4aapl
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Post by 4aapl on Jun 11, 2019 5:51:27 GMT -8
Good morning! AAPL is up about $2, 20 minutes into trading. While it didn't hold onto it's high yesterday, AAPL continues to move upwards. Slow and steady doesn't always "win" the race, but it sure makes progress towards that line in the sand at the recent high (~212) and ATH. Artman, I hope to see your ATH posts this calendar year. In the news, Foxconn has a backup planLet's make money! And let's see AAPL trend solidly above the 50 DMA that Dave was looking for yesterday!
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chinacat
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AAPL Long since 2006
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Post by chinacat on Jun 11, 2019 6:38:51 GMT -8
Thanks for opening today's thread, 4aapl. 9TO5Mac has Opinion: Apple could, and should, do the right thing on tax. While I am sure that most here would rather see those funds get applied to dividends instead, it's a pretty even-handed analysis. Also, Privacy: What Apple does and doesn’t know about you. Shawn King, via THE loop, says The Apple Pro Display XDR is underrated(!), per a video professional. Cult of Mac has Goldman Sachs isn’t worried about lack of profitability for Apple Card. The focus on the value of customer satisfaction, for those who can afford it, seems like a good match for Apple.
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Post by sponge on Jun 11, 2019 7:25:40 GMT -8
Ok change in sentiment and direction. Odds of going to 200 this week dropped significantly. That new more bearish direction will only be confirmed later today. Now if we close at new high from yesterday then we could keep going up. But the moves today indicate that we wont be going up over 196.
OI for calls are dropping for next week while OI for puts is increasing.
SPY is hitting resistance at 290 this week.
So this morning I cashed out and actually went into some puts with small position. By Thursday we will see if those pay off.
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Post by sponge on Jun 11, 2019 7:28:37 GMT -8
Should point out that as of this morning things still look bullish for next month with a possible top into the 208 range.
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Post by rickag on Jun 11, 2019 7:34:02 GMT -8
I disagree with this assessment. For decades Apple and US companies were at a competitive disadvantage to their foreign competitors due to relatively higher corporate tax rates. In addition, corporations ultimately do not pay corporate taxes, the consumer pays those taxes which are built into the price.
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Post by plcm123 on Jun 11, 2019 7:50:53 GMT -8
Does anyone have any guess for AAPL stock 15 years from now? I'm guessing at least $1000+ if Apple reduce their outstanding shares to 1-2B.
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Post by dreamRaj on Jun 11, 2019 8:04:37 GMT -8
Thanks, 4aapl and Chinacat, for starting the thread and the links.
Regarding Foxconn's statement that they can make iPhones (meant for the US) outside of China, I won't be surprised if down the road (maybe 3-4 years) the Wisconsin plant is actually used to make iPhones sold in America. China plants will make the units sold in their mainland and India will handle the rest.
If this is possible, it'll be a win-win scenario for most except for China. It'll diminish the earnings of the people there that work to make iPhones. That loss and -- worse -- the breaking of China's image will piss off their political leaders. They will hate to see that manufacturers are realizing that life can go on without China.
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4aapl
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Post by 4aapl on Jun 11, 2019 8:32:18 GMT -8
Regarding Foxconn's statement that they can make iPhones (meant for the US) outside of China, I won't be surprised if down the road (maybe 3-4 years) the Wisconsin plant is actually used to make iPhones sold in America. China plants will make the units sold in their mainland and India will handle the rest. If this is possible, it'll be a win-win scenario for most except for China. It'll diminish the earnings of the people there that work to make iPhones. That loss and -- worse -- the breaking of China's image will piss off their political leaders. They will hate to see that manufacturers are realizing that life can go on without China. I guess I see it all depend on where automation in manufacturing goes in the next few years. I don't actually know where it is now, aside from the occasional partial car assembly automations videos you see. But in semiconductor fabs at Motorola ~20 years ago, whereas our old 6 inch wafer fab had human interaction for most things, the newer 10" fab was a lights-off situation, with it all automated. In that situation where you were aiming for tighter and tighter clean room tolerances, it made sense. But on the labor side it makes sense too. That was state-of-the-art then, but I wasn't in that fab so I'm not familiar with how seamless it went or how the maintenance schedule was. If manufacturing automation in iPhone assembly increases, then the assembly labor force decreases and the whole process is more portable. But, the higher skilled people to maintain and optimize those machines goes up. Ideally it still favors automation, by a great factor. I would imagine that foxcom or Apple gets into the assembly floor design trade, and then for scale-up just duplicates the floor, but potentially at a different worldwide location. It could even be like Intel, which was said to have times where pipes took twists and turns around an invisible beam, because their original site had a beam there. With multiple floors that are the same, they could have one or two master technicians for certain equipment, anywhere in the world. If one site hit an issue that the on-site staff couldn't figure out, they could video conference in. Incidentally, the recent photos of the floor at foxcom were somewhat similar, of having multiple lines going, each with a few different sections. The difference here was that they were operator based, with something like 10-15 people per line, and what looked like 2-4 doing the same thing on each line, likely so as to avoid bottlenecks if issues were hit. The question is how close is manufacturing to being able to do 90+% of final assembly via automation.
