Apple Explodes…Well The CEO Does: FBI Back Door Manipulation for Profit

March 1, 2014

Updated: February 17, 2016, below original story

Apple CEO Tim Cook is no corporate activist or hero he manipulates facts about the environment & encryption, both hot buttons to taxpayers, as a means to put profit without shame, remorse, guilt or accountability, before employees, consumers, and taxpayers.  #TheSociopathicBusinessModel

Apple’s Tim Cook picks a fight with climate change deniers

This sounds like Tim Cook is a corporate activist but it’s just a manipulation of facts without shame, remorse, guilt or accountability for company profits at the expense of employees, consumers, and taxpayers.

Tim Cook, Apple’s famously calm and collected CEO, had a rare outburst toward a representative of a conservative think tank at its annual shareholder meeting. Business Insider

For this next part, let’s break the event down and  apply characteristics from the list above.  I know it’s tough but try not to make this political and just look at the actions, reactions, and the facts as they pertain to the exchange from a psychological theory or approach.   

The outburst was because CEO Tim Cook did not want to disclose facts, to a third party requesting a proposal to Apple’s Board regarding programs to demanding the use of sustainable  green energy and materials with smaller environmental impacts.

1. Verbal outburst
2. Poor behavioral controls
3. Rarely challenged & prefers to work that way

The Board voted down the proposal but one representative from the think tank from asking a couple of pointed questions during the meeting’s question-and-answer session.

1. Rarely challenged & prefers to work that way
2. Not recognizing rights of others
3. The question could also be raised did they feel threatened or intimidated to vote it down due to the outburst

And when further pressed, Apple CEO Tim Cook responded: “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.”

1. Demeaning & Insulting
2. May have created hopelessness in the think tank asker of pointed questions (we don’t know)
3. Inconsistent/contradictory argument
4. A common tactic used from the startup mentality

Mr. Cook did not want to disclose facts about a topic (environmental records) which prompted the outburst in the first place but moments later he inconsistently used the same environmental  argument he opposed earlier to contradict himself and to chastise and berate a guest of the board.  It’s understood we should do what’s right for the environment, but is the topic being used as a smokescreen of convenience by a CEO?  We don’t know but it’s worth noting and watching to see if later evidence supports or negates the theory.

Updated: February 17, 2016

Twitter is a flutter giving rise to the idea that Tim Cook is somehow a corporate activist when the opposite is true.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has written an open letter to customers warning them of a “dangerous” request from the FBI https://t.co/T6sfAN1Ck2

— Forbes (@Forbes) February 17, 2016

#PRSpin: Apple CEO Tim Cook’s open letter to customers warning them of a “dangerous” request

Evidence supports that Apple CEO Tim Cook manipulates facts (like using an encryption FBI request to open a back door to a phone linked to terrorism), without shame, remorse, guilt or accountability putting his company’s profit above employees, consumers, and taxpayers.

#PRSpinUnSPun:  No one said he had to give the FBI the knowledge of how to open the terrorist’s phone or all phones, the company could have opened it and turned the data over to the FBI, as that’s the specific information they were after. In fact, the FBI must obtain a court order with specific information, there is no blanket court order for all Apple phones as Cook manipulates in his letter to customers.

Let’s not forget that Apple is already in bed with the NSA:

“A group (primarily Google, Apple and Microsoft) recently came to agreement on a set of core security principles. When we reach this point in our projects we schedule a classified briefing for the CEOs of key companies to provide them a brief on the specific threats we believe can be mitigated and to seek their commitment for their organization to move ahead … Google’s participation in refinement, engineering, and deployment of the solutions will be essential.”

Quickly and correctly applying the  characteristics to a particular situation will help us recognize workplace, consumer, and taxpayer abuse faster and help us develop ways to protect ourselves.  Please also remember that we are not calling or diagnosing  an individual but rather the human personification of characteristics are being  applied to a business model to gain possible insight.