After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost its Soul

After Steve Jobs passed away, the Wall Street Journal's Tripp Mickle tells the dramatic, untold story of Apple's fall from grace. The book follows the rise and fall of two key figures: Jony Ive, the Chief Design Officer, and Tim Cook, the COO-turned-CEO. Ive was the creative force behind Apple's iconic products, while Cook was a master of maximizing profits and operational efficiency. The author argues that Apple lost its innovative spirit and has not designed a new category of device in years, resulting in a company that has lost its soul.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 512 pages
Publication date: 08 June 2023
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

The dramatic, untold story of Apple after Steve Jobs' passing is explored in the Wall Street Journal's Tripp Mickle, following the top lieutenants: Jony Ive, the Chief Design Officer, and Tim Cook, the COO-turned-CEO. The fading of Ive and the rise of Cook led to Apple losing its soul.

Steve Jobs considered Jony Ive his "spiritual partner at Apple." The London-born genius was the second-most powerful person at Apple and the creative force who most embodied Jobs' spirit. He designed the products adopted by hundreds of millions worldwide: the iPod, iPad, MacBook Air, iMac G3, and iPhone.

In the wake of his close collaborators' death, the chief designer wrestled with grief and initially threw himself into his work designing the new Apple headquarters and the Watch before losing his motivation in a company increasingly devoted more to margins than to inspiration.

In many ways, Cook was Ive's opposite. The product of a small Alabama town, he had risen through the ranks from the supply side of the company. His gift was not the creation of new products. Instead, he had invented countless ways to maximize a margin, squeezing some suppliers, persuading others to build factories the size of cities to churn out more units. He considered inventory evil. He knew how to make subordinates sweat with withering questions.

Jobs selected Cook as his successor, and Cook oversaw a period of tremendous revenue growth that has lifted Apple's valuation to $3 trillion. He built a commanding business in China and rapidly distinguished himself as a master politician who could forge global alliances and send the world's stock market into freefall with a single sentence.

Author Tripp Mickle spoke with more than 200 current and former Apple executives, as well as dozens of family members, friends, and colleagues, to create this definitive account of the company's past and present.

Weight: 356g
Dimension: 129 x 199 x 36 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780008527877