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Dave
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"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Yogi Berra
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Post by Dave on Jun 11, 2019 9:45:09 GMT -8
Does anyone have any guess for AAPL stock 15 years from now? I'm guessing at least $1000+ if Apple reduce their outstanding shares to 1-2B. If you factor in Apples latest stock split then we already are above $1000. 😁
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Post by gtrplyr on Jun 11, 2019 10:03:28 GMT -8
Does anyone have any guess for AAPL stock 15 years from now? I'm guessing at least $1000+ if Apple reduce their outstanding shares to 1-2B. If you factor in Apples latest stock split then we already are above $1000. 😁 Trying to make a prediction regarding stock price 15 years from now is a fools game. I don't think anyone here has any idea what the world will look like much less what the "tech" world will be like. I'm definitely a long term holder and have no plans to sell any stock any time soon, that said I watch trends and everyone should understand that in this tech landscape a new product or company can come along at any minute and become a "disruptor" .... we've seen it with Apple. When you think about where this company was in the late 90's when Steve Jobs came back (one quarter away from closing up shop) to where it is now .... pretty incredible. Apple showing some strength today given the market has been red for a good portion of the morning ! Cheers to the longs. EDIT: Goldman CEO was just talking about testing the new Apple card out and said "Consumers are going to love it" .... I couldn't agree more.
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JDSoCal
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Post by JDSoCal on Jun 11, 2019 10:03:54 GMT -8
We pay MORE than enough taxes, thank you. Lawdy I can’t believe a stockholder wants to give away more of OUR money to some Euroweenies so they can waste it on what? Ugh.
It’s a shakedown. It’s theft.
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4aapl
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Post by 4aapl on Jun 11, 2019 10:21:26 GMT -8
Does anyone have any guess for AAPL stock 15 years from now? I'm guessing at least $1000+ if Apple reduce their outstanding shares to 1-2B. If you factor in Apples latest stock split then we already are above $1000. 😁 Adding in the two more 2 for 1 splits since 1998, that's 28 for 1 total. That makes $194 into a lofty $5432 share price! I believe there was even 1 or 2 more splits before those, back in the early 90's. When looking so many years out, figure a good annual percentage and then calculate it out. Sometimes I visualize a higher percent for a few years (say 20% this year, 15% for 3 years, and then 10%...which incidentally if using $194 now gives $1009 in 15 years). For the easier math, for 15% it would be ((1.15)^15)*194, or $1578. Instead using 10% gives $810. If thinking about buying power, don't forget to knock a couple percent or so off for inflation , so that 10% (if inflation adjusted) would need 12-13% of annualized gain (non-adjusted). If instead thinking of options prices (i.e. writing covered calls for 2.5 years out) you can skip that. (For covered call options, maybe when AAPL is closer to it's high you go ahead and write some, figuring that you expect 15%, but if AAPL makes 20% annualized from $210 that you'd be happy to sell. ((1.2)^2.5)*210 is $331, so maybe you look at Jan 2022 $330 calls June 2021 is the furthest out I currently see, at the $300 strike for roughly $4. Using $195 instead of $210, and 2 years, that's a 24% annualized return to get there. OTOH, that's $4/share in your pocket now, you don't pay taxes until closing the position, and it's a hedge against a AAPL or marketwide downturn between now and then. 20% annualized is $280, and 15% is $258, at prices around $6 and $9, though those low volume options have wide bid/ask spreads. I'm not looking to write any at the moment, but I could see writing some when AAPL seems to be fairly priced (has it ever been overpriced) or near it's upper bounds, especially on a portion of my shares. While I have been bitten by this before, missing out on part of a huge upswing from January to July maybe 8 years back, it can be a good idea. Or you can range-bound your shares, writing the covered call at a higher price, and using the proceeds to buy puts at a lower price, a type of insurance.)
