Interview with Tim Cook on HomePod, AR, enterprise strategy, manufacturing products in the US, Donald Trump, US tax code, and more
Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple Inc., was interviewed in San Jose, California, on June 5 by Bloomberg Businessweek Editor Megan Murphy.
Context & Ripple Effects
This Bloomberg Businessweek sit-down with Megan Murphy is one installment in a running format: Tim Cook using long-form interviews to stake out Apple's positions beyond the product cycle. It lands between his Q&A on Apple's fight with the FBI over user privacy in March 2016 and his fifth-anniversary reflection that August, and it previews ground he covers again in the 2018 Recode interview on tax reform and privacy as a right.
What makes this one matter is timing: Cook is answering questions about US manufacturing, the tax code, and Donald Trump directly to a new administration's agenda, while also talking HomePod, AR, and enterprise — the pieces of Apple's next act after the iPhone.
First-order effects
- Cook's answers on US manufacturing and the tax code function as Apple's public opening position with the Trump administration, delivered months into the new presidency.
- The HomePod and AR discussion frames Apple's hardware roadmap for investors and rivals at the moment those categories are still undefined.
Second-order effects
- By putting tax and manufacturing views on record here, Cook sets up the follow-on 2018 interviews where he discusses enacted tax reform — turning each interview into a checkpoint on the last one's advocacy.
- Rivals in smart speakers and AR now have a stated Apple thesis to position against, since Cook is committing the company publicly to both categories.
Third-order effects
- The pattern across the 60 Minutes, Goldman Sachs, TIME, Washington Post, and Bloomberg interviews shows a CEO operating as Apple's chief policy negotiator, with encryption, privacy, and taxation argued in the press rather than only in courtrooms or filings.
The trend: Tim Cook has converted the wide-ranging CEO interview into a recurring instrument for pre-positioning Apple on tax, privacy, and manufacturing policy between product launches.