This should be a more widely used tactic. It keeps the experience onboard and possibly stops them from consulting for a competitor!
And it's probably better for the individual too. Going from having a role that takes up a huge amount of your life to zero in a short time probably isn't healthy for that person (or their family).
I disagree, it's really damaging to refuse to let go of the reins.
Bob Iger at Disney never really took succession seriously and then never really left which has left the company somewhat rudderless because the ship is now dependent on a person and not culture/policy.
I don't think Iger is comparable; all his groomed successors left before he did, so Chapek ended up with the hot potato to terrible results.
Apple has not lost a single potential successor to Tim Cook. And don't count Johnny Ive it's ridiculous to assume he could run that company. In 2004 maybe but certainly not the giant of 2024.
There's a lot of evidence... a century or more old.
The lack of recent evidence is inherent, it doesn't say we fixed it. But also we also changed enough stuff on the last century that blindly applying older lessons isn't a gainfully strategy.
I can think of a few cases where the crotchety old guy poured absolute shit on the new guys who came up with radical new theories that turned out to be correct. But in both cases (Linus Pauling with respect to quasicrystals, Eric Thompson with respect to Mayan script decipherment), the field moved on long before he died.
Since Steve Jobs died, Apple's valuation has gone up 10x and revenue about 4x. It stands to reason that a larger company would attract more antitrust scrutiny, but it's hard to blame the executives for that.
They’ve been going around demanding 30% of everyone’s revenue, no matter how tenuous the connection. And it’s getting them in trouble.
Sure 30% of smurfberries is fine. That’s their rule, who cares. And they have a rule it doesn’t apply to physical goods, which is why you can order stuff in the Amazon app.
But then they decided that people giving yoga lessons over the time during the lockdowns owed them 30%. And other apps that had been in the store for 15 years suddenly seemed to require 30% when they didn’t before. Want to sell e-books? You have to give Apple 30%. Now there isn’t 30% anywhere to give. But you have to. So saith Apple.
Instead of keeping their cut the same or even lowering it, they’ve been effectively increasing it by deciding their rules apply to more and more apps and services.
Which looks exactly like monopoly jacking up prices.
“Just don’t have an iPhone app” isn’t really viable at this point for a lot of businesses. It’s not 2008.
They didn’t actually need to do any of this. It’s not like they were going to collapse if they didn’t keep deciding to expand what was “theirs”.
And every single time they’ve gotten in a fight with a government they keep doubling down and getting in trouble. Instead of giving an inch they dig in until they’re ordered to give up 12 miles.
I like apple products. I’ve been using them forever. I do not like where the management has been going.
The 30% starts off as a publisher/retailer's slice of the fee, for which 30% isn't a bad fee. But Apple has extended its 30% take from "this is what we take for people who buy stuff on our store" to "this is what we take for any transactions within applications buy from our store." This is (very weakly!) justifiable if you're looking at microtransactions as buying-on-an-installment-plan, but Apple is going much further and demanding 30% on what's effectively regular credit card transactions.
And if people consider American credit cards' 3% fees to be borderline usurious, think how much outrage a credit card with 30% merchant fees would create. And that's basically what Apple is trying to push now, a credit card with 30% merchant fees. No wonder they're desperate to prohibit apps from telling people "you can buy it cheaper anywhere but Apple."
That’s a big cut, but it’s not exactly the same, because (for an example) credit card companies don’t have an automated and actual human team evaluating safety of and legitimacy for products sold.
So Apple is clearly vetting everybody on Patreon to make sure they're kosher, which is why they get a larger take of the money than Patreon does?
The 30% fee is cromulent when it's stuff that's clearly related to the app store activity. I'm not even that upset about charging a 30% fee on video game microtransactions. But the 30% fee is being charged on purchases made within app for content consumed outside of the app, which really starts to look a lot more like a 30% credit card transaction fee.
merchant providers don’t generally also handle customer service for the payments either, but that doesn’t entirely excuse apple’s behavior none the less
> credit card companies don’t have an automated and actual human team evaluating safety of and legitimacy for products sold.