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Post by plcm123 on Jun 11, 2019 10:52:37 GMT -8
If you factor in Apples latest stock split then we already are above $1000. 😁 Trying to make a prediction regarding stock price 15 years from now is a fools game. I don't think anyone here has any idea what the world will look like much less what the "tech" world will be like. I'm definitely a long term holder and have no plans to sell any stock any time soon, that said I watch trends and everyone should understand that in this tech landscape a new product or company can come along at any minute and become a "disruptor" .... we've seen it with Apple. When you think about where this company was in the late 90's when Steve Jobs came back (one quarter away from closing up shop) to where it is now .... pretty incredible. Apple showing some strength today given the market has been red for a good portion of the morning ! Cheers to the longs. EDIT: Goldman CEO was just talking about testing the new Apple card out and said "Consumers are going to love it" .... I couldn't agree more. Well, consider network upgrade is a must, it took almost 10 years for 4G to phase out, so by 10 years from now, 5G will phase out for 6G, I'm pretty sure iPhone and Apple Watch will be around then, enough to keep Apple profitable.
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Post by plcm123 on Jun 11, 2019 10:54:21 GMT -8
If you factor in Apples latest stock split then we already are above $1000. 😁 Adding in the two more 2 for 1 splits since 1998, that's 28 for 1 total. That makes $194 into a lofty $5432 share price! I believe there was even 1 or 2 more splits before those, back in the early 90's. When looking so many years out, figure a good annual percentage and then calculate it out. Sometimes I visualize a higher percent for a few years (say 20% this year, 15% for 3 years, and then 10%...which incidentally if using $194 now gives $1009 in 15 years). For the easier math, for 15% it would be ((1.15)^15)*194, or $1578. Instead using 10% gives $810. If thinking about buying power, don't forget to knock a couple percent or so off for inflation , so that 10% (if inflation adjusted) would need 12-13% of annualized gain (non-adjusted). If instead thinking of options prices (i.e. writing covered calls for 2.5 years out) you can skip that. (For covered call options, maybe when AAPL is closer to it's high you go ahead and write some, figuring that you expect 15%, but if AAPL makes 20% annualized from $210 that you'd be happy to sell. ((1.2)^2.5)*210 is $331, so maybe you look at Jan 2022 $330 calls June 2021 is the furthest out I currently see, at the $300 strike for roughly $4. Using $195 instead of $210, and 2 years, that's a 24% annualized return to get there. OTOH, that's $4/share in your pocket now, you don't pay taxes until closing the position, and it's a hedge against a AAPL or marketwide downturn between now and then. 20% annualized is $280, and 15% is $258, at prices around $6 and $9, though those low volume options have wide bid/ask spreads. I'm not looking to write any at the moment, but I could see writing some when AAPL seems to be fairly priced (has it ever been overpriced) or near it's upper bounds, especially on a portion of my shares. While I have been bitten by this before, missing out on part of a huge upswing from January to July maybe 8 years back, it can be a good idea. Or you can range-bound your shares, writing the covered call at a higher price, and using the proceeds to buy puts at a lower price, a type of insurance. 11.7% if you include the dividend
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Post by gtrplyr on Jun 11, 2019 11:45:19 GMT -8
Trying to make a prediction regarding stock price 15 years from now is a fools game. I don't think anyone here has any idea what the world will look like much less what the "tech" world will be like. I'm definitely a long term holder and have no plans to sell any stock any time soon, that said I watch trends and everyone should understand that in this tech landscape a new product or company can come along at any minute and become a "disruptor" .... we've seen it with Apple. When you think about where this company was in the late 90's when Steve Jobs came back (one quarter away from closing up shop) to where it is now .... pretty incredible. Apple showing some strength today given the market has been red for a good portion of the morning ! Cheers to the longs. EDIT: Goldman CEO was just talking about testing the new Apple card out and said "Consumers are going to love it" .... I couldn't agree more. Well, consider network upgrade is a must, it took almost 10 years for 4G to phase out, so by 10 years from now, 5G will phase out for 6G, I'm pretty sure iPhone and Apple Watch will be around then, enough to keep Apple profitable. Yes and with that logic the CEO’s of Nokia , blackberry, Palm and a host of others are sitting around today trying to figure out what went wrong. Listen, I’m an Apple bull and have been for many years but 15 years is a LONG time especially in the tech world. Apple may very well be a market leader at that point too but you never know what may come along. Regardless ... I’ll take you $1k prediction ... in fact I’ve already picked out my house on Maui ... you should see the view : )
