Tim Cook’s Real Legacy at Apple w/ Brian Merchant Artwork

Tech Won't Save Us

Silicon Valley wants to shape our future, but why should we let it? Every Thursday, Paris Marx is joined by a new guest to critically examine the tech industry, its big promises, and the people behind them. Tech Won’t Save Us challenges the notion that tech alone can drive our world forward by showing that separating tech from politics has consequences for us all, especially the most vulnerable. It’s not your usual tech podcast.

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Tech Won't Save Us

Tim Cook’s Real Legacy at Apple w/ Brian Merchant

April 30, 2026 • Paris Marx • Episode 326

0:00 | 59:56

Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant to discuss Apple’s announcement that Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO, including his history and legacy, and what may be next for the company.

Brian Merchant is the author of The One Device and Blood in the Machine and writes a newsletter of the same name.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Brian’s most recent newsletter covers Tim Cook’s stepping down, as well as Palantir’s manifesto.
Brian has previously written about Foxconn’s working conditions.
Brian mentioned Patrick McGee’s book Apple in China.

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

It'll it will be clear that Tim Cook's uh legacy was his rewiring of the the supply chain as far as electronics manufacturing was concerned, and really tightening this allegiance between China's manufacturing base and US tech products, and doing this in a way that facilitated sort of mass production of objects that require great skill to produce and to do so quickly and at great volume.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Um, and of course, you know, all the work that I've been doing on the show over the past number of years, the more than 300 guests that I have interviewed to give you these critical perspectives, we're asking listeners like you to become supporters over on patreon.com slash tech won't save us. So, you know, I can keep making this show, uh, you know, so that Kyla can keep producing it, so that we can keep doing this work and to try to do more work for you, especially now that my next book is complete. Uh and, you know, I'll have some more time to uh focus on the podcast, uh the newsletter, and you know, the other things that I'm that I'm working on. So yeah, if you enjoy the show, uh, I'd really appreciate it if you went over to patreon.com slash tech won't save us, became a supporter, helped us hit our goal, and set us up well as we head into this next year of Tech Won't Save Us. So thanks so much for that. Now, this week's guest is none other than Brian Merchant. He has been on the show many times in the past. He is the author of Blood in the Machine, a fantastic book about the Luddites, and also writes a newsletter of the same name, which, you know, you should definitely check out and subscribe to. When I saw the news that Tim Cook was resigning as CEO to become executive chairman and would be replaced by John Turnus in September, I figured this was a story that we had to talk about. Tim Cook is not one of those CEOs who we talk about so often. He is not regularly making right-wing or even generally political statements at all. He is not someone who is like championing the future of the West or something like that, uh, as we hear from people like Alex Carp. He is not craving that media attention. He is not craving that attention. Certainly he works with Donald Trump to try to benefit Apple and, you know, to get the types of policies that the company would like to see, or at least to try to evade tariffs and further punishment. Um, but he is not someone who is as active in these kind of public discussions as we see from many other tech CEOs at the moment. So hearing that he was stepping aside, I figured it was a good opportunity to actually discuss what his legacy at Apple was, what he actually did as CEO, and even before uh, you know, he became CEO because he worked at Apple for many years before that, but also what we should take away from what he did in Apple, the changes that he made, what he turned Apple into, and where the company might go from here as he, you know, is in his final months as CEO and is preparing for someone new to take over. Apple is an incredibly influential company, and as a result, its CEO is an incredibly influential person. So Tim Cook has been in that role now for all of this time, is somebody that a lot of people would be familiar with because this company is so recognizable, is so influential. Um, and for that reason, I think it's worth discussing what he did, who he is, what his legacy is. And Brian was the perfect person to do that because he literally wrote the book on the iPhone, a book called The One Device that went into the creation of this product. Um, you know, Tim Cook might not have been instrumental in the design piece for the iPhone, but there were other aspects uh of its creation where he was very key, particularly behind the scenes and particularly in the supply chain. And of course, we talk about that in this interview. So I hope that you enjoy this conversation. Uh, you know, maybe it will get you to think about uh Apple, Tim Cook, and his legacy in a slightly different way, you know, or maybe these are things you already knew. But either way, I think that you're going to enjoy this conversation with Brian. We start off with uh, you know, a little bit of banter because of course Brian is um a buddy of mine. Um, but then we kind of get into the meat of the conversation. So if you do enjoy this conversation, as I said before, please consider going over to patreon.com slash tech won't save us to become a supporter of the show so I can keep doing these interviews, sharing these critical perspectives on the tech industry that of course you really enjoy for plenty of time to come. So thanks so much and enjoy this week's conversation. Brian, welcome back to Tech Won't Save Us.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Oh, Paris, how I've missed gracing this fine production. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

It's been far too long since you were on the show, especially, you know, we're we were so used to talking to one another all the time uh for a while, and now not to be podcasting with you on the regular, it's uh so odd.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

A gaping hole in my in my life, in my existence. It can it can only be filled uh temporarily and and right now. So I'm pleased, please, pleased to have it do so. No, it's great to great, great to see. I like the hair.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Thank you. I'm always a fan of your hair as well. So uh, you know, maybe one day I'll get there.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

I'm gonna keep I'm gonna you know go with it until it uh starts falling out, I think. I think I just gotta cling to you know whatever vestiges of of youth that I can. Uh you also are wearing like a flannel uh black and red plaid. I feel like there's I almost wore that exact same. I feel like yeah, I used to see you wear that a lot.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

So I have you did all the time.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

It's like look, right here, it's enough.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Yeah, I feel like I've seen that specific shirt on you uh many times, even in person.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

