Patrick McGee
Appearances
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Oh, das ist eine tolle Frage. Nein, ich würde sagen, das liegt im DNA von Steve Jobs. Denn es gab ein Zeitpunkt in den frühen 80ern, als der Apple II unglaublich gut funktionierte. Und Steve Jobs ist überrascht, dass all diese Drittpartei-Firmen Geld aus dem, was er denkt, ist seine Kreation verdient haben.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Apple macht also Dinge wie die OS, aber es ist nicht die Firma, die Lotus Writer macht, wenn man sich so ein App erinnern kann. Und Steve Jobs ist am besten ambivalent über diese Beziehung, wo Apple die Plattform ist, und dann gibt es Software-Firmen, die Geld aus dem Verkauf der Software verdienen, die echten Features, die Killer-Apps, für die man den Computer benutzt, sowie Hardware.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Wenn Apple mit einem Computer herauskommt, werden die Leute, die Keyboards machen, die Leute, die Hörer machen, alle Art von Hardware-Peripherien, Geld machen. Und Steve Jobs ist immer ambivalent darüber, auch wenn das iPhone gebaut wird, weil es jeder andere ist bei Apple, der denkt, wir müssen einen App Store haben.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Und Steve Jobs, zumindest in den frühen Phasen, will sehr wenige externe Apps haben. Google Maps war einer der frühen, aber er wollte Apple, um dieses Ökosystem zu kontrollieren. of software and hardware and services is totally integral to Apple today. And it has been since the founding days in a garage. And that really is the DNA of Steve Jobs.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Absolutely. And the company without him Es hat seinen innovativen Geist verloren, seine Seele verloren, wenn man will. Es ist Rezendetra. Und 1996 ist es fast völlig verfehlt. Und der Grund, warum es überlebt, ist, dass Gil Emilio Steve Jobs zurückbringt. Und was ich glaube, dass Reporter, Medienanalyse total verpasst haben, ist, dass
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Es gibt zu viel Geschichte von Apple-Produktdesign, Produktmarketing, wie die Dinge funktionieren, Produktreviews. Und wir haben komplett ignoriert, wie Apple ihre Produkte macht. Und das ist so grundsätzlich zu ihrem Erfolg, dass, wenn Steve Jobs stirbt, wer CEO wird? Der Chef der Operationen.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
So the company knows better than anybody else that what they're capable of in China is, you know, the defining feature that allows the company to become a three trillion dollar company today. And yet I think we in the media have totally failed to understand this narrative. And so what I sort of flip on its head is that Apple wasn't just exploiting workers in China.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Beijing was allowing Apple to exploit workers in China so that China could in turn exploit Apple.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Nun, der Genie von Steve Jobs und Johnny Ive ist das, was Apple Produkte einzigartig gemacht hat. Aber es ist der Genie von Tim Cook und Terry Guo, der Founder von Foxconn, der Apple Produkte so ehrgeizig gemacht hat. Also, als Steve Jobs im Jahr 2011 stirbt, Tim Cook als CEO zu haben, ist ein jahrelanger Signal, dass wir nicht wirklich ein neues Gerät bauen müssen, das nach dem iPhone kommt.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Wir müssen nur unsere Existenzkreationen nehmen, iPhone, MacBook, iPad, und sie weltweit skalieren, sie weltweit verkaufen. Also, du weißt, etwas wie das iPhone geht von weniger als 5 Millionen Units im Jahr 2007 zu 230 Millionen Units im Jahr 2015. Das sind die jährlichen Figuren. So scale is the hidden force, the. You know, the unheralded secret sauce of Apple. But 90% of it is all in China.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Also mehr als 50 Prozent des Einkommens liegt allein auf dem iPhone. Und dann, wenn du die anderen Hardware-Produkte hinzufügst, die wir alle nennen und von AirPods bis zu Macs erkennen, geht das um 75 bis 80 Prozent. Und die restlichen 20 Prozent sind eine ziemlich neue Entwicklung. Und das heißt Services.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Sie sind wichtig, weil Apple, wenn Apple Hardware verkauft, einen grossen Margin von etwa 35 Prozent erhält. Das heißt, wenn jemand 100 Dollar auf Apple-Produkte spart, dann kostet Apple 35 Dollar als Profit. Das ist bereits sehr hoch. Bei den Services erhält man 75 Prozent Profit. Manche der Services, die man kennen würde, wie Apple Musik, die Fitness-Anbieter, Apple News. Das ist fast nichts.