Tim Cook wasn't a 'product guy' - so he -2-

Nobody builds a $4.6 trillion company simply by playing nice. Underneath his placid demeanor, Cook is a tactical corporate strategist whose decisions haven't always sat well with everyone. Ive, Apple's design chief and a longtime Jobs disciple, departed Apple in 2019, reportedly frustrated with the company's heavy focus on operations. Many employees didn't share Cook's appreciation of in-person meetings, as evidenced by widespread pushback to the company's return-to-office policies instated in 2022.

Cook's personal relationship with President Donald Trump has also drawn the ire of employees and outsiders alike. The two men have developed an unconventional alliance that some say is built on strategic reciprocity. Cook has gifted Trump a gold sculpture, pledged to invest $600 billion in Apple's U.S. supply chain and attended a White House screening of the "Melania" movie in January.

In return, Trump has been receptive to Cook's phone calls, granting Apple key tariff exemptions on parts imported from China. In 2019, Trump praised the CEO for Apple's domestic investments, accidentally coining the nickname "Tim Apple" in the process.

When asked about his actions on "Good Morning America" in March, Cook responded by saying "I interact on policy, not politics."

While Eves sees the pragmatic payoff of Apple staying in the Trump administration's good graces, he and many other employees harbor mixed feelings about Cook's relationship with the president. "I can't claim to know what he thinks or what he's trying to accomplish, but it's really hard to see this person that I admired support that kind of thing," Eves said.

Meanwhile, Apple suppliers came to know Cook as a ruthless negotiator who was able to help secure components at cheap prices. For the 2005 launch of the iPod Nano, he prepaid $1.25 billion to memory providers such as Samsung (KR:005930) and Intel (INTC) - a move that cornered the entire flash-memory market, according to the New York Times. In 2009, Cook executed another supply-chain squeeze by purchasing Samsung's entire available supply of flash memory.

But Cook's careful demand forecasting and supply-chain maneuvering has hit a wall with one technological development: artificial intelligence.

While Google infused its Android operating system with Gemini and Microsoft (MSFT) inked deals with OpenAI, Apple appeared to have missed the boat. In 2024, Apple introduced an ambitious AI-powered overhaul for Siri, but the rollout was plagued by repeated delays. Competitors like Meta Platforms (META) have raided Apple's AI research team, poaching top talent.

To make matters worse, Apple's once-unrivaled purchasing power in the memory market has dwindled as Big Tech names like Nvidia (NVDA) and cloud hyperscalers command top priority for suppliers.

Wall Street has yet to make up its mind about whether Apple's AI strategy is a success or failure. In defense of the company's approach, Apple has "rarely been first" in rolling out new technologies, Cook said in an all-hands meeting last year. Unlike its peers, Apple hasn't rushed to spend billions on building data centers. That move has earned the company praise when investors have become jittery about potential AI overspending, but it has also sparked concerns about whether Apple is ceding ground during one of the largest technological transformations in history.

"Apple Intelligence is now finally launching two years late with the features that we said it was going to launch with," said Dailey, the former Apple executive briefing leader. "From my perspective, that has to fall at least a little bit on Tim."

The long-promised agentic Siri is due to arrive on Apple devices this September. It's partially powered by Google's Gemini model in addition to the company's own Apple Foundation Models - a departure from Apple's central tenet of owning, not renting, its core technologies.

"Tim was an ops guy - nobody [else] could have managed the growth to the level that we have. Just being able to physically ship the number of phones that we shipped is amazing," Dailey noted. "But I think, as you look at the next couple of decades at Apple, AI will demand more clever software engineering and deep hardware integration. It's time to have a product guy."

-Christine Ji

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

08-31-26 0912ET