So you know, I go with what that's one thing I have in common with the with the you know, like the tech overlords, like Steve Jobs. You have your uniform the same. I'm like, I don't like I don't want to think about this too much. Like I just I don't care. Like I and that's now my entire wardrobe is like populated by just like places I've been and things like I'm truly turning into like my uh to embracing my like my my true like middle-aged dad vibe where I've got like a unionized California t-shirt or like a band t-shirt. Like that's like all like I don't I don't I don't want to like go into a a store and and purchase clothing. I just want to like have uh mementos, dude.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

I feel that I feel that of convenience. Yeah. It's hard for me to judge you on that one. Uh I I have a lot of those kinds of t-shirts, and now that it's slowly getting warmer, uh people will be seeing more of those.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

But obviously, I live in a colder climb than you, so uh you don't know in LA, you gotta, it's all about the t-shirts and Luddite. I have so many beautiful, wonderful Luddite and anti-AI shirts that people have sent me. Um, you know, the you know, the Luddites were right, my were they wrong, tie-dye tee. Uh the the I I have like uh uh like a t-shirt, a Luddite t-shirt that the librarians made, the the Library Freedom Project, all good, all good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

The uh destroy AI shirt that uh I think Kim Who made for aftermath. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah, yeah. Not quite. I've got my I do have my media, yeah, my 404 uh sweater on. So look, just you know, keeping it real here. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

I need to make some new uh Tech Won't Save Us merch uh in the near future.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

So I have been, you know, the 400 I the every time I wear this and I see the 404 folks, they tell me I gotta make Blood in the Machine merch. Like it actually You do like you know, yeah, I do. I do need to. It's you know, it's it's not a bad looking logo if I do say so myself. I would buy one. Blood in the machine shirts. Okay, good. Well, I appreciate that. There's one customer right there.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Oh, even pre-order. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

It's a guerrilla marketing campaign. Maybe you'll wear it on a podcast and it'll spark a conversation. And then uh, you know, tens of thousands of uh listeners will, you know, now learn about different media properties, including my own.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

This is how it works. This is how it works. Now, speaking of uh, I don't even know how to make a transition here, to be honest. Listen, we're talking about Tim Cook. Um I I wanted to have you on.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

The uniform. Did Tim does Tim Cook have a uniform? Did he or did he kind of think he's just kind of he's he's got the old school sort of like I feel like either it's just like a sweater or just like kind of like a like a like a polo or a plaid, you know, not not plaid, just like a straight. He's got like the business guy attire.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Kind of business casual, sort of. You know, he's usually wearing some sneakers, uh, and I think he's usually wearing jeans. I think from time to time he's worn like, you know, like business pants or whatever. Um, but usually it's like a pair of blue jeans and then like uh a shirt or a polo or a sweater or something like that, you know. Muted colors, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Not quite as homogenous as as jobs, but still still blending into the background.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Exactly. And whenever I think of Tim Cook, I just think of the image of him like with his hands together as though he's praying. Like I don't yeah. I I always see Apple as a as a religion.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Uh so that's you know, there are there are worse ways of understanding Apple. I think it is very you know, sect-like. It is like a it it does have its own sort of set of although under Tim Cook, and I'm sure we'll talk about all this, it has gotten a little more more diffuse, more like uh just kind of a, you know, kind of a bland, faceless, monolithic, you know, American corporation in the mold of a general uh electric or something like that. But I digress. You lead lead lead us lead us to the conversational promise land.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

No, but but you're right, right. And I I wanted to have you on because you uh, you know, obviously I just like to talk to you anyway, but you wrote the book on the iPhone. And I was like, if I'm gonna talk to anybody about, you know, Tim Cook stepping down as CEO, becoming executive chairman in the way that, you know, say uh Jeff Bezos did at Amazon when he was uh ready to move on, but not, you know, fully scare investors or anything. You know, they would know he'd still be around. I said, of course, you know, I want to talk to Brian. And I'm wondering when that news came out, you know, when it was announced that that Tim Cook was making this shift. And of course it will happen in September of this year. It's not like right away. Um, what what was your reaction? Were you surprised by this or or not really?

SPEAKER_00 10:58

A little bit. I mean, it I don't think that there's any great sort of, you know, catalyst for I mean, maybe it'll come out, maybe reporting will show um, you know, why, you know, now now is the moment. If I had to speculate completely, it's probably just because he's probably sick of sick of the shit, right? He's just sick of doing the you know, you know, you the Trump era contortions that are required of of you know of modern tech CEOs and and sort of playing the the political side of the game, um, which is kind of interesting. Like this week, the same week of the news that Tim Cook is stepping down. Like, I feel like the one of the other big sort of tech stories was like the Palantir's super aggressive manifesto that is like explicitly designed to hit every you know, MAG ideological sweet spot, just like war, you know, mongering and chest beating and reinstate the draft, and some cultures are better than others, and we have to, you know, all this, all this like sort of nationalist coded MAG type ideology where it's like that's what if you want to succeed, you know, really as like a heavyweight headline making kind of um you know, tech company, I think there is a sense that like that is uh at least in part the game you have to play. So like on the other side of that, it's like Tim Cook like bowing out, and not to like let Tim Cook off the hook by any stretch of the imagination. Like he he did uh his part in sort of be being obsequious to uh to the Trump uh administration, like the most famously with like the gold plaque, you know, that he handed to to Trump because Trump loves gold and he gave uh money to the inauguration fund, just like all the other tech CEOs did. He was there in the White House, he was kissing the ring.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Yeah, he went to the uh premiere of the Melania documentary as well.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Right, yeah. Famously, he was like there, like in I I forget. There was like some news story broke, and it was like Tim Cook was like at the White House for the screening, like as it happened. Um, maybe it was even like the like the the shoot, the the ice shooting in Minnesota. He didn't shy away from doing any of that stuff. I mean, it may have chafed him more, especially as you know, a gay man who, you know, having to sort of kiss the ring of this like deeply intolerant and prejudiced president, you know, maybe it clearly didn't irk him enough not to do those things, not to play the game, not to, you know, sort of align Apple with the sort of the the rest of the tech oligarchic cohort. That would that would be my speculation. It's that just like he's been there for 15 years. Clearly he wasn't comfortable really in the AI moment, also, one way or the other, because I think his intuition was to either was just to kind of lean on the hardware, like let the AI sort of bubble sort itself out, and then kind of do what Apple has typically done. Like Apple has been fast to hardware, much less so to software most of the time. So, what they like to do is they like to see what works and then kind of you know, like integrate, steal it, you know, as Steve Jobs famously said, you know, great art, uh, you know, good artists borrow, great artists steal. My sense is that he w was kind of w waiting to see what would happen, and it never really the AI moment has still not really clarified itself to Apple. Now, also a lot of people like I it wound up kind of actually liking Apple's approach because they haven't quite to the same extent spammed all of their you know apps and their services with AI, and when they do people hate it. Like there's like the messages debacle, like where it's still summarizing, you know, your texts in AI, and people are like, this is so stupid.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

