Just quoting that line is confusing. The thesis in those paragraphs is that COVID benefitted major lines of their business more than it hurt others and that was due to characteristics of the supply chain.

I agree anti-fragile is often misused but the author takes care to define robustness first and contrasts his antifragility thesis to the robustness of the overall sound business.

That said, I would look at other companies for examples of “true antifragility” although it’s interesting to try to analyze how a top global company can still raise the limit of its performance in situations that hurt its competitors.

exactly. if anti-fragility is only achieved through robustness, what is the point of the distinction?

Because the concept of antifragile is nonsense. People don’t get stronger by lifting kettle bells, they get stronger from the rest and nutrition they take after lifting kettle bells. If you put the human body under constant stress, it just breaks down—like anything else under constant stress.

Apple showed excellent robustness under the stress from the impact of COVID. It did so via strong capital reserves and diverse lines of business. Which is great, but it’s bog-standard corporate strategy. Very hard to execute well, though.