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Post by BillH on Jun 11, 2019 12:42:44 GMT -8
Well, consider network upgrade is a must, it took almost 10 years for 4G to phase out, so by 10 years from now, 5G will phase out for 6G, I'm pretty sure iPhone and Apple Watch will be around then, enough to keep Apple profitable. Yes and with that logic the CEO’s of Nokia , blackberry, Palm and a host of others are sitting around today trying to figure out what went wrong. Listen, I’m an Apple bull and have been for many years but 15 years is a LONG time especially in the tech world. Apple may very well be a market leader at that point too but you never know what may come along. Regardless ... I’ll take you $1k prediction ... in fact I’ve already picked out my house on Maui ... you should see the view : ) I'm just hoping we're all not just sitting around saying "hey Alexa".
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Post by rickag on Jun 11, 2019 15:41:41 GMT -8
If you factor in Apples latest stock split then we already are above $1000. 😁 Trying to make a prediction regarding stock price 15 years from now is a fools game. I don't think anyone here has any idea what the world will look like much less what the "tech" world will be like. I'm definitely a long term holder and have no plans to sell any stock any time soon, that said I watch trends and everyone should understand that in this tech landscape a new product or company can come along at any minute and become a "disruptor" .... we've seen it with Apple. When you think about where this company was in the late 90's when Steve Jobs came back (one quarter away from closing up shop) to where it is now .... pretty incredible. Apple showing some strength today given the market has been red for a good portion of the morning ! Cheers to the longs. EDIT: Goldman CEO was just talking about testing the new Apple card out and said "Consumers are going to love it" .... I couldn't agree more. Also, what changes in upper management will have taken place in 15 years. We should see the effects of the Apple University and the focus.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2019 7:56:25 GMT -8
Yes and with that logic the CEO’s of Nokia , blackberry, Palm and a host of others are sitting around today trying to figure out what went wrong. Listen, I’m an Apple bull and have been for many years but 15 years is a LONG time especially in the tech world. Apple may very well be a market leader at that point too but you never know what may come along. Disruption is always possible to be sure. But it's also good to recognize the differences between Apple and Nokia and blackberry. The computer swallowed the phone, and so Apple and MS had an insurmountable lead IF they could apply it, and Apple did. MS was compromised by their history of mediocrity and blinkered by corporate dealmaking success. There's simply no way Nokia or BB could compete. No way. It's not even like being a buggy maker after the invention of the automobile, because those started out simple and general purpose computers at that point weren't anything close to simple if they ever were. I suppose Palm had a shot theoretically, but still way too high a wall and not enough time. You already had to be in the personal computer game, and that requires decades of experience. The outlier is Google, who acquired Android as a defensive move against Win mobile, and wiped out that platform. Superficially you'd think free Android would then wipe out Apple but most of us by now can see why it hasn't, although some can't get past unit numbers. Same happened with Nortel and other business phone vendors. The network swallowed the PBX, so the major network vendors had an insurmountable lead if they could apply it, and what do you know Cisco did. And on and on. When two industries collide, the manufacturers making the most sophisticated of the two has a massive advantage. Doesn't mean a company can't be disrupted, but it's worth noting it's not purely random either. There is a kinda sorta logic to it. Ben Thompson at Stratechery has a brilliant podcast where he goes into why it makes sense that Google is trailing the virtualization race. Their business model isn't as well aligned with virtualization as it appears, and Amazon's is more aligned with the requirements of virtualization that it would superficially seem.