Neither does Apple. They have a "review" process, but that's a far cry from actually providing real indemnity, and if they dont do that then its not worth the cost.
> “Just don’t have an iPhone app” isn’t really viable at this point for a lot of businesses. It’s not 2008.
Interestingly, the 2008 Steve Jobs advice "Just make web apps and have people point their iP{hone's browser at your thing" is actually workable advice for an awful lot of iOS apps these days.
(I'm super pissed at Patreon caving to Apple and giving Apple 30% of every payment I send to support artists/creators just because Patreon think they need an iPhone app. )
The problem comes when you want to have an accessory that connects with Bluetooth, or notifications that 100% work, or you want to maintain a sound connection even with the screen off.
Maybe doesn't apply to Firefox on iPhone, but firefox android at least can keep sound playing with the screen off. Does the mandatory webkit integration end up interfering with that? Not that Firefox has enough marketshare there to really help...
Apple Watch and AirPods as two product categories panned at launch which have become power houses. Vision Pro might get there after a couple generations, too early to tell.
Airpods' major appeal is the iPhone integration. To paraphrase Jobs, it's not a product it's a feature (or an accessory here), and the core of it is still the iPhone.
For comparison the original (wired) earplugs were popular, but not at the level of being a massive business. Apple had to kill the 3.5 jack ("courage") and turn the proprietary integration knob to 11 to have the airpods fly off the shelves.
A feature for your existing product that you can charge an extra $100-200 for and have it sell incredibly well might even be better than a distinct product.
Totally agree. I see the iCloud space upgrade the same way: it's the only standalone way to get a full phone backup, and it's surely a juicy business everybody would want for themselves.
I mean, AirPods is an accessory to the most successful computing platform in the world. It's a Fortune 500 company all on its own. Do not discount AirPods. People stick to iPhone because they love their AirPods. I sure do.
> People stick to iPhone because they love their AirPods.
Wow, I had the reverse course where I jumped off the iPhone train mainly because airPods were doing nothing for me compared to the competition (mainly Shokz), and I also wanted the 3.5 jack (and NFC as a bonus).
I still get that people can enjoy their airPod as a good product, but don't see it as massively better than Bose or Sony's product for instance if set in a vacuum, which makes the difference in market size extremely artificial to my eyes.
Let's look at it the other way around: what new categories did Jobs unveil? iPod, Apple Store, iPhone, Apple TV, iPad. Everything else was a remix. It's five things. People can point to four under Cook; Watch, AirPods, HomePod, Vision. Of course the company has slowed down, it's just normal but it's still innovative.
The point here is that the antitrust concerns are a natural consequences of them doing their job properly; with Apple becoming a bigger company - which is what is expected of them - it is quite natural that Apple will attract more scrutiny regarding their practices as a dominant player.
Their high level decisions and strategy created a desirable situation: Apple is bigger than ever. That situation has undesirable side effects, but overall the tradeoff is worth it.
It's what we call "rich people problem"; those are real problems - that need to be handled - but they are problems that "you wish to have" because it also means you solved a ton of other - more pressing - issues. And people don't usually look for "blame" in these situations.
There's an argument that Microsoft missed the whole mobile trend because of the antitrust trial and it's outcome, making them second guess potential moves.
IBM got rid of it's computer division as one of the many results of the antitrust case and it's now basically a consulting company with researchers as a side gig.
For any of these companies there was a path to keep making tremendous revenue without getting regulators on one's back, though it requires keeping producing competitive products.
As an example, LVMH is an ultra profitable group with a tentacular hold on its markets, but you don't see governments constantly suing them.
I'm not sure why you see getting struck down by whole governments to be some desirable "rich people problem".
I made a general point about wider application without commenting on Apple's use so not sure why you have responded to me rather than commenting at the top level. Are companies in general heading toward antitrust issues?