So they had that scandal around the summarization of the news headlines and how that like just was not working out at all.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Which is such like a small scale thing to do. Like it's like, oh, well, like summarize the news on your notifications. Like, I cannot imagine like a smaller swing, and it still failed. So I yeah, I think maybe my guess is that it's just like 15 years. I built Apple into a $4 trillion company, I have streamlined its operations, bound our fate together with um, you know, the the China's uh manufacturing base, and I'm sure we'll talk about all that. Um, but I think my guess is that he just kind of was like, this is this like I I don't like this anymore. I'm out. I'm the real I'm one of the richest, most powerful people on the planet. Why am I why am I flying to Washington to like watch terrible documentaries and and hand the president plated gold, you know, this it so yeah, I I was I I guess I was a little because there's nothing seemed to precipitate it in particular. It just seems like a a moment for him to for him to pass the torch and be done with this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Yeah, you know, it kind of seems like a very wealthy guy who has been there for 15 years, who massively grew this company. Now, you know, it is facing some challenges that he has obviously been dealing with, but he probably doesn't the CEO for 15 years.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

He's been at Apple. Oh, yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah. He took over from jobs uh 15 years ago. But yeah, he's been there for ages. And I and I want to ask you about kind of like, you know, his pre-CEO time at Apple. Um, but yeah, to me, like we can we can look at the bigger picture, what's going on with Apple, what he's having to try to do, but it also kind of feels like, you know, he's kind of reaching that retirement age, that that kind of traditional retirement age. Uh he has a ton of money. Why doesn't he just like kind of go off and do his thing for a bit and he'll still be executive chairman, he'll still have, you know, some degree of input and say, uh, you know, because he did build it in this way. But like, I'm sure there's other stuff he he wants to do as well, and also just have more time for himself. And, you know, why, why wouldn't he, he do it? But on that point about the history, like, you know, you you mentioned a lot of things in your answer there. And I want to dig further into um a number of different pieces, but I think it's it's best to start just by going back a little bit, right? Because it's so important to what Apple uh becomes under his leadership. Can you talk to us a bit about who Tim Cook was under jobs and how he really like remade the manufacturing uh, you know, kind of footprint and the supply chain footprint of Apple?

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Tim Cook was it a really interesting choice to succeed jobs. And I remember if you've been following this stuff as long as I have, you might even remember when that was in the news cycle, because it kind of similarly came out of nowhere to a lot of people. Like Tim Cook was decidedly unjobs-like, right? Steve Jobs is famous for being kind of um, you know, all about like style and design and how computers look and function. And, you know, it seemed like he would maybe choose someone who was had more of those interests instead of somebody who had been just managing the business side and the supply chain as Tim Cook had. But you know, in hindsight, now we see why it it it made perfect sense. Cook was in the 90s, he was working for for Compaq, the you know, uh an Apple competitor at the time. He was a vice president for corporate materials at Compact, I believe. Really bringing me back thinking about the old compact PCs and stuff. Yeah, if you don't remember, it's like cla one of those classic like gray beige, you know, during the era of the of sort of the PC, where you just, you know, you'd have like uh it was kind of like a gateway was back then or the early Dells. And but his real sort of expertise was in operations. And uh, you know, I've seen a lot of Tim Cook, CEO postmortems kind of you know, grappling, well, what was his legacy? Like he didn't design another iPhone or have another hit product like that, and maybe it was pivoting to services and getting which which is true. He did he he did do that, but like, but uh you know, I think you know, if in in in decades to come, it'll it will be clear that Tim Cook's uh legacy was his rewiring of the the supply chain in as far as electronics manufacturing was concerned, and really tightening this allegiance between China's manufacturing base and US tech products, and doing this in a way that facilitated sort of mass production uh of objects that require great skill to produce, like you know, uh the iPod iPods and the iPhone, and to do so quickly and at great volume. And so there are a lot of consequences to this shift that I think you know Tim Cook has you know really it's he's a he's evaded a lot of the heat for the fallout from you know instituting this mode of kind of hyper production that kind of famously ultimately requires huge workforces of skilled people, skilled laborers that you can, you know, famously just like wake up in the middle of the night if a design specification changes on the device and get them back to work, get them some coffee and put and you know, China had a a workforce that its companies were willing to sort of to go along with that new with that new sort of labor regime. And and and so Cook really pushed and plied that new sort of arrangement that is now kind of like the definitive uh arrangement between you know tech companies and their manufacturing base, um, that continues to this day. And so it we, you know, that's it's one part of of what he did in worldwide operations. So so he he's sort of aligning these supply chains, finding vendors, getting everything to to work, um, you know, and he's doing that for compact. And then he, you know, gets hired by by Apple to do the same thing, and he is really proves to be really, really good at this. And and so Steve Jobs like recognizes that you know this this is a Guy who doesn't really care about what the products ultimately look like, or that's not his specialty, anyways, but he has somehow managed to sort of assemble this huge uh base of uh of operations of manufacturing in China that can now just sort of deftly turn out really nice looking, high-functioning uh electronic products at will. So he so as he's doing that through the late 90s and the 2000s, his stature inside Apple grows because it becomes clear how important that piece of the pie is. You know, Apple was and continues to be a hardware business first. It's selling iPhones. That's where its huge profit margins are. In the process of facilitating that mass production, you know, Tim Cook becomes the leading light at Apple or one of them.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Yeah, I think that's really well said. And it's such an important aspect of what he has done, right? And and as you say, even though Apple is a significant hardware company, he has really expanded the services business, which which we can talk about. But picking up on what you were saying about building out that supply chain, I feel like one of the things that is, you know, that hasn't received the attention that it probably deserves the past few years, you know, as people have been talking about the changes to the iPhones and, you know, what the new product categories are going to be and Apple's AI strategy and all this kind of stuff is how, you know, the kind of dependence on China started to be seen as, you know, a bit of a liability, right? As the tensions between the United States and China grew. And he has really overseen the diversification of that supply chain to a certain degree. It's still very dependent on China, um, but into Vietnam and India and Brazil, and obviously to a much lesser degree in the United States to please Donald Trump. Um, but we have started to see this like shifting of the supply chain into other areas to try to avoid tariffs and things like that as well.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

