Exactly one week ago, on Wednesday, December 14, President-elect Donald Trump met at Trump Tower in Manhattan with some of the United States' top technology leaders, many of whom had previously demonstrated their opposition to his ideological corpus. business magnate now “leader of the free world.”
Among those attending this meeting were Alphabet CEO Larry Page, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Oracle CEO Safra Catz, Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and also Apple CEO Tim Cook. The presence of the latter aroused many comments, however now Cook explained the reason for his attendance: "You don't change things just by yelling".
Tim Cook: You just change things «showing everyone why your path is the best »
During last week's meeting between Donald Trump and the vast majority of the technology leaders of the moment, different aspects were discussed, from issues related to job creation in the United States to anti-immigration policy, without forgetting, of course, issues in economic and fiscal matters that directly affect the present and future of these companies.
Apparently many Apple employees (and also many company users) they have wondered if Tim Cook's presence at this meeting was really necessary and important, given that the positions of both on issues such as data encryption or immigration law reform are totally contradictory.
Tim Cook wanted to answer these questions by sending a internal note to company employees in which he notes, among other things, that "governments can affect our ability to do what we do", and that the only way to advance on key issues is to "commit."
TechCrunch has obtained a copy of this message and has made it public:
QUESTION: Last week he joined other tech leaders to meet with President-elect Donald Trump. How important is it for Apple to engage with governments?
ANSWER: It's very important. Governments can influence our ability to do what we do. They can influence positively and they can influence not so positively. What we do is focus on politics. Some of our key areas of focus are privacy and security, education. Is it so [these key areas] defending human rights for all and expanding the definition of human rights. They are in the environment and currently in the fight against climate change, something we do with our 100 percent renewable energy business.
And, of course, job creation is a key part of what we do by providing opportunities for people not only with people who work directly for Apple, but also the large number of people who are in our ecosystem. We are very proud to have created 2 million jobs, in this country alone. A large percentage of them are application developers. This gives everyone the power to sell their work to the world, which is an incredible invention in itself.
We have other things that are more business-focused, like tax reform, and something we've been advocating for a long time: a simple system. And we want IP reform to try to stop people suing when they are doing nothing as a business.
There are a large number of these problems, and the way forward is to get involved. Personally, I have never found being on the sideline a successful place to be. The way you influence these issues is to be in the arena. Therefore, whether it is in this country, or the European Union, or in China or South America, we are committed. And we compromise when we agree and we compromise when we disagree. I think it's very important to do it because you don't change things just by yelling. You change things by showing everyone why your path is the best. In many ways, it is a debate of ideas.
We are very committed to what we believe in. We believe that it is a key part of what Apple is. And we will continue to do so.
“There are a large number of these problems, and the way forward is to participate. Personally, I have never found being on the sideline a successful place to be. The way you influence these issues is to be in the arena. Therefore, whether it is in this country, or the European Union, or in China or South America, we are committed. And we compromise when we agree and we compromise when we disagree. I think it's very important to do it because you don't change things just by yelling. You change things by showing everyone why your path is the best. In many ways, it is a debate of ideas.
We are very committed to what we believe in. We believe that it is a key part of what Apple is. And we will continue to do so. "
What? Can someone put the original story, please?