I'm surprised Cook was there. I'm sad that I'm surprised Cook was there.
I can likely get away from macOS by EOY. But this phone has a stranglehold on my mobile, digital life.
GuinansEyebrows · 39m ago
there's always the used option, along with minimizing your reliance on paid digital services provided by apple. i'm trying to move in that direction as much as possible.
bigyabai · 7m ago
> I'm surprised Cook was there.
You have had more than a decade to reconcile Tim Cook's friendship (or at least "business relationship") with Donald Trump.
If it disgusts you, then make a move. Cook isn't motivated by emotional pleas and the shareholders won't kick him out until he screws up as CEO.
poisonborz · 1h ago
Incredible video. It's one piece of media that would shake the tech world, where it to be shown in 2017 through a time machine.
I wish this would gain more publicity. But I guess people are already desensitized for such news.
Centigonal · 1h ago
"If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D."
-They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45, Milton Mayer
herval · 1h ago
I recommend this book so often recently, I'm thinking about buying a dozen copies so I can give them away
DazWilkin · 31m ago
If there are no consequences to bad behavior, bad people will behave badly.
None of these people will ever suffer any consequences for this.
llllm · 1h ago
To all of you reading this, that work for these CEOs, we laugh at you.
cosmicgadget · 1h ago
There are two types of employees: ones that work for a CEO that praises Trump and ones that work for a CEO too insignificant to be worth Trump's time. NEETs on parade.
llllm · 1h ago
Keep telling yourself that if it makes it easier for you to swallow.
cosmicgadget · 58m ago
I work for the latter, my friend.
llllm · 47m ago
My advice was not conditional on who you work for. We are not friends.
cosmicgadget · 1h ago
Has anybody seen any funny allhands questions of these CEOs?
RyanOD · 1h ago
It's hard for me not to believe every tech leader in this room is thinking, "This guy is a total idiot. I can't believe I have to sit here and kiss his ass. What a total waste of my time. But a CEO has to do what a CEO has to do...how can I take advantage of this mess."
bb88 · 1h ago
This is what an oligarchy looks like. Apple, Google, Meta, etc, are on display here for who they really are.
apples_oranges · 1h ago
These news depressed me. Am I the only one who is saddened by this pathetic show by our industry leaders? Made me pessimistic about the future.
InsideOutSanta · 1h ago
This is devastating enough on its own. But what makes it even more troubling is that the United States has a president who demands such transparently false praise. What's going on in this man's head? Does he not understand that these people are lying to him because they are afraid of what he will do to their companies? Or does he know, and that is the point?
What in the world is wrong with this man?
wand3r · 1h ago
The power is real. The fear is real. The praise is the only fake thing.
dmonitor · 1h ago
It's about enforcing a power dynamic. Groveling and empty praise is about showing loyalty and control. Trump thinks enforcing this level of control over others is what success looks like.
shadowgovt · 1h ago
In general, when there are no consequences for people's actions they don't change those actions.
shadowgovt · 1h ago
At this point, it is really important for everyone in the industry to recognize that the industry leaders (in terms of "running the most successful companies") should not be considered ethical or moral leaders.
It's a categorical error. Like expecting a boat captain to be Descartes because they're good at leading people to operate a boat (or, for that matter, expecting Descartes to take first in a marathon because he was really good at applying logic to philosophical questions).
tastyface · 1m ago
Moral neutrality is one thing. It may be disappointing (but not unexpected) for the CEO of your favorite company to wine and dine the leader of an unsavory political party. But... this person is currently all over the news for being best friends with one of the most prolific pedophiles in America and trying desperately to suppress the release of his files. This meeting is not just morally neutral, not just immoral, but utterly and obscenely grotesque.
mingus88 · 1h ago
Business has always been this way. It’s the nature of power.
It just so happens when you have a fragile ego in power, people seeking power will naturally play to that ego for a leg up.
We knew before 2015 that he was easy to manipulate. Easy to push his buttons, easy to flatter.
Frankly if you are a CEO in 2015 and you aren’t flattering this idiot to profit then you are violating your duties to your shareholders
euroderf · 19m ago
If you're keeping score at home, that's one point for shareholders, and a big fat goose egg for any and all other stake-"holders".
jordanpg · 1h ago
Indeed. It is a calibrated, lawyer-defined behavior called executing their fiduciary duties.
