A letter to John Ternus
As Apple celebrates its fiftieth birthday, we celebrate the spirit of its formation, when people who loved computers started making great computers to inspire more people to love computers.
That spirit is difficult to find in the tech business today.
Immense scale, soulless optimization, and an insatiable thirst for growth dominate its behavior and discourse, leaving little room for the spirit and principles embodied by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
Apple still has this spirit, and I believe you do, too. But it’s not infinite or invincible. It’s under constant pressure, including from Apple itself.
It seems likely that you’ll soon be leading Apple, which will place unfathomable responsibility on your shoulders. As you grow into the leader that we know you can be, I urge you, on behalf of everyone who loves computers as much as we do, to protect and cultivate this spirit of Apple’s founders as the company’s top priority:
- We love computers. We don’t hide that — we celebrate it!
- We use computers to enhance our minds, lives, and abilities — not to be controlled, restricted, tricked, placated, angered, or surveilled.
- Our computers work for us, with the utmost respect for our time, attention, money, data, and privacy.
- We are customers and owners — not resources to be harvested, annoyed, or badgered into ever more services and upsells.
Apple leads the industry in these values, but leading doesn’t always mean excelling. Remaining true to these values requires constant diligence, honest evaluation, introspection, and the audacity and courage to effect change.
Apple doesn’t settle for fine, functional, or good enough in its hardware (and thanks for your incredible work on that). We love making and using products that aren’t just great, but greater than they need to be, always raising the bar of greatness for its own sake. Software, services, revenue sources, and world impact need to be held to that same standard.
Focus on making great computers with great user experiences above all else, and you can trust that every other major goal will follow: profit, market share, expansion, impact, and benefit to the world.
Making great computers must remain Apple’s top responsibility, because if you don’t do it, nobody will.