Sunday, May 31

More Thoughts On Jony Ive

My comments earlier this week regarding the surprise Jony Ive promotion at Apple didn’t pay proper service to two other great takes on the news. I linked to both of them in the post, but they influenced my thoughts enough to bring them to the forefront here. We’ve also heard from a few more influential voices, so I’m adding their insights as well.

First, Joe Cieplinski writes in Jony Ive’s Long Goodbye:

Just as the February New Yorker article served to introduce us to Richard Howarth, and the Wired piece in April introduced us to Alan Dye, all three of these pieces have served as a preparation for the eventual retirement of Jony Ive from Apple. This is one, long, calculated PR move. And it’s being executed flawlessly.

I found Thompson’s take to be more insightful, but for some reason, Cieplinkski’s post felt a bit more optimistic about the prospect of Ive’s eventual departure. I can’t really explain it. I disagree with Cieplinkski’s assertion that I’ve will be gone in “a year or two”.

More open-ended about the future but still determined to mark the beginning of the end is Seth Weintraub writing for 9to5mac:

So there’s this compromise. Ive gets two subordinates to run his two incredibly important programs then gets to spend a reasonable amount of time in the UK with his kids who then aren’t forced to grow up talking like Americans and pronouncing ‘aluminum‘ like animals.

I share Weintraub’s general sense that this could be Apple’s way of capitulating to Ive’s desire to spend more time with his family outside of California, which is almost impossible unless Ive carries fewer managerial responsibilities. And I think it’s fair in this case to take this at face value; that an overburdened executive really needs to shed some responsibilities in order to maintain his effectiveness and ability to serve his tole in the company the best way he can.

Personally, I think John Gruber nails it perfectly with this:

A simpler way to look at this would be to see Ive having been promoted to, effectively, the new Steve Jobs: the overseer and arbiter of taste for anything and everything the company touches.

That’s exactly what I was getting at when I mentioned the Ive and Jobs lunch routine – that Ive’s ascension is a formal recognition of his complementary role as the visionary to Tim Cook the operator. Jobs the CEO was the arbiter of taste for all matters Apple, while Tim Cook, then COO, was the man who carried out the vision. Today, the power dynamic is symbolically reversed, the operator as CEO and arbiter of taste now as a subordinate CDO. But just as I imagine Jobs the CEO trusted Cook’s operational decisions, I bet Cook the CEO trusts Ive’s product and design authority.

Finally, Jim Dalrymple weighed in by quoting Gruber and suggesting a little of column A and a little of column B may be at play here, highlighting Apple’s propensity for laying out their succession plans years in advance:

Personally, I think it’s both. Jony deserves a “chief” title and this is a perfect way to introduce the public to the other lead designers on Jony’s team. I don’t think Jony is going anywhere in the near future, but it’s important for Wall St. and the public to realize that he won’t leave a giant vacuum when he does leave.

It’s not always the case that time tells all, especially when secretive organizations like Apple are involved, but time will certainly provide some insight. In the meantime, it’s been a fun speculation-filled week. Here’s to hoping for many more years of Jony.

Monday, February 02

Compensating

When Apple hired Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts away from the venerable fashion brand, I wondered how they managed to poach a CEO from a fairly large and growing fashion brand to be a lowly Senior Vice President1. Well, now we know at least the monetary part2 of the pitch. No question $73 million would buy a lot of plaid.

From where I sit, it’s difficult to tell what significance, if any, Ahrendts’ presence had on Apple’s most recent quarterly results; The biggest part of Apple’s business is the iPhone and the iPhone 6/Plus were certainly already well on their way to production by the time she stepped in. But the results in China, supposedly Ahrendts’ specialty, were astounding and even if she played no part in that achievement, the compensation package would hardly stand out on Apple’s most recent quarterly balance sheet3.

While money could easily be a stumbling block for this type of recruiting (if the number is too low), I bet it’s rarely the most persuasive part of the package. I imagine the same type of person who would aspire to be the CEO of trend-setting luxury fashion brand is probably the same type of person who could find a challenge ushering in a new era of retail at Apple. Hiring Ahrendts pretty much substantiated rumors of an Apple Watch, at least for Apple followers, because “luxury fashion” is exactly the approach Apple would take to bring their not-yet-announced take on wearables to market. Not much about what they’ve done since announcing Apple Watch late last year would refute that. Couple that with Ahrendts’ previously mentioned success in China and the role almost seems perfect for her.

  1. Any argument about the relative size of Burberry compared to Apple’s retail business underestimates the specific character traits of the type of person it takes to be a CEO.
  2. See above. Along those same lines, money is often also not a primary motivator, though I’m sure it doesn’t hurt.
  3. Especially considering a lot of the compensation is in company stock.
Friday, October 31

Hello, World

This site has been lots of things but not anything quite like what it’s about to become.