And that again is his is his bread and butter, I think. Like that's what that's where he has you know business contacts and and really and that this is how this is how his sort of operational thinking works. And that's you know, maybe one reason, you know, why you know there was some speculation back in the day that when Jobs handed him the torch that it was because you know he wouldn't overshadow uh you know jobs as like product genius. Like, and if that was the case, honestly, it kind of turned out to be prescient because he didn't. Like he's you know, he's tried to introduce a few products here and there, maybe most famously the Apple Vision Pro, um, that has like remarkably tiny adoption rates. There's been some like there's been a few like also ran products in in key categories, the app like the home pod, the car, the apple car that never came to fruition that was just like a huge resources dump, but it never, but all almost like it's all almost sort of immaterial because none of that stuff wound up mattering. Because what Tim Cook really did was focus on, you know, once you streamline the the supply chain and get the operations going, then it's just about maximizing the business, just like get opening more Apple stores, like getting like diversifying sort of like the the product lines of the uh uh the existing ones that you have. So instead of one iPhone, there'll be four, or they'll you know, different different price tiers. Like again, like as I mentioned up top, kind of like the general electricification of uh of Apple, just making it this kind of omnipresent, uh, you know, consumer electronics seller that maybe doesn't have the mystique or the clout or the cachet that it had under jobs, but can just you know sell this stuff at bulk at for you know huge margins, and it has been remarkably successful in doing so. Yeah, and part of that has been sort of dealing with you know the geopolitical ramifications of those early moves where if you like concentrate your labor force in one particular foreign country, um, there's always going to be vulnerabilities. There's a whole book about this, Apple in China, that's you know, uh that's specifically focuses on this, on that dynamic. And so yeah, you then you need to, you know, deal with that as as the issue comes up. And the one thing that I do before we, you know, just to ensure that we don't leave this point behind, but I really want to underline that, you know, what Tim Cook has not gotten off the hook for were are the like the the ramifications of designing a uh a sort of a supply chain and a work flow that that operates like this, when you're relying essentially on mass, you know, immiserated labor forces, you you know, you there's there are consequences, and that's that people are people suffer. And I think the extent to which that Tim Cook's policies at Apple and his deal making at Apple have led to things like the suicide epidemic at Foxconn, um, which now, you know, 15 years ago it was about the time that he was taking over at Apple in in tech world terms as ancient history. But those problems have never really gone away. I was reporting my book in you know, 2015, 2016, which was five years after the the epidemic, which to those who aren't familiar was there was a there's a period where at Foxconn um conditions were so bad and primarily psychologically bad, but you know, also just materially bad that you know Foxconn was promising overtime and not paying, and you know, the the effect of you know of having a workforce that you treat like you can just pull out of bed and you know get to work uh with with little um you know benefit or compensation beyond uh just sort of basic wages is is like a mental strain. Um, you know, so a lot of people came from all over China to do these jobs, they're not local to the city that they're working in, they don't know a lot of people, they don't have like social groups that they can find solace in. And so it became extremely punishing. And it, you know, what the and long hours and couldn't get their you know, benefits always that they were promised. And so a lot of the a lot of workers began, you know, jumping off of the roofs of the buildings, the dormitories that you know these the the factory is huge in Longhwa, where it was work at the time, over a million square feet of of factory grounds. Um, it's a you know, it's a city basically that I you know managed to just manage to sneak into for the reporting and see what it was firsthand. And it was just building after building after monolithic building, and it was truly uh, you know, a soul-crushing place to just be, much less live and work. And so that is the direct sort of uh outcome of Tim Cook's uh sort of executive policies and uh and operations management is uh facilities like that that make the iPhone possible, you know, at great cost to the workers. You know, there's a lot of other, you know, worker abuses that happen all over the supply chain. Um, but that was a a famous one. And when I, you know, returned years after the sort of the most uh high profile events in I think 2011, so it was five or six years later, that the the workers I spoke to said nothing has much changed. It's it had it it's uh conditions are still psychologically demanding, rough. You you know, you people come and they like try they they get a job there and try to last a year because then they can go to somewhere where it's less punishing. Um, and and you know, it's it's been years again since I've uh followed up on any of that, but I do read, you know, there read read reports uh you know of how things are that you know, the new there's now there's the iPhone city that's um uh it's a it's outside it's not in Shenzhen anymore, but it's it's it's its own sort of enormous facility. And there's been labor unrest and issues there, and it's we can only assume that it's uh for very similar reasons. And so again, like I think Tim Cook really has to reckon with that or should be made to reckon with that outcome of this so punishing uh work regime that makes uh the you know the devices that that we all use possible. And so that's a bit that's a big piece of it. There hasn't been as much sort of investigation into like you know what the working conditions are in India or Brazil. There's been some and some good reporting, but uh it's it it's it's it's it's going almost invariably going to be a similar case there.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Yeah, I I'd be really fascinated to to hear more about how the model differs or or is you know much the same in places like Vietnam and India. And I would imagine it's it's the case that it's you know quite similar to uh what they've done in China. And and as you say, you know, even though Cook was essential to setting up this system of production, it's very rare that it gets tied back to him, you know, the kind of consequences of this system and is treated as part of his legacy. You know, I really haven't seen any of that in, you know, not that I've read all the coverage of of Tim Cook, you know, kind of uh, you know, planning to step down and whatnot, but that's not the kind of stuff that you see much media talking about in terms of his legacy and and what he has done.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Yeah. No, it's not sexy, right? It's not, it's not cool, right? It's just, but like so many of these guys, as I, you know, try to link it to and point out in in in Blood in the Machine, is like they're great genius. The thing that makes the company a lot of money is just good old-fashioned labor exploitation, finding ways to get workers to uh labor harder and longer and under uh more profitable conditions, right? That's true from like the founder of the of the factory system, Richard Arkwright, who you know gets remembered as uh as like the inventor of the water frame and and crucial to the industrial revolution for that reason. Well, like, you know, he his true contribution isn't inventing the water frame, which he didn't. He had a partner that probably did most of the work, uh, but it's about instituting these truly punishing, you know, uh labor conditions that then allow sort of mass profits to be turned. Similarly, you know, with with Cook, like, you know, yeah, Steve Jobs got all the you know flowers for bequeathing the world the the iPhone and all these slick-looking gadgets, but it's Tim Cook who behind the scenes was like, okay, in order to make that profitable, we need to have a small army of underpaid Chinese laborers working around the clock that we can pull out of bed at any hour we want to and say, work harder, work faster.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