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4aapl
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Post by 4aapl on Jun 12, 2019 8:28:21 GMT -8
Doesn't mean a company can't be disrupted, but it's worth noting it's not purely random either. I think the thing is that a lot can happen over 15 years, and so you can't just "set it and forget it". On individual stock investments, you need to check in on it at least a little bit once in a while. A different CEO or top leadership might be different, and while initially a 1% change doesn't make a huge difference, as it grows and compounds it adds up. In my 10% or 15% theorized average annualized returns, there is an error bounds. Maybe those returns are for 70 or 80% of the cases, whereas huge returns could happen if there was another 1 or 2 landslide products, or lesser returns could happen for a variety of cases. Apple has been adapting to disruptions (or creating those disruptions) and excelling. But, it's possible that that could change, especially as the time range gets longer. I'd like to think that wouldn't happen, but it has happened before, where even long-earned company culture wasn't enough to keep them focused.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2019 17:31:57 GMT -8
4aapl: I agree with all that. If you put a lot of eggs in a basket, you'd better be willing and able to watch it pretty closely, and that's a tall order. It's one of those "if you have to ask" things. I love industry history and I've been avidly reading and living some of it as a career IT guy. And truth be told, I honestly think the average IT worker is probably a good bit less likely to have a balanced perspective than someone with no knowledge. And I'd never believe someone could grasp much about how or how easily it could go wrong if they didn't have some real insight into how it rose to begin with. Look at Stephen Tusa's concise summary of GE, which strikes me as about right. “The 1990s was a very different time. Jack Welch didn’t have an earnings call. He had a five-page press release. He beat numbers by a penny each quarter, levered up GE Capital, and in the end benefited from a once-in-a-lifetime power-turbine bubble. GE was trading at 40 times earnings that were clearly unsustainable when Jeff Immelt took over. There was a significant transition under way when it came to financial disclosure.” If someone can't give me a plausible story of how and why MS lost the consumer space, then IMHO they've got no business investing in individual tech stocks, and certainly not MS today. Being able to grasp things like this is what fundamental investing is. Truth be told most individual investors do trade based on past returns. 99% probably should be investing in index funds for the majority of their investments. All I was saying is that it's not as random as people think. On that note, here's a cool piece I found from WSJ's Jason Zweig. It's mind-blowing that only 11 companies have held the top market cap position since 1926. It's behind a paywall so I'm pasting big part below. www.wsj.com/articles/what-amazons-rise-to-no-1-says-about-the-stock-market-11547226248He says it's "Historical hogwash that market now more narrow or concentrated", that "Biggest companies today make up less of overall market than in past". -------------- From the beginning of 1926 through the end of last year, only 10 companies have ever ranked No. 1 among all U.S. stocks by market capitalization. 11 - Amazon 10 - Microsoft Corp 9 - Apple Inc. 8 - Exxon Mobil Corp. 7 - General Electric 6 - Walmart Inc 5 - Altria Group (Philip Morris) 4 - IBM 3 - DowDuPont 2 - General Motors 1 - AT&T Inc. Some, including AT&T and IBM, spent years at the top. Others, including Altria, DuPont and Walmart, were No. 1 for less than a month; Walmart was the biggest U.S. stock for only three days in late 2002, according to the Center for Research in Security Prices, or CRSP, at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. However, companies have been holding on to the No. 1 position by market value for about as long as they used to. Hendrik Bessembinder and Goeun Choi, finance researchers at Arizona State University, calculate that the largest company in the U.S. clung to that spot for an average of 20 months from the late 1920s through the late 1950s—although it was nearly always either AT&T or GM. From the 1960s through the end of the 1990s, the top company held the No. 1 position for an average of 12 months. From 2000 through mid-2018, the average tenure at the top was 15 months. Over the past month, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon, all with market values of $700 billion or more, have each been No. 1 for several days at a time. Still, Warren Buffett’s old-school conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., hovers not far behind at nearly $500 billion in market value. Talk to any professional stock-picker and you will get an earful of whining about how today’s market is “narrow” or “concentrated” or “top-heavy,” with the largest stocks accounting for an unusually large share of total value. That’s historical hogwash. Amazon, at less than 3% of the total value of all U.S. stocks, is a minnow alongside the leviathans of the past. AT&T was 13% of total U.S. stock-market value back in 1932; General Motors, 8% in 1928; IBM, 7% in 1970. The single largest stock has made up about 3% of total U.S. market capitalization for the past 20 years, according to Savina Rizova, co-head of research at Dimensional Fund Advisors, an investment firm in Austin, Texas, that manages $517 billion. That’s down from the earlier average, since the late 1920s, of nearly 6%.