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Das Geld ist in der App Store. Wenn du eine digitale App kaufst, die 2 Millionen Apps hat, nimmt Apple 15, aber meistens 30 %. Dann gibt es Dinge wie Google, payes Apple 20 billion dollars a year, basically this is pure profit, just to have Google the default search engine on every iPhone. And there are, I think, 1.3 billion iPhones existing in the wild. So it's all about the iPhone.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Even if not all the money is coming from hardware revenue, it's software revenue that's generated off of the iPhone.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
No, it should be, but they're flailing. I mean, they're basically dealing with a lawsuit right now because last June they introduced a bunch of AI features Ich meine nicht, in Bezug auf ein Produkt. Ich meine, sie haben gezeigt, was sie haben würden. Und sie mussten einige von ihnen im September haben. Also für das neue iPhone 16.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Und dann war eigentlich alles, was sie gezeigt haben, in ein paar Monaten verfügbar. Jetzt sind wir im Mai und die Features existieren noch nicht. Sie wollten also, dass du das neue Handy mit Apple Intelligenz kaufst. Das ist Apples Version von AI für Features, die nicht existieren und nicht existieren werden für mindestens ein paar Monate und vielleicht bis zu einem Jahr.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
So, they're not really doing well in the AI race. However, they have the hardware and the software and the operating system all in the one device, right? So, if I say to ChatGPT, hey, ChatGPT, go into my email and figure out what my mom told me last week and remind me what that was or whatever. ChatGP is not allowed to do that.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Es ist nicht möglich, seine eigene App zu verlassen und dein Handy für Informationen zu suchen. Siri ist dafür möglich. Obwohl Apple in der AI-Runde hinter sich ist, hat sie eine Möglichkeit, die es anderen Kunden nicht geben wird. Apple kann für Privatsache sagen, wir lassen keine Apps durch deine persönlichen Daten, aber Siri hat diese Zugang.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Ja, ich meine, es ist eine Monopolie, aber nicht unbedingt eine legale Monopolie. Ich meine, sie haben das Operationssystem und sie haben es schon lange. Also können sie Dinge mit dem Operationssystem machen, die niemand anderes machen kann. Um ein paar andere Beispiele zu geben. Wenn du eine Wireless-Payment machen willst, musst du Apple Pay nutzen.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Es gibt andere digitale Wallets, aber sie sind nicht auf dem iPhone erlaubt.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Ich habe nie gedacht, dass der Antitrust-Argument gegen Apple sehr gut ist. Aber die Leute, die über dieses Thema sprühen, ob legal oder nur auf einer Social-Media-Plattform, definieren den Markt als die 1,3 Billionen iPhones. Wenn Apple den Markt definieren würde, dann definieren sie es als die existierende Welt von Smartphones. Und in diesem Sinne haben sie nur eine 20%-Marktzahl.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Ich glaube, das ist eine ziemlich vernünftige Vorgehensweise.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Ja, es ist 50 Prozent in Amerika, aber das ist sein größter Markt. Es ist nie mehr als 20 Prozent weltweit. Aber hier ist die verrückte Statistik und ich verspreche dir einige verrückte Statistiken. Apple erhält ungefähr 85 Prozent des Industrie-Renten für Smartphones weltweit. Also finde mir eine andere Industrie, in der ein Minoritätsspieler fast alle Profite in der ganzen Industrie beherrscht.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Apple hat für so lange China-Training unterstützt, dass es nicht klar ist, ob die chinesische Industrie Apple noch braucht. Ich würde also sagen, dass wenn Sie Ihre Hand auf die neuesten Huawei, Oppo, Vivo-Hände halten können, sind Sie in Ihren Händen Hände, die besser gemacht werden als Apple. Das klingt ein bisschen verrückt und Sie können diese Hände in Amerika nicht kaufen.