Did Apple Sell Its Soul in China? Patrick McGee Weighs In

Tim Cook is often praised as the world's greatest operator, but someone argue he made a Faustian bargain with China. Do you think Tim Cook prioritized profits over principles? And if so, do you think history will judge that as a brilliant leadership or moral failure?

I think Tim Cook can lay claim to being the world's greatest operator. The irony is that the company that made the world's most sophisticated supply chain made the rookie and calamitous mistake of putting all its eggs in one basket. The basket turned out to be a surveillance state with the rise of Xi Jinping. I'm sympathetic, however, that by the time that had happened, Apple had just so consolidated into China that there wasn't a whole lot they could do. I'll talk to people from Apple today that say, I understand your thesis, but where else should should we have gone? Where else could we go now? And that's just realism. That's like a realpolitik. I mean, there just is no place on the planet that has the combination of cost, quantity and scale. I don't know that anybody can match any of those three in stunning combination. I don't know about Tim Cook personally, but did strike a Faustian bargain with China. And that's why I say that the company has been captured by China, because they really are stuck there. There's not another place on the planet where they can achieve those three metrics or even really get close to it. And China is where it is because Apple has invested just hundreds of billions of dollars over the last 25 years into the country to make it. So even if you say, well, why don't they just do the same playbook in India? I would say, well, yeah, great, call me in 2050 and tell me how it worked out, because that's the kind of timeline that we're talking about.