put up the same day did a better job. A brilliant job, in fact, delivering real data without dumbing it down.

What I don't get about the news Cook broke on CNBC Wednesday night—a scoop Cramer lapped up like a happy puppy—is how $1 billion invested in a new Advanced Technology Manufacturing fund is different from the $17 billion Apple earmarked this year in capital expenditures for, among other things, product tooling and manufacturing process equipment?

Note to Cook: Beware of false analogies. You told the TV audience last night that people have values, and a company is a collection of people, so by extension a company should have values. People also have lust in their heart and covet their neighbors' houses. Where does that leave Apple?

7 Comments

  1. Fred Stein said:
    I thought Tim’s performance was perfect.
    Most important word (Tim used it several times) “influence”. When it comes to politics and/or government (ours or any other), Tim seeks to influence, not confront, not grandstand. He re-iterated, you have to show up, lean in, to influence.
    He picked Cramer because he knew Cramer would close with “own, don’t trade”, which leads to stable stock prices, which in turn helps for employee recruiting and retention.
    Cramer was comical with his gotcha questions.Hopefully laughing at himself too. 🙂

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    May 4, 2017
  2. George Row said:
    You tube is telling me: “This video has been removed by the user. Sorry about that.”

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    May 4, 2017
  3. Jonathan Mackenzie said:
    I think Tim Cook is generally wooden and unexciting, but I respect how hard his job must be for an unnatural CEO like him. Cook is immensely private and may even be an introvert. These are not natural CEO strengths. But he’s also very bright and a hard worker and I always come away admiring him for the effort he obviously puts into his work.

    But if he suffers in style, I think the substance of what he is saying is right. It may be dumbed down, but don’t kid yourself… Most of what Cook says in public is dumbed down. If he let loose in his natural business speak he’d be impressive enough, but he’d also be incomprehensible to most people.

    Cook is dutifully sounding the trumpet for Apple, trying his best to explain that Apple has some real core values and is in a very strong market position heading into the future.

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    May 4, 2017
  4. Fred Stein said:
    Back again. I like Tim’s talk about values, despite the awkward analogy. Without values, individuals will make poor decisions and charismatic leaders will successfully push crazy ideas. Illustration, from Issacson’s bio on Job, he mentions how Steve convinced an engineer to drive down boot up time for the Mac by counting how many hours collectively this would cost the users. That relentless devotion to user experience gives Apple the best loyalty, and revenue, and margin. Other values may be more aspirational with no financial ROI. By contrast think of the companies that lost touch with their values, VW, UAL, Yahoo.

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    May 5, 2017

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