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Aber zum Beispiel ist das Huawei Mate XT ein Handy, das etwas dicker ist als ein iPhone, aber es fliegt zweimal in eine 10,2-Inch-Tablette, die die Standard-Size des iPads ist. Apple sollte so etwas im Jahr 2027 haben.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Ich liebe diese Frage. Okay, Koze, also eine deutliche Antwort. Auf der einen Seite könntest du sagen, China macht Apple Apple. Ich meine, es gibt kein Land auf der Welt, das mit der gleichen Kombination von Kost, Quantität, Fähigkeit und Expertise ermöglicht ist, eine Viertelbillion iPhone pro Jahr zu machen, nicht nur alle anderen Geräte.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Die genaue Antwort ist, dass China davon fähig ist, weil China der einzige Anbieter von Apples großen Investitionen in den letzten 25 Jahren war, um diese Technologien möglich zu machen. China ist also nicht nur der Weltführer der Elektronik. Es ist der Weltführer, weil Apple ihnen über einen Investitionsperioden,
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Das ist so konsequent, dass ich es mit einem geopolitischen Event wie dem Fall der Berlin Wall vergleiche. Aber das ist etwas, worüber wir nicht wissen, weil wo die ganze Aktion stattfand, in China, gab es eine zensierte Medienlandschaft. Und alle Hauptaktoren auf der Apple Seite sind von NDA betroffen, also können sie nicht wirklich darüber sprechen, was sie gemacht haben.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Eigentlich ist das Geld in der App Store. Also jedes Mal, wenn du eine digitale App kaufst, nimmt Apple 30 Prozent. Und dann hast du Dinge wie Google. Hey, ist Apple 20 Billionen Dollar pro Jahr, um nur Google, das defaulte Search Engine, auf jedem iPhone zu haben?
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Absolut. Apple wurde 1976 von zwei Jungs namens Steve in einer Garage gebaut. Und die Ethik damals war, dass man seine eigenen Computer baut. Und so setzt Apple Faktoren in Plätzen wie Kalifornien und in den frühen 1980ern in Singapur und Irland, weil sie auf einem kontinentalen Niveau lokal Produktion haben wollen. IBM beendete in 1981 das Spiel, als sie das IBM-PC entdeckten.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Die PC-Clone-Industrie folgte in ihren Füßen. Das IBM-PC hat nichts Besonderes, was es für dich tun kann, wie man es verwenden kann, wie Steve Jobs es liebte. What they did is they sort of declared war on Apple and others through, let's say, the mundane business things, logistics, manufacturing, distribution.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
And so all these sort of boring things that Steve Jobs didn't necessarily care about became foundational for bringing PCs to an affordable price and relying on Das ist ein erneuerbarer, globaler, interchangierbarer Teil der Versorgungsschiene, der erstmals in Plätzen wie Japan, Südkorea und Taiwan gegründet wurde.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Und dann, als Apple diese Strategie aus schierer Desperation in 1996 adoptierte, begann China zu werden, ein großer Spieler zu werden. Das ist also die quick and dirty Geschichte, und wir können in mehr Detail gehen, wie Sie möchten.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Any Mac that you would have bought in the 1980s and for most of the 1990s, if you bought it in America, it was made here. If you bought it in Europe, it was made in Ireland. If you bought it in Asia, it was made in Singapore. By Apple.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
So, this is a bit of history that nobody really knows. In 1996, a year before Steve Jobs comes back from a 12-year exile to save the company, Apple is in crisis, near bankruptcy. They hired a Chapter 11 bankruptcy lawyer and they were days away from not being able to meet payroll. At the time they had 13,000 employees and they had so little cash that it wasn't going to be able to happen.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Sie mussten also eine Computerfabrik in Colorado verkaufen, in Fountain, Colorado, und das gibt ihnen etwa 200 Millionen Dollar und bietet ihnen ein wenig Zeit. In den nächsten Monaten können sie mit japanischen Lendern einige Löhne wiederverkaufen. Sie können etwa 600 Millionen Dollar in einem überschrittenen Bondsverkauf verkaufen. Und sie haben nichts geändert, wenn es um ein Produkt geht.