Hacker News Reader

Comment by mh8h | Hacker News Reader

I just want to add another angle. Apple, as well as other tech companies, have many employees in China, and a lot of non-Chinese employees that travel to China regularly. Many of these changes are demanded by the PRC government and not abiding by those might risk imprisonment for those employees.

Disclaimer: I work for Apple, but I don't work on iOS.

View on HN

Sure; but literally any day Tim Cook can say, "Ok China, I no longer play your game. Enjoy having no support or economic progress from us - bye".

My point wasn't a specific developer (as you point out, they might have been in China themselves and unable to do otherwise), but that anyone in the chain who is "safe" and in a position of power and privilege to not-play China's game, I find morally dubious. Engineers in the US are people I count as having this safety and privilege, but not engineers in China.

Executives, PMs and management in the US I also count as being able to tell China to shove it with their demands.

>Enjoy having no support or economic progress from us - bye".

This would have to be done on a federal level. Just because Apple stopped doing this doesn't mean China would be any worse off. Google, Amazon, and every other tech company would still get in line to do whatever it takes to get that sweet, sweet money.

The tech decoupling had already happened.

Arguably the one and only big tech that has a significant Chinese stake, is Microsoft.

Google/Facebook/Netflix is banned, Amazon retreated. Oracle had just closed its research center.

Where is apple going for production of its hardware if not to china? What other country has the knowledge, capacity, experience, time-to-market, factories and workers available to build all the iphones, iwatches, imac, ipads and macbooks?

Apple's threatened moving a lot of production to India (which has its own problems, but shows moving is possible). The new Mac Pro is to be made in Texas, and I think Apple at one point was considering a chip plant there for the iPhone too.

China holds a lot of weight, but a company with a trillion dollar market cap also can make its own decisions.

That's the entire point. Even if Apple was going to be able to go somewhere else (India, US, etc.), it wouldn't hurt China much if every other tech company maintains course and/or doubles down on China. Unless China is hurt economically by their actions, nothing will change.

>>> Enjoy having no support or economic progress from us - bye

I would expect the Chinese to laugh as they've probably already stolen sufficient institutional and technical knowledge to respond with a "Bye Felicia" of their own.

Enjoy having no support or economic progress from us - bye

Make no mistake, Apple can be replaced in a sec. It needs China not vice versa.

You genuinely believe Tim Cook has more leverage than China?

By what fraction do you think Apple's profits would drop if it had to rebuild all of its factories outside of China? By what fraction do you think China's GDP or tax revenue would drop if it kicked Apple out of China?

Even if that situation were reversed, Tim Cook answers to shareholders via a board of directors. He's legally obligated to maximize shareholder value. Who do you think the Chinese officials who want power over Taiwan answer to? What legal obligations of any kind do you think they are under?

> He's legally obligated to maximize shareholder value.

Is this actually true? Or just a "institutional wisdom"?

probably more that he's obligated to do so to keep his job

Tim Cook has enough money that he doesn't need to work anymore. It's not like he's a wage ape pounding code in a cubicle all day.

It's false. It's just that it's close to what's actually true, so it's pretty easy to pass it as a fact.

Basically, what a company is required to do is serve the BEST INTERESTS of its shareholders. This might not necessarily be the same as maximising shareholder value.

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

Thanks for the clarification, I hadn't seen that before. Although I don't think the distinction changes the point I made.

"When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don't consider the bloody ROI... If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock." - Tim Cook

> Sure; but literally any day Tim Cook can say, "Ok China, I no longer play your game. Enjoy having no support or economic progress from us - bye".

No he cannot. He would be immediately removed at CEO and replaced with someone who played ball.

Remember, Apple is a publicly traded company. What you're suggesting is, at a whim, Tim Cook could just completely tank the company. China has far, far more leverage over Apple than Apple has over them plus it's a huge market they're making progress in.

No he cannot

Sure he can. Google bailed on China once. Apple certainly has the money and talent to do the same.

He would be immediately removed at CEO and replaced with someone who played ball.

Would he? Why do you assume that this would be bad for it share price, or that the majority of shareholders would be against it?

Unlike Google, Apple is hardware company and has a massive amount of manufacturing in China. It would be almost impossible for them to bail on that infrastructure.

Not really. Apple just has to do it in phases. No one is suggesting that Apple leave China overnight.

> Sure he can. Google bailed on China once. Apple certainly has the money and talent to do the same.

Google didn't have much of any foothold into China when it dropped. It was also purely based on software which can be toggled off relatively easy (then you just have to wind down offices).

All of Apple's products require China to produce. All of them.

> Would he? Why do you assume that this would be bad for it share price, or that the majority of shareholders would be against it?

The majority of their manufacturing and assembly is in China. China is their big growth market. Not only would it tank the share price by cutting out their huge growth opportunity but it's completely within China's power to stop almost all of their production.

The stock market reflects what wallstreet things will grow. When you stagnate your share price drops (there is no reason to hang onto it if you won't become more profitable).

All of Apple's products require China to produce

Today. But maybe not tomorrow. India, Vietnam, Brazil, and a dozen other countries are more than willing to take on that production. Heck, most of Apple's contractors in China (think Foxconn) already have manufacturing in other countries.

> Today. But maybe not tomorrow. India, Vietnam, Brazil, and a dozen other countries are more than willing to take on that production. Heck, most of Apple's contractors in China (think Foxconn) already have manufacturing in other countries.

That isn't an easy thing to do and it certainly wouldn't give Tim Cook any leverage. It would take them probably a decade to fully move their pipeline out of China and even if they did it, it would be very capital intensive so even if it was cheaper it would take quite some time to recoup those costs (and I'm not really convinced it would be cheaper overall but that's a separate exercise).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com