Come Back, Gil Amelio

Dr. Gil Amelio hasn’t been the CEO of Apple in nearly 30 years. He missed the entire smartphone revolution, and the iMac, and the MacBook Pro, and Apple Silicon. The MacOS he was running didn’t have a lick of Liquid Glass in sight, let alone Aqua. Hell, his big imprint on computing wasn’t the iPod; it was the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh.

Despite being the only Apple CEO with a PhD (a fact Matt Lee emphasized was important to get in), his presentation style never reached Steve Jobs’ heights. Ultimately, the company he was running was in dire straits for reasons not of his own making. He goes down in history as the sacrificial lamb of Apple, the guy who didn’t solve Apple’s business problems, but the guy who brought in the guy that did.

He gets frequently mocked (including by his replacement, Steve Jobs) for saying this line: “Apple is like a ship with a hole in the bottom, leaking water, and my job is to get the ship pointed in the right direction.”

But all those downsides noted, he didn’t do this:

So I must argue, knowing that the current CEO of Apple is literally making custom knickknacks for the current president, that Amelio is looking pretty good these days, all things said.

At the age of 82, he is only a couple years older than the current president and the same age as the prior one. Amelio could hop right back in and provide leadership that doesn’t involve building one-of-a-kind objects that are designed as elaborate appeasement vehicles.

So … yeah! Get Gil Amelio back in the chair, put him on the board, let him run the company, have him figure out how to manage with higher tariffs and less political support. But at least he won’t be out there making cringey shows of support just to keep a political figure on the company’s side.

(And if you need someone younger from Apple history that could still do it, fellow PhD Avie Tevanian was a close confidant of Steve Jobs at Apple, developed some of its key software, and even looks a little like Jobs. He also has a backbone—he was booted from the Theranos board in 2007 because he asked too many questions about its faulty technology.)

In All Seriousness …

OK, obviously there is a bit of facetiousness to that last passage. Gil Amelio was a turnaround artist and he didn’t pull off perhaps his most prominent turnaround attempt. He is a lamented figure in Apple history, but Tim Cook runs a significantly more successful company, even if it regularly steps in landmines just because of its sheer scale.

It is hard not to look at the custom glass desk ornament, with a stand made of 24 karat gold, and not feel a little weird about the whole thing. It reflects a weird era in which our business leaders seem to be at the beck and call of our political leaders as a protective measure.

As much as I hate it, I find it hard to disagree with this take on the issue from Wesley Hilliard of AppleInsider, who noted that the gesture was a play to avoid extremely expensive semiconductor tariffs:

The awkward press briefing shows that Apple's leadership is capable of doing what it takes to deal with the controversial administration. Cook's playbook for dealing with Trump can be viewed as capitulation, but diplomacy is necessary to keep from taking the hit of additional billions in costs thanks to the current US trade policy.

One effect of the renewed US investment commitment was immediately felt during the briefing. President Trump shared that the expected semiconductor tariffs would be 100%, but that companies that are committed to building in the US would be exempt.

It’s strategic appeasement, designed to protect Apple’s profits, sure, but also its employees and the company itself. Apple has enough money in the bank that it probably could have waited the president out, but it was easier to build this one-of-a-kind gift and move some manufacturing resources to the United States. That way, everyone gets their iPhone next year at a reasonable price and Apple gets a leg up over its competitors.

But if you ask me, I almost wish Apple was willing to be brave rather than strategic at this moment. Those photos are not going to age well.