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Aber während Windows 95 die Landschaft dominiert hat, haben sie sich zumindest ein wenig Zeit gekostet. Und der CEO damals war ein Typ namens Gil Emilio. Er dauert nur 500 Tage. Er wurde immer als der falsche Typ für den Job angesehen. Und ich glaube, er war. Er war nicht sehr charismatisch. Er war kein Produkttyp. Aber er hat drei große Dinge gemacht.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Eine ist die Verkaufung der Colorado Fountain Factory, weil das initiiert. a global outsourcing strategy. So for the first time, Apple for its computers begins making them through contract manufacturers, which is a big savings. It financially goes through the bond maneuvers that I just mentioned.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
And the third most important thing is he realizes the software operating system needs a massive reboot. And through that, he brings back Steve Jobs by acquiring Next Computer, the Jobs-owned company that was really itself on the brink. And yet there was a perfect match made in heaven between Apple and Next.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Ich frage Leute immer, was ihr Lieblings-Dell-Computer aus den frühen 2000ern war. Man kann es nicht mal nennen. Wir könnten eine Stunde lang über die Frage haben, ob der G4-Kubus, dieser tollen kubischen Computer, der beste war. Was war es mit dem candy-geladen iMac? Was war es mit dem tangerinen-geladen iMac?
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
War es das Sonnenblumen-iMac, das wie ein Sonnenblumen aussieht und ein anthropomorphisches Gefühl hat? Ich meine, Apple machte einfach nur Designs, die niemand mehr konzentriert. Es ist nicht so, als ob HP mit Designs kommen würde und wir sie nicht mögen. Sie interessierten sich einfach nicht mehr für Design. Also...
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Ich mache diese große Unterschiede, weil Apple eigentlich etwas zu spät ist, wenn es um China geht. Jeder macht es an dieser Stelle. Und sie konsolidieren sich nicht wirklich in China bis 2003. Ich denke, das ist ein bisschen später, als die Leute denken. Also der candy-gelbe iMac, zum Beispiel, und wirklich niemand weiß das. Es wurde von LG in Südkorea gebaut.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Und als es ein großer Erfolg war, setzten LG Faktoren in Mexicali, Mexiko und Wales, aus allen Orten. Foxconn, eine Firma, die Leute mit Apple verbunden sind, kommt dann an Bord. Aber sie konsolidieren nicht einfach alles in China. Sie bauen es in China, in der Tschechischen Republik und in Fullerton, Kalifornien.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Die Distinktion, die ich machen würde, ist Dell, HP, die PC-Klone, sie gehen alle nach China, weil es möglich ist. Sorry, sorry, sorry. What is available there? And Apple is moving because of what's possible. What they realize is that Johnny Ive, the chief designer, can come up with anything.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
And armies of abundant and cheap laborers in China will work on a conveyor belt assembly system to conjure it into reality in massive scale and at fat margins. So everybody's going there for cost savings. Das sind zwei sehr unterschiedliche Wege, um da hinzukommen, nicht wahr? Oh, I think it's absolutely instrumental to the company.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
So when Steve Jobs comes back, he doesn't know who Johnny Ives is. That's not someone he hires. Johnny Ives is already there. The first time they meet, Steve Jobs plans on firing him and Johnny Ives has his own resignation letter in his pocket. Instead, they completely hit it off. And what Steve Jobs recognizes is that
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Johnny Ive ist ein brillanter Designer, aber er war damals vielleicht nicht ein brillanter Kommunikator seiner eigenen Werte. Der Rest der Firma, die Vorbereitungen, bevor Steve Jobs kam, haben ihm nie wirklich erlaubt, wild zu gehen mit seinen Designs. Sie haben also in 1997 ziemlich furchtbare Computern geschaffen. realisiert Steve Jobs das Potenzial für das, was Johnny Ive kapabel ist.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Und das ist, wo die iMac herauskommt. Und das ist wirklich das Produkt, das die Firma rettet. Nun, sie sind noch in Krisen, mehrere Jahre später, weil der Dotcom-Boom und ein paar anderen Items. Und dann könntest du sagen, die iPod ist die Firma, die sie wirklich rettet. Und natürlich führt das zu dem iPhone.