No, I I think it's really interesting. And you know, before we got into digging into that, you were talking about how he really transformed the business and kind of what the difference was under his leadership. And that really does seem to be another of the key aspects of this, right? And and I guess the aspect that the people are more willing to pay attention to. But under Cook's leadership, Apple becomes a behemoth in a way that it wasn't before, you know, at least for a time, the most valuable publicly traded company in the world. I can't remember if it holds that title now. I don't believe it does, but it's up, it's still up there, like in the top five or something. And part of that is, as you say, uh or as you said, not like you know making some new iPhone-like product in order to, you know, kind of take it to another level, but to take these things that came from jobs and IV and you know, the Apple system and the Apple industrial design group, and basically finding ways to like squeeze more money out of them, right? So you have people using these devices, you have people who like these devices, are dependent on these devices. So slowly over time, let's make them more expensive. Let's offer models that have some additional features to justify you paying a lot more money, such that now the average smartphone price at Apple is over $1,000. And you're gonna make these other accessories that are key to using your Apple device, your AirPods and things like that. And then you also create this whole range of subscription services that you are obviously going to want because you have this iPhone. And in some cases, you know, like a like iCloud or something like that, you're probably gonna need, regardless of, you know, just because you're using the device, you're probably gonna have to pay for it if you're trying to store your, you know, your data or your files or whatnot. Um, and so it really becomes not so much like what is the next big thing, though they certainly try that with Vision Pro and it doesn't work out, but like, how do we look at the consumers that we have? And of course, certainly try to grow the pie, but also like over time slowly suck more money out of these people's pockets so that Apple becomes this like incredibly profitable company that is giving back loads of money to shareholders all the time. And so they're very happy with Tim Cook uh as a result of that.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Yeah.

unknown 35:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

The way Lauren Good put it in Wired was that uh Tim Cook's legacy is turning Apple uh uh into a subscription, um, which yeah, I I think I think that's true. That's certainly you know been like the biggest area of like of product expansion or the most most successful. I do think it's you know, to some extent, you know, just been also uh you know what you know monopolies tend tend to do, find new ways of extracting rent, right? And Google's doing the same thing, you know, making you pay for storage if you if your email is uh it was too big or drive or paying for uh you know any number of its uh services uh and extracting similar kinds of um percentages out of the Play Store, like out like but but uh it's really it's really true, you know, with Apple too. Now there's you know there's an Apple Music subscription, there's the iCloud subscription that you have to pay. There's Apple TV, you know, that is a huge subscription ad.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