In other words, they are behaving as necessary (and as advised) to avoid later being exposed to a lawsuit.
herval · 1h ago
The cray part is they're doing it by openly doing stuff that's clearly and unambiguously classified as illegal (eg the gifts in exchange for benefits)
dragonwriter · 1h ago
This is routine; businesses don’t follow laws because they are laws, they follow laws to the extent that the perceived cost of violations exceed the perceived benefits. The whole reason the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act exist is to impose a domestic cost on foreign bribery by US entities to dissuade them from engaging in corruption abroad where enforcement is weak. But this President, who is explicit against that, is also very obviously, if less explicitly, also against enforcement of the laws against domestic corruption when it is him or his friends benefiting. So, there is literally no cost to weigh against the benefits.
mingus88 · 1h ago
As always, in business, if the penalty for breaking the law is less than the benefit you get out of the violation, then you have to go for it.
Or your competitors will. It’s the cost of doing business.
sjsdaiuasgdia · 1h ago
>Frankly if you are a CEO in 2015 and you aren’t flattering this idiot to profit then you are violating your duties to your shareholders
It's all fun and games til his policies crash the economy.
Short-sighted perspectives yet again. Short term gains at the cost of long term viability.
GuinansEyebrows · 1h ago
let it be the curtain pulled back on how this class of people operates. just because we can see it now doesn't mean this kind of thing hasn't been happening behind the scenes for... ever.
not to excuse the brazenness of it - i'm as disgusted as you are.
ElevenLathe · 1h ago
The troubling fact is that the country's owners no longer feel the need to put on a show of democratic values. It's like witnessing Diocletian do away with the republican pretense of earlier emperors.
herval · 1h ago
I feel like this curtain drop started in earnest in tech as well, when Musk took over Twitter and declared (along with certain VC) that engineers are no longer "special" and need to be treated like cattle.
The entire industry gladly dropped their masks. Quite the irony, for a group of people that takes so much pride in "thinking different" and "changing the world".
tastyface · 11m ago
Just as a reminder, the person these CEOs are cheerfully meeting with is either a brutal pedophile, or at the very least, the documented best friend of one of the most prolific and notorious pedophiles in America -- someone the administration is trying to wipe from the news cycle through any means necessary, including pampering his co-conspirator/co-rapist and claiming the whole thing is some sort of Democratic hoax. Lies upon lies to conceal the rape of countless children in service of the glorious Party. But these tech magnates don’t give an iota of a shit as long as the money keeps flowing in.
This is some real end-of-a-republic degeneracy. Decades down the line, people will point to these events in history books to show that we weren’t remotely as civilized as we thought. In a just world everyone at this table would spend their retirement years in a cell.
The view from 'the other side' (from most of the HN readership that is) where the invited CEOs are seen as Some Of The Right’s Biggest Villains - i.e. nobody likes them. For many conservatives, it’s hard to wrap your brain around the visual of billionaire Bill Gates being seated next to a smiling Melania Trump at the recent event, especially given Gates’ villain-like status among Trump’s most loyal base.
I'm surprised Cook was there. I'm sad that I'm surprised Cook was there.
I can likely get away from macOS by EOY. But this phone has a stranglehold on my mobile, digital life.
You have had more than a decade to reconcile Tim Cook's friendship (or at least "business relationship") with Donald Trump.
If it disgusts you, then make a move. Cook isn't motivated by emotional pleas and the shareholders won't kick him out until he screws up as CEO.
I wish this would gain more publicity. But I guess people are already desensitized for such news.
-They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45, Milton Mayer
None of these people will ever suffer any consequences for this.
What in the world is wrong with this man?
It's a categorical error. Like expecting a boat captain to be Descartes because they're good at leading people to operate a boat (or, for that matter, expecting Descartes to take first in a marathon because he was really good at applying logic to philosophical questions).
It just so happens when you have a fragile ego in power, people seeking power will naturally play to that ego for a leg up.
We knew before 2015 that he was easy to manipulate. Easy to push his buttons, easy to flatter.
Frankly if you are a CEO in 2015 and you aren’t flattering this idiot to profit then you are violating your duties to your shareholders
In other words, they are behaving as necessary (and as advised) to avoid later being exposed to a lawsuit.
Or your competitors will. It’s the cost of doing business.
It's all fun and games til his policies crash the economy.
Short-sighted perspectives yet again. Short term gains at the cost of long term viability.
not to excuse the brazenness of it - i'm as disgusted as you are.
The entire industry gladly dropped their masks. Quite the irony, for a group of people that takes so much pride in "thinking different" and "changing the world".
This is some real end-of-a-republic degeneracy. Decades down the line, people will point to these events in history books to show that we weren’t remotely as civilized as we thought. In a just world everyone at this table would spend their retirement years in a cell.
The view from 'the other side' (from most of the HN readership that is) where the invited CEOs are seen as Some Of The Right’s Biggest Villains - i.e. nobody likes them. For many conservatives, it’s hard to wrap your brain around the visual of billionaire Bill Gates being seated next to a smiling Melania Trump at the recent event, especially given Gates’ villain-like status among Trump’s most loyal base.