Something You Should Know
How Apple Became a $3 Trillion Company & Why We Love to Laugh
Aber damals war es sicherlich der Fall, dass Apple untergehen würde, wenn die iMac nicht gespielt wurde. Und es wird Amerikas bestseller Computer werden.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Like I say that sometimes and it sounds totally unhinged. And I get that. Yes. And yet, like what happened is like I came across internal documents after speaking with 200 people. And I figured out that Apple was investing by 2015, 55 billion dollars a year into China.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
So this is mostly like they spend loads of money, billions of dollars on machinery that they put on Apple's production lines that are sort of orchestrated by Apple, but not owned by them.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Like, outsourcing is the word, and yet there's something so controlling. They own the means of production with it. So I compare it to, like, the way Uber is the largest taxi provider in the world without owning any cars. It's the same thing for manufacturing. So none of the factories are owned by Apple, and yet they have, like, maniacal control over the machinery within those factories.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
And then they're doing, like, I quote someone saying, we treat the workers like our arms and legs, like you do this and you do that. And the number of people they've trained like that is 28 million, so larger than the labor force of California since 2008. And the number of billions of dollars they spend on machinery is, you know, $14 billion, I think, is the peak year.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
So some of that's public and other of this material.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Of course. And well, they do and they don't. Right. So. So fifty five billion is a year. A fifty five billion is per year. That's the investment. A lot of that is training costs for the employees in China. And the number of employees, like per Tim Cook's public estimate, right, is three million people are assembling iPhones and other Mac products in China.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Lots of unskilled jobs, the ones that Howard Lutnick wants to bring back to America. Yes. And lots of PhDs at Foxconn. Really sophisticated. Right. But my point is, like, lots of times people think there's great vocational training in China. The vocational school in China is Apple. They've trained all these workers. Yes, they've done a huge job. So let me just put the $55 billion in context.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
I could not find any corporate equivalent for how much someone is investing in another country. So I had to go to government efforts. So you look at something like the CHIPS Act, right? Biden's flagship plan, let's bring chip fabrication back to America. That's $53 billion over four years, right?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Another way of saying that Apple is investing quadruple what the Commerce Secretary called a once-in-a-generation investment in America. So that's nuts. And then you go back to, then you go back to the Marshall Plan and you're thinking, okay, so maybe it's like half of the Marshall Plan, something like that. Like, that's going to be crazy. People are going to relate to that.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
So I take the Marshall Plan spending from 1948 to 1952, right? This is sort of like America saving Europe after the World War II. And you convert it to $2,015, and it's half the annual spending of what Apple's investing in China.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Yeah. And it's not one, right? It's like the modern equivalent of the Soviet Union. Like, it's our biggest adversary. And so, you know, I sort of end the book, not to sort of, like, get so ahead of myself here.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
So I say that as China, you know, as their GDP eventually overtakes America, and especially because they're doing so good in the advanced electronics sector, more people are going to ask, how did they do it? Like, how did they go from such poverty 50 years ago into the world's greatest maker of like military weaponry and advanced electronics?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
And a big portion of the disquieting answer is year in, year out, Apple taught them.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
That's very much in the book. Yeah, absolutely.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Well, yes, because I would say, so my thesis is really that they sleepwalked into this crisis. I mean, you cannot blame Apple for moving into China in the early 2000s. For starters, the American consensus was that we're going to inculcate the next great democracy. They joined the WTO. They came in. I mean, there was broad political support to do that.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
The problem was when Xi Jinping really turns China in an authoritarian and belligerent direction, it's not like Apple was on the sidelines not noticing. They were attacked within 36 hours of Xi ascending to the presidency. Tell them about Consumer Day. Consumer Day is something that happens March 15th every year in China, and basically it goes back to 1991.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
