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

With the death of Steve Jobs in 2011 plenty of tech pundits and others, thought Apple was done for. Many said that without the vision, creativity, innovation and drive of Jobs, the company would soon be adrift. For those of you who were in that camp, you were partly wrong and partly right, and for those of us who had faith, we also were partly wrong and partly wright. For you see, while Apple may not be fully the company that Steve built, it is still one of the most admired companies on the planet and the most valued. This is the story of the two successors to Jobs, responsible for carrying on his legacy, good, bad, and indifferent.

The book delves into the personalities, roles, and shifting power of the two most powerful leaders in Apple, Jony Ive, Apple’s Chief Design Officer, who Jobs called his “spiritual partner,” the creative genius who brought us the sleek looks we see in the iPod, MacBooks, iPhone, iPad, Watch, and even the state-of-the-art new Apple headquarters and Tim Cook, the former COO, now CEO, handpicked by Jobs to succeed him, entrusting Cook with taking the company into the next millennia. Cook, known for his supply-chain brilliance, operational savviness, and forger of international partnerships and alliance, the Yin to Jobs' Yang. 

While the relationship between Jobs and Cook worked, Mickle in his work reveals how in many ways, Cook was Ive's opposite in pretty much every way, that the chemistry between the two would eventually cause Apple to lose its way. Cooked, a small-town Alabamian and Ive, a Londoner with creative genes in his blood. With these two distinct backgrounds and personalities at play, one can understand that while the Yin/Yang relationship between Cook and Jobs worked, Jobs the creative genius and Cook, the operational tactician, it would not work with Job’s spiritual creative partner Ive who was used to getting his way under Steve and the new boss.  

Throughout the book you begin to see the turn from creativity that Ive so cherished and had Carte blanch over to Cook’s drive to how best to maximum margins, pressure suppliers, produce more and more units. This drive made Apple into a $2 Trillion dollar behemoth. But to paraphrase a bible quote, what is it to gain the whole world and lose your soul?

The author provides depth and understanding of the Apple of today, how it has grown and failed. Interviewing hundreds of current and former Apple employees and executives, government officials, industry insiders, competitors, fashion designers, you quickly see how the cracks began and perhaps as the author points out, how Apple lost its way. 

The writing style is smooth and fluid, detailed, yet easy to understand, brining you into the Apple of today. The message is clear, the Apple Steve Jobs built, one around creativity and innovation, with Steve and Jony at the helm, has turned the corner becoming one driven by profits and production, a hungry beast satisfied with gobbling up dollar signs versus being the innovative company for generations to come. Yet, despite all of this, Apple continues to have a cult following, tugging at the hearts and souls of many, yours truly included. 

I rate this book a strong 5 out of 5 stars for it delivers on giving you a new perspective of this most valued company.