There's all this you there's you know, they even have some like creative work suite that they launched recently.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Like I don't even understand that one really, but I have not even oh I've not even opened that or looked at it or are you giving it 30 seconds of of thought. But yeah, it is it's it's all these things that they they've they've been able to sort of entrench and to and just kind of like extract the things that you know again, like the Silicon Valley model is expand at any cost, and then once you've staked out your territory, make people pay and and degrade the products. Um and you know, Apple, to it to its credit, I guess, under Tim Cook, there has you know uh it's been a little bit more careful about this said degradation of its software and its and its products than than some of its competitors. You know, Google is just like famously a shit show now, like a Google search is just it's you know, I'm I'm in the process of moving off of Gmail because I you know I've used Gmail for uh decades now almost, and I just I cannot do it anymore with its AI draft prompting, and all like suddenly, you know, new new new like boxes are opening up and there's at yeah, it's it's it it's it's too much. I'm done with it. Um and but Apple has at least tried to keep that spirit of sort of you know the the jobs in design alive, somewhat. It's again not to like give it give it too much credit. I think it just at as a business move, it just knows that it's viewed as comparatively the premium product, and and and cook has at least had sort of the sense to to recognize that as he is finding ways to extract as much value as he can out of those products.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Yeah, it's not to say that there's no problem with the software, but the problems are like less relative to the to the competitors, I guess. Because apparently Windows is a shit show now as well, with everything Microsoft has been with Copilot and all of these extensions.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Yeah, no, yeah, it and I mean Windows has kind of famously always been a little bit of a shit show because fair enough, yeah. I mean more so than in the past, yeah. Right. It will it is an interesting moment, I think. The big narrative now right is that with Tim Cook gone, like the new CEO is going who's this John Turnus guy, um, who, you know, I despite having covered Apple pretty in depth for a long time, he's he's just his name comes up, right? Like he's a hardware guy, he's been in there, but he's not uh he's again, he's a little bit of a he's a little bit of a left field choice, I think a lot of people think. But the big narrative is that he has to reckon with AI and what he how is he gonna how is you know and the the I the to some extent, like you know, the tech press loves and demands big big narratives. Um, and that's right now the narrative is all orbiting around AI and it seems like it can't has to forever for all time, and we're gonna be doomed to hear hear about a AI strategy until we're we're we're old um and and replaced by agentix software.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

Um until AI doesn't have the same financial value uh in stock markets that it that it does at the moment, and then we won't hear about it much anymore until the next time it becomes one. Like, do you you know, when you hear that narrative that you know Turnus, this new CEO, he'll become CEO in September, has to reckon with AI. Do you really believe that? Or do you just think that this is the thing that like everyone is saying because AI is the thing at the moment? Like, like you were saying earlier, I feel like Cook's AI strategy has is probably actually going to look good in the long run because they're not spending massive amounts of money on capital building out these data centers. You know, you have consumers that are uh often quite frustrated with how AI is being implemented into their other apps and softwares and operating systems and things like that. And it feels like Apple, yeah, okay, it's integrated into messages, it has been pushed into some other places, but it's really not like in your face and all over the place. And I know they're planning to do this like Siri, like new Siri with Gemini and some other models and whatnot, but it still feels like I don't know, you you can more easily opt out of it through Apple's system, and they haven't really gone all in in a way that seems to have been the right decision, just like their patience and in part their inability to really make progress on the technology has probably actually worked for them. So yeah, I guess my question is like, what do you make of the strategy? And do you really think that Turnus does need to reckon with AI in the way that all the headlines are suggesting?

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Well, I mean, there's a couple different ways to think about that that question. And the first is that is the reality that like the job of a CEO for one of these companies or somebody uh you know who's in the C-suite of one of these companies is is just going to be very political by by nature. And it's going to be um shaped a lot by by narratives. You know, with Tim, with with Cook leaving, there is likely going to be a little bit of a power vacuum. There always is when a CEO leaves, and especially, you know, one that leaves at a moment where a lot of the company's senior staff is also kind of taking uh, you know, a step back. So there, you know, there are not a ton of people uh at Apple who are sort of at, you know, from from the same generation uh of cook. There are some. There's like Phil Schiller, who's still kind of around, Eddie Q, who's still kind of around. But there are a lot of those guys are starting to take back seats and they're like, so so Apple is at this, you know, interesting moment. And so the question isn't whether, you know, it's a good idea for Apple to inject AI into every possible orifice. I clearly don't think it is. And I think that what seems to have been Cook's intuition, which is to sort of wait it out, see what develops, and then if necessary, try to do AI well, which by the way, he failed at that. Like he fit when they they're like, okay, the few things that he they did try to weight into AI, they like they did, they were some of the most, you know, notable failures of uh, you know, of of of his of his tenure, uh, even.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

