> Apple is famously the company that tells rent seekers after more ROI above all to f off (both Jobs and Cook).
One of my favorite CEO moments comes from Tim Cook on an earnings call:
“If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock,”
And then more recently “If you're a short-term trader, do not invest in the Apple stock,”
I understand both, but it’s so odd to hear a CEO tell people “no, we don’t want your money” and I will grant that Apple is luckily not in the position of needing it.
Keep in mind when a stock is trading the original company doesn't get any of that money unless they have shares.
What Cook is saying is that Apple is in the enviable position of being to make long term plans. Not every decision can immediately be boiled down to an ROI calculation, but that's what short term thinkers want.
For example, how much has Apple invested to develop this E2E system (the tech, support, etc...), and what is the ROI? IMO, over the long term it should have a positive ROI, even if I can't draw a direct link from quarter to quarter right now.
Doesn't matter what they claim, look at the numbers and what they're actually doing. Apple has a good product with the iphone but they aren't running a charity, it's a hugely profitable business that puts money over everything, even human lives (see how they aid the CCP's totalitarian regime as an example).
For users to trust them as a guarantor of privacy and rights is naive at best if not outright idiotic. Since they comply with Beijing why would one assume they won't feed your data to Fort Meade and Brussels - who as a sidenote are planning to outlaw end-to-end encryption for major apps: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-co...
One of my favorite CEO moments comes from Tim Cook on an earnings call: “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock,” And then more recently “If you're a short-term trader, do not invest in the Apple stock,”
I understand both, but it’s so odd to hear a CEO tell people “no, we don’t want your money” and I will grant that Apple is luckily not in the position of needing it.