There's someone in the audience like, I know Consumer Day. I have read this book.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Okay, so companies are called out for, like, not living up to the socialist ethos, okay? And it's increasingly Western companies in the mid-2000s. And McDonald's is 2012, and the book opens with 2013, Apple is attacked on Consumer Day. And it's for warranty differences of all things.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Well, it's, okay, so... How much time do we have? It's the most fascinating part of the narrative.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Like, literally, there's no other program. It's just like... I'm gonna give you the 30-second version, but this is four chapters in the book, okay? Demand for iPhone in China after 2010 is wild, okay? There are four stores for 1.4 billion people, okay? So one store per 350 million people. And the iPhone becomes the most conspicuous, like, status symbol imaginable on the country. In the country.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
And so what happens is these gangsters called Yellow Cows notice this imbalance and they begin paying migrants by the busload to come over to the store and snake around the store six, seven thousand people at times to buy as many iPhones as possible. And then they go to a city like Chongqing, population 32 million, number of Apple stores zero.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
And they find ways, legal and illegal, to sell iPhones at more money. They're making more money than Apple per iPhone. So it's absolutely wild. What happens is Apple eventually catches on to this a little bit because they're doing nefarious things. They're buying phones in the US. They're using fake ID.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
They're buying phones for less than $100 so that they can make even more fat margins on them and stuff. And so they begin actually burning out the CPU of the phone, deliberately breaking it in the process, but rendering it. You can no longer see where it's come from. Right. So they're masking the retail origin.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
OK, so what happens is Apple catches wind of this and they begin refurbishing these deliberately broken units rather than replacing them. Right. By refurbishing it, they're doing something that they're not doing in other countries. Right. So they're actually take that as an insult to China. Yeah, exactly.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
So without probably knowing the full story, CCTV, which is like the state sponsored CNN of China, attacks Apple for treating the Chinese in a way that's inferior to the rest of the world. OK. That was 12 years ago, reported by every media outlet. And, like, they never figured out what the story was with the yellow cows and how it came to be. Oh, wow. So that's why it's so significant.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
That's why it's the prologue.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
I honestly don't remember if shares really fall down. To be honest, the media's, like, eyeballs were not on China at all during this time. Right. I meant in China. But sales in China. Sales in China. Yeah, first they sort of freeze, and then they actually sink. That's right. So Apple's response to that is what? Placate local officials, hire a team of people that call themselves the Gang of Eight.
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These are the first senior people living in China. What an unfortunate title. And, yeah, so these are sort of eyes and ears of Cupertino living in China. First time they've had senior people that live there. And they basically strategize, like, what's our message to Beijing? Like, why are we in the country? And how do we demonstrate to them we're not this exploitative power?
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Look at how much we're doing for you. They're the ones who come up with, we're investing, like, a nation-building effort in China. Like, get off our back. You have no idea how much we're helping you. And the fruit really is in the pudding. Fruit in the pudding? Whatever. Proof is in the pudding. Proof is in the pudding. The top smartphone makers in the world these days are all Chinese, right?
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So Oppo, Vivo, Huawei, Xiaomi, they have 55% global market share. And my sort of comment on this is like, we think iPhone killed Nokia. iPhone never had more than 20% global market share. They're not big enough to have killed Nokia. Who killed Nokia? The Chinese competition. Why did the Chinese competition do so well? Because Apple trained all their suppliers.
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Yeah, so the early years of making the iPhone, Apple was really proprietary about all its processes. It would not want those suppliers to, like, market their opportunities, their technical capabilities to everybody else. But what happens is when they, like, obviate the need for a new design by Johnny Ive taking a corner and, like, getting rid of aluminum or something like that.
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Yeah, but if you sort of remove some aspect of the phone and you no longer need that supplier and they're so dependent on you, well, what happens? They go bankrupt. So instead, Apple begins to say, that's a problem for us. So we deliberately say to our suppliers, however fast you're growing with us, with Apple, grow that fast with somebody else, because otherwise you're going to be too dependent.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Exactly. But if I'm building a component for an iPhone, what is the skill set I have and what can I do with it? Of course, I'm going to supply Huawei and Oppo and Vivo.