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Dave
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"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Yogi Berra
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Post by Dave on Jun 13, 2019 4:15:43 GMT -8
Interesting discussion. Several years ago I read that Microsofts problem was something that all large companies have to be cautious of. That it is in our nature to become comfortable and to be protective of our position. When a new idea or change of direction is presented, each department head worries that it will threaten their position or even their existence. They start to build protective walls around their turf, more concerned with their own future retirement then the future of the business. I think this is what Steve Jobs was faced with when he returned to Apple in the 1990's. He did what needed to be done to save the business, he "rocked the boat", a lot. Each department had to prove it's usefulness. Otherwise we become fat and lazy. Steve Jobs became the leader that was needed, not just a figurehead.
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benoir
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Post by benoir on Jun 13, 2019 5:06:39 GMT -8
Interesting discussion. Several years ago I read that Microsofts problem was something that all large companies have to be cautious of. That it is in our nature to become comfortable and to be protective of our position. When a new idea or change of direction is presented, each department head worries that it will threaten their position or even their existence. They start to build protective walls around their turf, more concerned with their own future retirement then the future of the business. I think this is what Steve Jobs was faced with when he returned to Apple in the 1990's. He did what needed to be done to save the business, he "rocked the boat", a lot. Each department had to prove it's usefulness. Otherwise we become fat and lazy. Steve Jobs became the leader that was needed, not just a figurehead. Wow, great post Dave. Just what I needed.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2019 8:00:56 GMT -8
Interesting discussion. Several years ago I read that Microsofts problem was something that all large companies have to be cautious of. That it is in our nature to become comfortable and to be protective of our position. When a new idea or change of direction is presented, each department head worries that it will threaten their position or even their existence. They start to build protective walls around their turf, more concerned with their own future retirement then the future of the business. I think this is what Steve Jobs was faced with when he returned to Apple in the 1990's. He did what needed to be done to save the business, he "rocked the boat", a lot. Each department had to prove it's usefulness. Otherwise we become fat and lazy. Steve Jobs became the leader that was needed, not just a figurehead. But it's much more than that. You never really know something until you can see it at the most general level. We want to find root causes rather than just observes symptoms. It's too easy to resort to what Horace Dediu calls "the stupid manager thesis". Here's how I see it. MS and Apple were the two competitors in the arena from the 80’s to the 00’s. Apple had a radical customer focus. MS had a radical business focus, so much so that they always saw their customer as the corporate IT buyer. It was in Gate's blood, how he thought. He was the ultimate dealmaker, from when he ran out and acquired an OS to sell IBM, to how he played them. MS was all about the art of the deal, and the deal was with corporate IT. MS didn’t care at all about what the end user wanted, nor did corporate IT. MS didn’t take their eye off the ball or experience a decline in quality, they never depended on a quality experience to begin with. It was all about the big deal with corporate heads. I’m not saying their products had no good qualities, they did, but the experience MS was concerned with was the experience of the corporate drones that usually have their head up their um … you know. So MS market share of 90% or whatever was because they had a lock on the deals with the guys way above the end users. And people tended to get the same computer at home as they had at work, and when Apple went into decline in the mid-90s it only strengthened this. And PCs sucked, pretty much like the "I'm a Mac" adds said they did. They really sucked from end user perspective, but mainly because no one really cared about their experience. MS cared about the business elites, and nothing else. What changed was: 1) the internet made the OS less relevant 2) resurgence of Apple/iPod/itunes meant people wanted Macs at home, and the word was out the Mac was better 3) the consumerization of IT, where democracy comes to tech and end IT bosses no longer dictate what computer business end users get Boom. It was night and day. MS didn't know what hit them, and had no real shot at competing with Apple. They had not much better chance at competing with Apple than Nokia did. Classic disruption. MS business model was made for one era and we entered a new one. The world shifted. It wasn’t that they took their eye off the ball, the ball moved. What can be democratized will eventually be democratized in a free nation. I think people don’t appreciate that. You can never please two masters. You can’t please corporate bosses and end users. What you can do it treat all end users as your customer, and let corporate IT do as it will. I think Jobs vision was that sooner or later the customer experience would matter. I doubt he knew or cared how it would transpire. They almost went bankrupt before it did. I shudder think of the world if the Mac disappeared. A computing dark age. Looking back, the old regime seems very unstable and unsustainable. And it was, but such regimes can last a long time.