You're not constantly making genmojis of yourself.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Yeah, they're all but they're most but they're but the as you said, they're mostly sort of non-disruptive, they don't cause a lot of upheaval in the core ecosystem. And so that to me, that also seems like the smart strategy, but and somebody with cook's you know, internal sort of gravity and and standing could weather that out. Now it's gonna be a lot easier for you know uh for uh like a competing sort of or or or scheming executive, upwardly mobile, ambitious, uh exec to say like to you know, to start like making waves by saying like Apple's losing the AI race, or you know, and put planting that in the board's ear and mess. So it's all it's all a matter of like politics and dynamics and storytelling. And and and it's you know, like as we've seen, the entire AI bubble has been sort of buffeted by this grand narrative. Um Um, and so where what is Apple's role in that? Like, can Apple, I think one indication of what's happening we can see in this choice of of John Turnus to be the successor as a hardware guy is maybe there are indications that its approach to AI is going to be more like Nvidia's and less like open AIs or or or metas, even. That again seems to be the smart move, right? Like no one has won bigger from the AI bubble or boom than NVIDIA has by you know selling shovels in the gold rush. And so maybe Apple can find a way to sort of to sort of tap into that. But I do, yeah, no, I do think that there's a real risk that like you know, some kind of you know executive struggle results in Apple adopting yet another sort of AI first strategy that you know that ultimately makes a broadspath of its user base want to tear its eyes out. So we'll see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Yeah, and and we don't need to get into this like massively, but hearing you talk about NVIDIA brought to mind as well that I feel like one of actually the big wins of Tim Cook's tenure um as CEO of Apple is actually Apple Silicon and the way that they have been like making these very efficient but powerful chips to power their hardware and kind of getting off the dependence on um, you know, Intel and and these other companies. And I feel like I don't know, I've uh obviously people talk about Apple Silicon. Uh, you know, it's very important, but especially when you look at this product like the the MacBook Neo that just came out, that is like so cheap, especially at a moment where we're seeing compute uh consumer uh electronics prices increase because of like the RAM shortages and stuff like that. It does feel like that is something that has really paid off. And again, it's like not this big flashy thing, it's not this massive new product, but it's like this way to make the existing products work better and become more attractive. But even with that said, you know, looking at Cook's tenure, I feel like the other big thing which you brought up earlier is obviously this relationship to Trump, right? And I feel like Cook has tried to present himself and present Apple as environmentally conscious, as socially conscious. You know, it was doing like a lot of stuff that we that we now refer to as like DEI stuff for a long time and wanting to be seen as being more inclusive and you know, all those sorts of things, right? Things that looked really good in a certain era of American politics, but also the the US tech industry. And it feels like that attempt to present the company and himself in that way has really clashed with the way that he has engaged with Trump, right? You know, certainly in this, you know, second Trump presidency, but even in the first when he was very active in cultivating a good relationship with Trump in order to get much lower taxes on uh you know Apple's profits and particularly the foreign profits that it wanted to bring back to the United States. So I wonder what you make of how Tim Cook handled the relationship with Trump and how that reflected on him and the company and whether it clashed with the narrative that they were trying to present.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

Yeah, I mean, I think it clearly did. I think there's you know no doubt that the Trump era has been uncomfortable for Apple, maybe in a way that it's not for um Meta or uh certainly Tesla and Palantir and other the other you know more expressly ideologically aligned companies. And you know, I do think, again, to its credit, as much as we're willing to grant it as a you know, Apple, you know, does tend or has tended to sort of tr play the long game throughout the Obama era and the first Trump era, you know, it didn't really make sort of sweep changes to its outlook and and and policy. It kind of basically said the same thing. It never committed like uh crazy, you know, to any any you know any grand reforms that would, you know, like, for example, you know, to again reference the the labor issues we talked about early, uh, earlier in the in in the spot, um, you know, like work workplace conditions abroad or throughout its supply chain. It never did that meaningfully. It never, you know, it never really got its like, remember it made a big deal about its like recycle robot and it had and I think there were literally like two of them in the in the entire world. Yeah, and it was like it was a big show, um, you know, but it like it never, you know, it again it operates less like sort of the the most modern mold of the tech company where it sort of is, you know, blasting tweets out, or you know, or even you know, in Zuckerberg's case, sort of, you know, like do it going on Rogan or sort of you know praising Trump in these more in the in these ways that actually sort of signal policy changes at the at the company.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

I think in Cook's final days as as CEO, he needs to finally make his Rogan appearance.

SPEAKER_00 49:17

Go on Rogan with Musk. Yeah. He's just definitely been more old school of a of a kind of a CEO and has uh you know, again, transformed Apple into that sort of more state and predictable devices business, while his competitors which you know, interestingly, like Google, Meta, it's yeah, well, so Meta and Google are you know they're they're software businesses primarily. Google sells a few phones, you know, Meta has tried before, but those those businesses, interestingly, are also sort of you know much more at the whims of of policy, right? Like if there's gonna be uh you know a crackdown on social media, you know, there goes uh you know meta's core business. And so there does have to be kind of more of a of a of a of a deeper and more more public-facing sort of retrenchment in those companies to like kind of protect their their their their businesses while Apple is selling hardware still primarily, and of course, policy impacts that, you know, they they want to keep taking the cut of the sales on the app store uh, you know, as long as they can, even though they're just charging, you know, developers 30% just for the right to, you know, be hosted on their networks. And it's uh been found to be a pretty anti-competitive practice. But but yeah, but if your main business is just like selling the phone, selling the screens, um, then you know, you can kind of just keep putt stock in the stock in the shelves, keep sell, keep making the iPhones, keep making the camera a little bit better every year. That's a little bit different of an outlook, um, which is not to say they absolutely can be crushed by you know by tariffs, um, you know, by trade policy, um, and all and also, you know, by antitrust policy and and with regard to their software business too. And so it just, you know, it just again, not to give Tim Cook too much credit, I think he did what he thought was like required of the company to keep things, uh, keep the gears turning and the profits coming in. And so it was a little bit more of a topical sort of uh kowtowing to Trump than than than like sort of a a deeply substantive one that reorganizes his uh his company's priorities. Whether or not that changes now, that's the that's the question. Like who, you know, are they gonna keep sort of operating as a kind of uh modern day General Electric, uh, or is the new CEO gonna suddenly, you know, get feisty? Or I don't know, you know, we just don't know that much about him yet. Um, and so uh yeah, I think, you know, time will tell whether or not Apple continues to kind of plot along and accrue profits. That seems to be the smartest move to me, and to just like not stake out undue uh, you know, gambits or or plays here and just kind of keep selling your iPhones. But yeah, but we'll yeah, we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

Yeah. And I I think one of the important things that comes out of what you were saying there is like, okay, Apple has an image that it presents to the public to, you know, try to be appealing, to try to get sales, all those sorts of things. But at the end of the day, someone like Tim Cook or John Turnus, they're serving the shareholders, right? You know, they need to get the share price up, they need to be making returns. And so if that means working with someone like Donald Trump, or if that means not pissing off Elon Musk too much because of the influence he holds, then like they are going to try to thread those lines while still maintaining a certain image. And on your point about where things go next, obviously Apple has been talking about smart glasses and working on this as like the follow-up to the Vision Pro as a company. It obviously has other things that it's working on. There's the talk of the folding iPhone uh potentially coming in the fall or you know, in in the near future. There are obviously certain things that they are trying that they are hoping to do for the future. Do you have any thoughts on how things might change? Or do you think at this point, you know, it's it's really too hard to tell with how things are playing out. And we really just need to see who this guy is a bit more to know if he's going to try to really, you know, kind of stake his own version of this, you know, to try to be more jobsian, or, you know, if he's just gonna try to keep what's working working and uh, you know, not shake the boat too much.

