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

by Tripp Mickle

Overview

From the New York Times' 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 $2 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063009837
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/03/2022
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	267,140
File size:	16 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Tripp Mickle is a technology reporter for The New York Times covering Apple. He previously covered the company for the Wall Street Journal, where he also wrote about Google and other Silicon Valley giants. He has appeared on CNBC and NPR, and previously worked as a sportswriter. He lives with his wife and German shorthaired pointer in San Francisco. 

Table of Contents

Author's Note xi

Cast of Characters xiii

Prologue 1

Chapter 1 One More Thing 5

Chapter 2 The Artist 21

Chapter 3 The Operator 42

Chapter 4 Keep Him 64

Chapter 5 Intense Determination 92

Chapter 6 Fragile Ideas 111

Chapter 7 Possibilities 129

Chapter 8 Can't Innovate 143

Chapter 9 The Crown 169

Chapter 10 Deals 192

Chapter 11 Blowout 210

Chapter 12 Pride 222

Chapter 13 Out of Fashion 232

Chapter 14 Fuse 251

Chapter 15 Accountants 266

Chapter 16 Security 280

Chapter 17 Hawaii Days 297

Chapter 18 Smoke 307

Chapter 19 The Jony 50 323

Chapter 20 Power Moves 335

Chapter 21 Not Working 358

Chapter 22 A Billion Pockets 376

Chapter 23 Yesterday 392

Epilogue 404

Acknowledgments 415

A Note on Sources 419

Notes 421

Bibliography 477

Index 481

Editorial Reviews

02/14/2022

Wall Street Journal reporter Mickle draws from interviews with 200 current and former Apple employees, suppliers, and competitors for his insightful debut, an unsparing take on the company’s post–Steve Jobs era. From the jump, Mickle makes his perspective clear: by 2019, design innovation had taken the backseat, and “the creative soul of Apple had been eclipsed by the machine.” Privacy, “fend off the government’s” attacks, and fortunes to be made from “endless supply of cheap labor” became the priority. This shift, Mickle argues, is in large part the result of tension between the two men who led the company post-Jobs: chief design officer Jony Ive (“Apple’s high priest”) and COO-turned-CEO Tim Cook. Mickle covers both men’s early work and details their efforts to change the company after Jobs’s death in 2011. Those years included fiascoes—the initially faulty Apple Maps app, for example—and saw “tremendous revenue growth that had lifted valuation to $1 trillion.” Most of all, Mickle writes, turning over the company to Cook, an operations man with mediocre showmanship skills—rather than a design guy—had the greatest impact in changing the company’s focus. There has been plenty written about Jobs and Apple; this sets itself apart with its shrewd look at how and why the company’s culture shifted. Apple devotees and skeptics alike will find much to consider. Agent: Daniel Greenberg, Levine Greenberg Rostan. (May)

Publishers Weekly

An engrossing narrative that’s impressively reported—a true journalistic achievement in light of Apple’s culture of secrecy—After Steve takes readers deep inside the monolithic company.” — Washington Post

“Mickle builds a dense, granular mosaic of the firm’s trials and triumphs, showing us how Apple, built on Ive’s successes in the 2000s, became Cook’s company in the 2010s. The book is an amazingly detailed portrait of the permanent tension between strategy and luck: Companies make their own history, but they do not make it as they please.” — New York Times

“Mickle’s reporting is tremendous: He documents the life stories of both men and goes super deep on how they carried on at Apple post-Steve.”
— Wired

“A dynamic, eye-opening debut… Tech enthusiasts will find this meticulously researched report great fodder for debate on the future of Apple as a tech leader. A focused, perceptive assessment of the evolution of Apple’s alchemy.” — Kirkus Reviews

"[An] insightful debut, an unsparing take on the company’s post–Steve Jobs era.…There has been plenty written about Jobs and Apple; this sets itself apart with its shrewd look at how and why the company’s culture shifted. Apple devotees and skeptics alike will find much to consider." — Publishers Weekly

“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, leading tech policy coverage

“It is just over a decade since Steve Jobs died but it seems like a century for Apple. Mickle's reportorial rigor breathes life into the dramas, personalities and events that shaped the era.”
— Michael Moritz, partner at Sequoia Capital and author of The Little Kingdom

“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

“Mickle brings to life how Steve Jobs's successor, Tim Cook, for all his seemingly robotic demeanor, confronts a great many challenges that evaded Apple's founder — including an increasingly hostile U.S.-China relationship. He examines in unprecedented detail the struggle faced by Cook in meeting competing demands from the two superpowers, and illuminates an issue that will come to define both the business and political world for many years to come.” — Lingling Wei, author of Superpower Showdown

“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, Named a Best Book of 2017 by The Economist

From the Publisher

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

Mickle brings to life how Steve Jobs's successor, Tim Cook, for all his seemingly robotic demeanor, confronts a great many challenges that evaded Apple's founder — including an increasingly hostile U.S.-China relationship. He examines in unprecedented detail the struggle faced by Cook in meeting competing demands from the two superpowers, and illuminates an issue that will come to define both the business and political world for many years to come.

Lingling Wei

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

It is just over a decade since Steve Jobs died but it seems like a century for Apple. Mickle's reportorial rigor breathes life into the dramas, personalities and events that shaped the era.”

Michael Moritz

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

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

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

2022-03-16
A report on the tech giant’s myriad changes following the death of Steve Jobs in 2011.

Journalist Mickle, who covered Apple and other Silicon Valley companies for the Wall Street Journal, crafts a dynamic, eye-opening debut drawing from news articles, court filings, published materials, and hundreds of interviews. The fact that a sizable portion of Mickle’s source material is derived from current and former Apple employees lends his report credence, particularly after noting the strict corporate “culture of omertà” workers abide by and the challenges he faced accessing information from this tight-lipped “iPhone syndicate.” The author documents how the company’s corporate direction changed after Jobs’ death, leaving perfectionist Chief Design Officer Jony Ive and former COO and “Apple’s king of commerce” Tim Cook in charge. Mickle provides expansive histories on both executives, and he shows how their combined influence led the company away from its core values and culture. The author clearly shows the increasing tensions between the two leaders and the ever expanding differences in how each envisioned the future of Apple. The road became especially rocky after several senior engineers resigned, after which leadership’s hesitations and inability to collaborate effectively created further significant problems. Some of Apple’s critical missteps included the glitchy Apple Maps app, the tortured development of an intuitive smart watch, a flawed initiative for a self-driving car, and the generally panicked search for “Apple’s next big bet” while staying ahead of rivals. This put Cook and Ive’s experience and resolve to the ultimate test. While the results were successful financially, they came at the expense of the creative spirit that had defined the company for decades. Circling back on his initial discussions, Mickle points to what he interprets as the nexus of Apple’s soullessness: the ascension of Cook, a democratic, operations-focused leader who concentrated more on privacy protections and profit pyramids than pioneering innovative developments. Tech enthusiasts will find this meticulously researched report great fodder for debate on the future of Apple as a tech leader.

A focused, perceptive assessment of the evolution of Apple’s alchemy.

Kirkus Reviews