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Jun 13, 2019 13:06:06 GMT -8
Thank you, that was great. Could it be condensed into one word: intent? Bill Gates intention was to make a lot of money. It could have been with anything, as long as it provided a huge profit and a sense of control. Whereas Steve Jobs, I believe, was wanting to produce the best computing device on the market. Designed not only to provide a simpler, easier experience but to also be aesthetically pleasing. If successful, the profits would come. And they did.
Just a thought.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2019 18:58:19 GMT -8
Thank you, that was great. Could it be condensed into one word: intent? Bill Gates intention was to make a lot of money. It could have been with anything, as long as it provided a huge profit and a sense of control. Whereas Steve Jobs, I believe, was wanting to produce the best computing device on the market. Designed not only to provide a simpler, easier experience but to also be aesthetically pleasing. If successful, the profits would come. And they did. Just a thought. Dave: Glad you liked it. I think Gates was driven by some combination of greed and power lust when he was CEO. If I were an investor in MS in the 90's I would have been furious at the risks for apparently small gain that he took that made no real sense. The fear that MS inspired is forgotten now. All unnecessary and stupid I think. BTW, I don't subscribe to the idea that Balmer was bad for MS. I have no great brief for him, but I think he did a fairly decent job, and I think it's under appreciated that Gates left him with an unbalanced organization that reflected him. But yeah, I think you're dead on with Jobs. He was an amazing guy. He wanted to improve peoples lives, and saw no reason computers couldn't be aesthetically pleasing as you say. Or really, pleasing in every way that's attainable. He and Gates were ambitious, but they were driven by different things. Such a lesson in the idea that Jobs wasn't trying to make money directly, but saw another goal and the profits as an hopeful eventual product of the other goals that shouldn't be pursued directly overmuch. What is the children's story? The grasshopper and the hare? Apple under Jobs exemplifies that so clearly it's amazing.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2019 8:36:02 GMT -8
I think a devolution of authority is the trend in free nations, probably since the beginning. That's the political angle of the PC wars. Apple taking the mindshare away from MS was the consumerization or democratization of IT. Non-business users of course were always individual consumers. I take that evolution to be irreversible.
Note that consumers bringing to work their home PCs because they were free of the IT elites was an insurgency and how the PC dethroned IBM mainframes in business. IT leaders resisted all they could but eventually gave up and adopted the PC after they saw it was inevitable. It was a consumerization of IT phase #1, but no one saw it that way because IT just absorbed PCs and was needed to manage them so it seemed like little had changed. Then phase #2 of consumerization of IT was in part the process I've already described of how Macs entered business, and in part Apple mobile invading the enterprise. Corporate IT was again dragged kicking and screaming into supporting Apple mobile devices. Two intertwined parts of the same phenomenon.
Devolution or democratization of authority over device selection. Or libertarianism, or whatever you want to call it. It's the "end of history" in a sense. Fukuyama's brilliant book got a bad name after 9/11, but funny thing is I never read it to mean there would be no challenges to democratic societies. I never imagined anyone would read it as implying there'd be no terrorism, which is a crazy idea. I thought he meant just that there'd be no legitimate successors that would be seen to be better by those who'd need to be governed by it, not that crazy bitter enders wouldn't think so or that tyrants would disappear. Anyway, though Apple can certainly be disrupted, as can anyone, there's no going back from the consumer being in control. And I suspect that to appearances of the average person, a deeply consumer oriented company seems chaotic, in fact I think it is more resilient than what came before with the IT/WinTel business alliance, which was superficially strong but brittle, as regimes controlled by elites tend to be.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2019 12:19:08 GMT -8
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