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Comment by badestrand | Hacker News Reader

In The Hard Thing About Hard Things Ben Horowitz says there is two types of really successfull people in the business word: Chaotic visionaries and orderly executioners, called type 1 and type 2.

I think Apple is a perfect example for this, with Jobs having been the visionary and Cook the guy who implements these visions.

Horowitz stated that a company works only well with the visionary at the top. We can see how true this as Cook just is not creative. I am sure he works really hard and is really smart but he should have never gotten to where he is now. At first I thought he would only be a interim solution to manage Apple while they search for another creative genius but that seems not to be the case.

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He got to where he is now because the visionary put him there.

Like all reductionism, Horowitz thesis looks good in a business book, it makes the world simple.

Reality is complex and that statement ("a company works only well with the visionary at the top") it's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy (the company is doing good. His CEO must be a visionary, then, since he anticipated the needs of the market).

I thought Ives was the chaotic visionary now, with Cook the business leader. With such a string of success Ives has had I figure only a flop (imo like this) would give Cook the leverage needed for change.

Ive looks more like an implementer than a visionary to me.

I think it's one of two things:

1) Most of Apple design is now by committee, which is why the Settings in an iPhone are a maze of confusion, especially around iCloud. The iPhone was supposed to be easy to use. Maybe it still is as long as one pays for and trusts iCloud (didn't work out well for Jennifer Lawrence).

2) Ive isn't the the genius we all think he is. I think this is more likely the case. If I remember correctly, Jobs liked the "skeuomorph" design style (design based on the original object) but Ive did not. I do not think it is coincidence that iOS became much more "cartoon" looking after Jobs died. I personally do not like it. But I think it shows that Ive is in complete control. If he is, Ive is to blame why I have to provide tech support for iOS settings to my friends and family now. If you extrapolate this complexity to the rest of Apple, things are way off track from Jobs' vision.

I think both Ives and Cook were implementers. Jobs was the chaotic visionary. He would not have let these devices ship with the gaps in the OP.

This is what I was hoping would not happen, but figured would.

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