SPEAKER_00 53:50

I yeah, like this is I haven't really looked into him too deeply. He has been around at the at the company for uh well decades now, I think 20. I think he's been there 25 years, maybe he came just at the turn of the century, uh, 2001 or so. And he certainly hasn't really made any waves uh, you know, beyond uh his sort of his roles. He's you know, he's I think he's he's been a presenter. He is firmly in the sort of sphere of of what you know KD Anatopoulos has famously called like Apple Man, you know, like the guys who like, you know, like Tim Cook, Steve Jobs, like who like well, well groomed, like, you know, good jeans, you know, like the polo shirt, given a d given, you know, silver foxes a lot of the times, like uh, you know, tech savvy, handsome dads, kind of, you know. So he seems to be like squarely in that mold. Um, and that mold tends, you know, over over the last you know, few decades at Apple, there it's not a lot of boat shaking. Apple's culture has remained, you know, pretty consistent, as you were saying. Like they have they make these kind of lightly progressive, tinged, you know, DEI or environmental commitments. And I think that yeah, and they're you know, they don't feel the need to sort of suddenly abandon them to play, they've they feel confident in that business that we were just talking about. And so I don't know that there's a there's a need, unless there is some kind of like internal political um, you know, uh uh struggle that opens up with the power vacuum of of tip of Cook's departure. And it will be interesting to see for that reason. Like, is Apple a sort of you know, well-oiled bureaucracy at this point, such that, you know, the next Apple man can just step into the you know presentation spotlight and just kind of like continue running operations while basically being kind of a non-controversial technology pitch man, um, or or if or if he'll do something different. If I had to guess, you know, if I had to go uh put my uh money on uh on Calci, I would say probably probably not much. He might try a few things with AI a little bit more aggressively just to demonstrate that he's with it and um understands, you know, where the where the wind is blowing, and to sate like board members who you know might you know be be curious as to whether or not he's going to be receptive to sort of like the modern tech landscape, just something to demonstrate. That would be my guess. He just kind of comes in, doesn't make many waves, doesn't, you know, you know, but but it will be interesting to see again on the on the on the back end whether he can command the same relationships with the manufacturers, with the uh manufacturing base that Apple is so dependent on, whether he can, you know, sort of command the same level of operational fluency with Foxconn or uh Pegatron or the other um uh Apple uh manufacturers. So yeah, I there's a lot a lot a lot of questions. It it will be interesting to see. Um a little bit of a a little bit of a curveball, but yeah, if I had to guess, Apple will just kind of like plug along being Apple. But you know, I've been wrong before. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 57:31

And you know, not often um I no, you're you're you're very rarely wrong. It it's not having something that happens uh very often, which is why uh you know I like having you on the show, of course, because I always get uh the accuracy and the experience. Uh yeah, my sago predictions.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 57:47

Yeah. I have seen reports that that Cook would be like, you will still, as executive chairman, play some kind of role in like maintaining those Chinese relationships that that he has built up, right? So I feel like that's not among the most important things.

SPEAKER_00 58:00

Yeah, I mean, that's the most important things, but you know, if he's out the door, then maybe maybe the you know the CEOs of those companies, which are uh you know, Foxconn is like one of the largest companies in the world now, and they have their own um interests and power. So yeah, so yeah, we'll see. But yeah, by and large, uh my my my big my guess is that things will not, at least for the immediate future, substantially change all that much.

SPEAKER_01 58:24

Yeah, I I think on day one, John Turner should show up in a spandex suit with a cape, Apple logo on the on his chest and declare himself Apple Man and uh begin his tenure that way. Uh um Brian, it's always great to get your your insight on all this. I knew, you know, as soon as I saw this happen, I was like, you know, who'd be the perfect guest to talk about Tim Cook? It would be Brian. And you came through, no surprise.

SPEAKER_00 58:49

Uh I was I was just waiting for it. I was sitting in front of my laptop in a darkened room, waiting for the link, and then like fully, you know, outfitted, dressed mic set up, ready. And so you sent me the link and I clicked it, the lights came on, and here, and that's my destiny was free.

SPEAKER_01 59:05

Here you are. Yeah, that's right. Awesome. Well, thanks, man. Great to chat.

SPEAKER_00 59:10

Yeah, great to chat with you too. And I will just add quickly that I did write about this in my newsletter um this week, uh, uh as well as the Palantir debacle. So that's uh perfect bloodinthemachine.com. We'll link it in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 59:23

Great. Thanks, Paris. Brian Merston is the author of Blood in the Machine and writes a newsletter of the same name. Tech Won's Save Us is made in partnership with The Nation magazine and is hosted by me, Paris Marks. Production is by Kyla Houston. Tech Won's Save Us relies on the support of listeners like you to keep providing critical perspectives on the tech industry. You can join hundreds of other supporters by going to patreon.com slash tech won't save us and making a pledge of your own to help us hit our goal for the show's sixth anniversary. Thanks for listening and make sure to come back next week.