UnHerd with Freddie Sayers Tim Cook: Genius or villain?
17 snips
Aug 12, 2025 
Freddie Sayers chats with Patrick McGee, a journalist and author of *Apple in China*, who previously served as the Financial Times’s principal Apple reporter. They dive into Tim Cook's leadership, highlighting his complex strategies that transformed Apple and secured its manufacturing dominance in China. McGee discusses Cook's political maneuvers amid U.S.-China tensions, his efforts to diversify production, and Apple’s growing vulnerabilities. The conversation touches on innovation stagnation and the ethical dilemmas of corporate responsibility in a globalized world.
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Apple As Agent Of Chinification
- Apple became the principal agent of 'Chinification', consolidating design-led production in China rather than merely winning from globalization.
- Tim Cook led a cultural and operational transfer that trained millions and reshaped Chinese industrial capabilities.
Scale Of Apple's Investment In China
- Apple trained enormous numbers of Chinese workers and invested vast sums, creating industrial clusters and tacit know-how in-country.
- That investment scale rivalled major historical aid programs and materially altered China's productive capacity.
Phone Scalping And Early Distribution
- Patrick McGee recounts how rogues called "yellow cows" scalped iPhones from single stores by bussing in migrants and buying inventory in bulk.
- This grassroots distribution revealed Apple's early penetration despite limited formal retail presence in China.
