Apple's Angela Ahrendts calls rumors of being Cook's successor 'fake news'
In denying rumors that she's lined up to replace Tim Cook whenever he exits as CEO, Apple's senior VP of retail -- Angela Ahrendts -- borrowed a phrase from U.S. President Donald Trump.
"Fake news, fake news, silly, no," Ahrendts said in a video interview with BuzzFeed News, released on Tuesday. She was joined by Cook, and spoke with BuzzFeed at last week's launch of the new Michigan Avenue store in Chicago.
Cook avoided the question.
"I see my role as CEO to prepare as many people as I can to be CEO, and that's what I'm doing, and then the board makes a decision at that point in time," he commented.
Cook separately replied to the prospect of severe shortages of the iPhone X, which goes up for preorder on Friday at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time, 3:01 a.m. Eastern. Multiple reports have pointed to production bottlenecks caused by the phone's TrueDepth camera.
"We'll see what happens," he said, "but we'll be working as hard as possible to make as many as possible."
On the topic of Trump -- whose name is on a hotel within sight of Apple Michigan Avenue -- Cook dismissed the possibility that the President might retaliate against opposition on matters like immigration and LGBT rights. Trump infamously attacked Apple during his election campaign, but has also bragged about bringing related jobs to the U.S. Cook has attended White House meetings and made phone calls.
"We stay out of politics but we do engage on policy discussion," Cook said. "But we don't go back and forth on personality kind of stuff. That's not what we're about. I think most people look at that and even if they disagree, they respect if you're coming from an authentic place."
"Fake news, fake news, silly, no," Ahrendts said in a video interview with BuzzFeed News, released on Tuesday. She was joined by Cook, and spoke with BuzzFeed at last week's launch of the new Michigan Avenue store in Chicago.
Cook avoided the question.
"I see my role as CEO to prepare as many people as I can to be CEO, and that's what I'm doing, and then the board makes a decision at that point in time," he commented.
Cook separately replied to the prospect of severe shortages of the iPhone X, which goes up for preorder on Friday at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time, 3:01 a.m. Eastern. Multiple reports have pointed to production bottlenecks caused by the phone's TrueDepth camera.
"We'll see what happens," he said, "but we'll be working as hard as possible to make as many as possible."
On the topic of Trump -- whose name is on a hotel within sight of Apple Michigan Avenue -- Cook dismissed the possibility that the President might retaliate against opposition on matters like immigration and LGBT rights. Trump infamously attacked Apple during his election campaign, but has also bragged about bringing related jobs to the U.S. Cook has attended White House meetings and made phone calls.
"We stay out of politics but we do engage on policy discussion," Cook said. "But we don't go back and forth on personality kind of stuff. That's not what we're about. I think most people look at that and even if they disagree, they respect if you're coming from an authentic place."
Comments
Apple would do well to take a note from Microsoft. Steve Balmer did his best to ruin it because he simply didn't have the technical ability to see where the company needed to be in five-to-ten years. Now they've finally got someone back in the big chair who has degrees in electrical engineering and computer science as well as an MBA. You need to be a high-level user of your company's products to be able to predict where the future lies. Nadella is doing a lot to turn Microsoft around.
Apple needs to be grooming a talented engineer with great design skills to be the next CEO.
Jobs left behind a design and vision PROCESS, an entire system of innovation that's basically centered on Ive-and-company's labs. (Even Ive's innovation and design strategies are distributed across the process/system.)
You can't see this working for another reason besides your hemispheric blindness to the big picture — the coming AR revolution depends on wearable screen technologies that aren't up to Apple's standards yet. Pay attention to micro LED development, along with the usual chip miniaturization from Apple. Cook knows exactly he's doing, and he has many visionary hardware people in his retinue.
I hope she she doesn’t use that expression again.
Only if you assume fake can only mean you said something you knew not to be true at the time you said it. And when was this a rumor? Was it someone actually saying they heard she was next in line or were they just guessing or giving their opinion which then turned into a rumor.
"We are doing our best" is an unacceptable stoplap when expectations must be handled in a senseful and responsive manner.
Of course Tim knows the stock levels at 3 nov and could handle the iPhone X ordering process to minimize confusion by
1. Publicize stock levels at distribution points
2. Activate a reservation system accordingly
Now they're just avoiding the subject altogether and prioritize flimsy talk about themselves. That egoism of the highest order is so typical for these people that it hardly makes a difference who will succeed the other
Guess what? In the dystopia we currently reside in attention to social pressures and PC are important things to be aware of for any CEO. In a dysfunctional society where “trigger alerts”, “safe spaces”, intolerance of ideas (on both sides), and win at any cost attitude, companies have no choice but the walk the tightrope where any misstep can cost $billions because of attacks from left or right ideologues. Remember what happened to Brendan Eich, the man who developed Firefox, was briefly CEO of Mozilla, and who was run out of town on a rail because he dared to think marriage was reserved for the union of a man and a woman. By the way, his new browser Brave is quite good but won’t get any press because of his personal thoughts.
I don't think many people consider Ballmer any better than "adequate" or maybe "good" CEO. "Some of the best" is a huge stretch,
BTW it's also fake news that I am being groomed to be Ahrendts's successor. Just wanted to clear that up.