I think it's true in general: keeping the old guard around only helps if the new leaders aren't having good ideas, but then it's a screwed situation anyway, as the whole succession plan is botched and you get the Disney drama.
On the other side, if the successors are decent but go in a direction the old guard doesn't approve of, it creates an overly tense and conflictual situation.
In Apple’s case the leadership learned a ton of important lessons from being the scrappy underdog that was always fighting to succeed.
And they shouldn’t forget those.
But those same ideas and strategies may not work as well when you’re the biggest company in the world (or close). So I think either they’re in the tension you describe at the end of your comment, or they’ve taught the new generation the old ways so they’re not trying to change things enough.
We're talking about high level executives who crushed whatever opposition they had
to get to the top of the pyramid.
They're of course good at collaboration as well, but they don't look to me like the type to enjoy someone watching over their shoulder and whispering advices to their ears.
You’re right you didn’t comment on Apple. That’s why I replied to you. Because while I think you’re correct in general in specific regard to Apple I think this is a bad strategy.
> It keeps the experience onboard and possibly stops them from consulting for a competitor!
This means the labor market is not operating correctly. For a company to be able to fork out a salary not for production but for protection you've done something really wrong in your monetary policy.
You’re assuming it’s just about pay when that’s not necessarily the case. Lots of loyalty in many cases but still want to stay involved. Push them out of the door and they will find something to do and that may be at a competitor.
That's precisely not how markets work. A TON of people work not at the highest paying job but at the job they feel most comfortable. That can include a myriad of reasons:
- Job is more fun
- Flexible working hours
- More fitting location
- Allow WFH
- More vacation days
- Gym/food/something available
- Ability to learn from colleagues.
etc etc.
If the world were as you describe the job market would be a feeding frenzy where everyone is aiming for the top job by salary.
those are all great reasons and I agree with them all.
Just to add one more data point, myself, I've never looked at switching jobs based on pay. I pretty much always just took the job that was offered. I'd eventually quit for random reasons (upset with the boss 3 times, company down sized twice, left to do my own thing twice, other...).
I never sat there at work thinking "hmmm, I wonder if there is a higher paying job somewhere".
That might be me just being stupid but since I can't see into the minds of anyone else I kind of assume it's same for lots of people.
> That's a non tangible item and it means people are finding excuses to avoid participating in the market.
> Your goal is to have lots of "somethings" being done. That's how your economy grows and new opportunities are created.
That's quite a slanted view of how people participate in a real labour market. Pay is the easy to quantify stuff but most humans tend to have more than just pay as a priority, among others:
- time required for work (vs time spent on private endeavours, family, friends, ...). A Family and/or a healthy social life is a goal for most people.
- location (you might prefer to live in certain places due to culture or QoL)
- company culture (ideally, you might like how and with whom you work)
The thing that is valuable to Apple as a company is to have these people, their networks and their decades of knowledge accessible. Even if someone is in retirement age and already practically living in Costa Rica sipping Pina Coladas all day - the fact that you can call up the guy and ask him some weird question is invaluable.
Many jokes have a kernel of truth, and that's the kernel behind this classic engineer joke [1].
> their networks and their decades of knowledge accessible.
Having that experience outside the company doesn't magically make it inaccessible, it just means they have to pay a fair rate, along with everyone else, for access to it.
What it allows is them _monopolizing_ those networks and knowledge and ensuring no one else can access it.
I think this tactic is nothing more than deception, the guys are not staying around and give some guidance, they left or did not do the job the shareholders thought they were doing.
I have no problem, that people get payed big money to stay at the company and just to little consulting, but hiding their real position or amount of work is just theatre.
This sounds like a great tactic. It’s a little concerning that they may not be developing employees to step up and take on roles when people retire or want to leave
And it's probably better for the individual too. Going from having a role that takes up a huge amount of your life to zero in a short time probably isn't healthy for that person (or their family).