His letter (at the top of Apple's web site) is moving:
https://www.apple.com/community-letter-from-tim/
I understand Tim is a logistics genius and Ternus is a hardware genius, and that we all want better software and policy from Apple, but I'm glad that there seems to be good people at the head of one of the biggest and most consequential companies, and further that they seem to care about being good people.
As far as I can see, that's the only way to have a prayer of scaling without too much damage, which is the key issue humanity faces today.
Thank you for sharing the link, it's a good read.
Also want to second your point about the need for having good people leading large organizations like Apple. Especially so as things are changing so fast in technology, with a widening impact across more and more aspects and parts of lives of people and society. We certainly see the negative impact that comes with questionable and/or short term decisions (see social media), so I too am hopeful that above all else, Ternus is a good person and makes (for the most part) good decisions for people and society first and foremost.
https://www.apple.com/community-letter-from-tim/
Why share it as a quote rather than a link I can click?
> I understand Tim is a logistics genius and Ternus is a hardware genius, and that we all want better software and policy from Apple
While I agree with all these points, I'd still rather see a hardware guru leading Apple rather than a software-focused leader. The state of software zeitgeist has gotten fairly poor, and the types of formal and thorough "Acceptance Testing" that are common in hardware are more likely to produce great experiences for users than whatever most software leaders are doing today.
Before anyone mentions how all hardware groups seem to produce god-awful software (IoT, vehicles, etc)...I agree, though I have generally attributed this to a lack of budget and vision. I don't expect those two things to be an issue at Apple, but I could be surprised.
This is a really good take. This is absolutely not software's stable era, we're in for a rough next decade as AI upends every well-established software practice and the very paradigms we've relied on for so long of apps, OS, and ecosystem. This is an era we have to get through and it's going to be messy as hell.
Leadership needs to make sure everything else in the business is in order so that they can contain and shape the direction of the white-hot plasma of AI and its implications. A software leader would be too hands-on in this process and get nerd sniped. Sometimes you need some distance.
I really wish they did more for free software. I know they contribute heavily to LLVM and are still the main stewards of webkit, but they've very much ignored darwin as a free software operating system, to the point it feels like they only keep it free out of legal obligation
Ternus is not a hardware genius. He's a hardware engineer that rose through the ranks at Apple because, from what I've heard from Apple hardware engineers, Dan Riccio liked him "like a son."
> His letter (at the top of Apple's web site) is moving
As an aside, I absolutely love the minimal elegance of that web page.
> and further that they seem to care about being good people.
Sorry, but this is pretty naive. You simply can't infer the real personality of a CEO from a (well)crafted public letter.
If he really cared about being a decent person, he wouldn't have sucked up to Trump.
I honestly don't know. tim@apple.com is unavailable for quite some time now (since I tried a few years ago), while lisasu@amd.com still works around that time frame.
It's always been tcook@ - and it will get looked at by someone at least
Yes! Can confirm. I emailed him in March 2020 after my 16-day old MacBook Pro had a logic board failure resulting in endless kernel panics. It was just past the return date so I couldn’t just return it and get a new one, so my local Apple Store had sent it in for repair. Then covid hit and everything shut down, so they couldn’t get it fixed and sent back either.
I had emailed with an explanation of what had occurred, and asked if I could get a refund so that I could just purchase a replacement. Within two hours of sending my email, an assistant from his office called me to arrange sending me a replacement. I was really impressed. I honestly figured I would just have to wait until the repair depot opened again, because I didn’t think I would hear back about my email.
Then a month or so later I got a call from the repair depot asking what address I’d like my repaired laptop sent to, since it was supposed to be sent back to the store for pickup (but stores were closed.) So I guess the right hand knoweth not what the left hand doeth in that case, because the person on the phone from repairs was pretty confused when I said no thanks.
I'm really curious how he manages to read through so many emails every day.
I would have assumed that some assistant goes through the inbox and only a (random or filtered) subsample of those mails actually gets read by Tim Cook.
I suspect they've implemented some kind of intelligent email filtering system
>but I'm glad that there seems to be good people at the head
Wonder if he'll be as good as Cook was at kissing Trump's ass. Half serious, half /s.