After Steve: How Apple became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul cover art

After Steve: How Apple became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul

How Apple became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul

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After Steve: How Apple became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul

By: Tripp Mickle
Narrated by: Will Damron
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About this listen

From the Wall Street Journal’s Tripp Mickle, the dramatic, untold story inside Apple after the passing of Steve Jobs by following his top lieutenants—Jony Ive, the Chief Design Officer, and Tim Cook, the COO-turned-CEO—and how the fading of the former and the rise of the latter led to Apple losing its soul.

Steve Jobs called Jony Ive his “spiritual partner at Apple.” The London-born genius was the second-most powerful person at Apple and the creative force who most embodies Jobs’s spirit, the man who designed the products adopted by hundreds of millions the world over: the iPod, iPad, MacBook Air, the iMac G3, and the iPhone. In the wake of his close collaborator’s death, the chief designer wrestled with grief and initially threw himself into his work designing the new Apple headquarters and the Watch before losing his motivation in a company increasingly devoted more to margins than to inspiration.

In many ways, Cook was Ive’s opposite. The product of a small Alabama town, he had risen through the ranks from the supply side of the company. His gift was not the creation of new products. Instead, he had invented countless ways to maximize a margin, squeezing some suppliers, persuading others to build factories the size of cities to churn out more units. He considered inventory evil. He knew how to make subordinates sweat with withering questions.

Jobs selected Cook as his successor, and Cook oversaw a period of tremendous revenue growth that has lifted Apple’s valuation to $3 trillion. He built a commanding business in China and rapidly distinguished himself as a master politician who could forge global alliances and send the world’s stock market into freefall with a single sentence.

Author Tripp Mickle spoke with more than 200 current and former Apple executives, as well as figures key to this period of Apple’s history, including Trump administration officials and fashion luminaries such as Anna Wintour while writing After Steve. His research shows the company’s success came at a cost. Apple lost its innovative spirit and has not designed a new category of device in years. Ive’s departure in 2019 marked a culmination in Apple’s shift from a company of innovation to one of operational excellence, and the price is a company that has lost its soul.

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Critic reviews

“Mickle penetrates the veil of secrecy shrouding one of the great dramas of modern business history: how Apple not only survived but thrived after the death of its brilliant, charismatic founder – and at what personal cost to his successors, Tim Cook and Jony Ive. After Steve is both a feat of reporting on what may be the most secretive company in the world and a gripping narrative that brings readers inside the “Spaceship,” Apple’s futuristic headquarters.” – James B. Stewart, author of New York Times bestsellers Den of Thieves, Blood Sport and DisneyWar

“Pulls off the rare feat of illuminating Apple's spiritual misdirections through the life and times of Jony Ive before and after Steve Jobs's death. This extraordinary book has a lot of heart, but also lessons on how a visionary company can lose its soul in search of even greater profits." – Bradley Hope, co-author of the New York Times bestseller Billion Dollar Whale

“Mickle pierced Apple's culture of omerta to deliver an intimate portrait of how Steve Jobs's top disciples – Tim Cook, the inscrutable operator, and Jony Ive, the passionate artist – grappled with the loss of their master and their own differences to bring his creation to unprecedented success.” – Sara Gay Forden, author of House of Gucci and editor at Bloomberg News

“A thrilling account of the characters, intrigues, and decisions that drove Apple to become the world’s most valuable corporation. After Steve is sure to become the definitive account of the post-Jobs era at Apple.”– Bhu Srinivasan, author of Americana

“A fascinating look at Apple in the post-Jobs era. Mickle highlights the link between professional dynamics and personal relationships and how large-cap companies need different skills as they scale. A master class in how creatives and operators work together to build value.” – Scott Galloway, best-selling author of The Four and Post Corona

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I really enjoyed this story and learned a lot from it about Apple after Steve. Not just for the fans but a story about a industry that undergoes constant changes

Good listen

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A great explanation of the recent history of Apple hinged around Tim Cook and Jony Ive. The audio presenter also delivers in a very easy to listen style. I am very happy to recommend this book to anyone who want to understand how Apple survived the loss of Steve Jobs

Well paced and informative

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It helps that they have the same narrator - a stroke of genius by the author imo. Really good insight into the evolution of apple post Steve. Enjoyed this as an unofficial sequel to isaacsons biography. Would recommend

Really good sequel to Walter isaacsons Jobs biography

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Great insight into one of the most influential technology companies in history. Well worth listening too!

Excellent

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Having great product ideas and marketing people is one thing, but sustainable mega success requires method and process to operate and execute effectively.

The first half of this book provides the reader with plenty of context and backstory, especially where Cook is concerned.

As an IT industry analyst, I was aware of Cook’s background at IBM and Compaq, both Behemoths of the PC industry, but this book provides additional insight.

For those people interested in how Apple outperformed the competition, we get a glimpse of the tried and tested techniques employed by Cook: Lean/JIT, Six Sigma, and TOC (Theory of Constraints).

Plenty of lessons to learn from this book if you read in between the lines.

Learn how Tim Cook made Apple what it is today

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