The North Star has always been the same, which for us, is about making insanely great products that really change the world in some way - enrich people's lives.
Tim CookRead
Our values are that we do think that people have a right to privacy. And that our customers are not our products.
Interpretation
Tim Cook emphasizes the importance of privacy and the ethical treatment of customers in business.
In this quote, Tim Cook asserts that the core values of a company should include a commitment to respecting people's right to privacy and acknowledging that customers should not be commodified or treated merely as products. He highlights a fundamental belief in the dignity and rights of individuals, especially in the context of technology and commerce, implying that ethical considerations should guide business practices.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about digital ethics during a tech conference.
The North Star has always been the same, which for us, is about making insanely great products that really change the world in some way - enrich people's lives.
There have been people that suggest that we should have a back door. But the reality is if you put a back door in, that back door's for everybody - for good guys and bad guys.
I don't subscribe to the view some people have in the industry that you should purposefully design products that do not last that long. I don't think it is good for anyone.
When technological advancement can go up so exponentially, I do think there's a risk of losing sight of the fact that tech should serve humanity, not the other way around.
Work takes on new meaning when you feel you are pointed in the right direction. Otherwise, it's just a job, and life is too short for that.
That has always been the objective of Apple: to do things that really enrich people's lives. That you look back on and you wonder, 'How did I live without this?'
Our dream was that someday nobody would talk on a wired telephone. Everybody would talk on a wireless phone.
In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word "frustration".
If, at any moment, reality gets dull or boring, our phone offers something more pleasurable, more productive and even more educational than whatever reality gives us.
It's just astonishing to me, but not surprising in some respects, how dependent we are on the somewhat meaningless and certainly ephemeral feedback that we get from strangers on the Internet. I think that's a dangerous dependence to develop.
By 2010 computers will disappear. They'll be so small, they'll be embedded in our clothing, in our environment. Images will be written directly to our retina, providing full-immersion virtual reality, augmented real reality. We'll be interacting with virtual personalities.
Without sounding too clichΓ©, the Internet really is the birth of some kind of global mind.
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