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So in 2019... Don't you read the books I give you, though? So in 2019, Huawei, China's national champion, outsells the iPhone globally. Apple is panicking about this. And I've got all these internal emails that have never been reported on where, I mean, Tim Cook and others basically understand for weeks ahead of an earnings call that Huawei is the reason why their phone isn't selling well.
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And they deliberately obfuscate this from Apple.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
I mean, the chapter is called Five Alarm Fire because a VP at Apple, that's what he describes the situation. Like, how do we get sales to be better? And Tim Cook tells deputies, quote, this is a disaster. We need all hands on deck now. And then when he speaks to investors a week or two later, all is fine. Internally, China's sales forecast is actually shrinking. It's not going slowly.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
It's shrinking. And they don't tell investors any of this. So that's a crazy thing. Now, Trump comes into office basically saying he's going to get his consumers, his citizens, what am I trying to say? His fans. His fans. To boycott Apple. Yes. He's really harsh on Apple. That's right. Wants everything to be built in America. That's right. Wants them to come back. He's laying the wood on them.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Instead, he totally saves them. Yes. Because when Huawei is at its peak, he goes after Huawei, deprives them of using Google, which, of course, makes Android. Declares them a security threat. Declares them a security threat and deprives them of using, you know, wonky things like Qualcomm 5G chips. Huawei's business nearly collapses.
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They lose $30 billion of revenue in a year and their market share really tanks. They have to, like, hive off assets and stuff. great for a while. I mean, the only company that really benefits from that is Apple. So their market share in China doubles from 9% to 17%. So they do really well. But now, and Trump to point out, Huawei's had all this time to really work hard.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
And so now they're sort of back with a vengeance. So now in the global smartphone world, there's iOS, there's Android, and there's Harmony OS. This is my guess. Harmony OS will become the de facto standard for all operating system phones in China. Wow. That's a guess. Right. I think an educated one. And then the question is, do they then market that overseas?
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And you sort of have like a Chinese firewall iPhone becoming, you know, this is what I find so interesting.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Yes. It's so much worse than that. Come on! Talk to me. So much worse than that, really? Okay, the reason it's worse than that, because they're not just creating phones. What else can you do if you've got world-leading electronic skills? First of all, what's an EV? It's a smartphone on wheels. So the reason why EVs in China are so damn good
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
is that Apple taught all their suppliers, and the suppliers of phones, like Huawei and Xiaomi, became EVs.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
What else can you build? Drones? Military weaponry? Right? So you're sort of facilitating the potential annexation of Taiwan by giving out these skill sets for the last quarter century.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
So I'm so glad you mentioned this. It's such ludicrous nonsense, OK? It has to be. The press release that says that we're going to spend $500 billion in the U.S. literally says, and we'll create 20,000 jobs. Like, how bad would a government program be if it spent $500 billion and all it got was 20,000 jobs? Right. Right. It makes no sense. If it were true...
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
If it were true, then you would have factories springing up in every state you could think of with jobs for engineers here, there, and everywhere. This is only my educated guess, but I can't think of how the math adds up anywhere else. They are counting in the $500 billion share buybacks and dividends. Because Apple spends more than $100 billion a year on share buybacks.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
70% of their investors are in America. Ipso facto, that's kind of an investment in America, right? So that's the only way that the math works for me.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
What is happening? So China has things we'll never compete with, like density of population. Yes. And the way that the rural population sort of is actually not allowed to raise their children in places like Shenzhen. So they have to be floating around.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
So like I'm a big fan of friend shoring rather than reshoring. Right. We should be doing what we did in China, but with allied nations like India, like Mexico. But it's probably not going to happen in Pittsburgh.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
Oh, absolutely. I'm convinced. The only thing I would say is that that really happened in the 80s and 90s. Yes. And Apple was the last holdout that did not do that.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
So completely. I sort of refer to the book sometimes as a Trojan horse, where what I'm trying to sell you on is the sex appeal of the world's greatest company. But what you're actually going to learn about is some Chinese history, the importance of the U.S.-China tech battle and things like supply chains. But if I said, John, can you have me on the show? I've got a great book about supply chains.
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Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee
You'd be like, no, thanks.