Then he should not tell other's how to fight for freedom and accept free "expression awards" for his human rights advancements [1], if he can't lead by example being scared that his ass will be on fire. And remember, he has only money to lose, so he puts money above his beliefs.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDFyuPxAkqE

It’s not his money to lose, it’s Apple shareholders’.

I think I'm getting tired of the word "shareholder" most of all.... if companies make all these greed-driven decisions because of them, let's do away with holding shares. (Lots of further thought to be had there.)

Put it this way, do you want Tim Cook making idealistic decisions with your retirement savings? Do you mind losing 80% of it because you don’t want them doing business in china anymore?

> Put it this way, do you want Tim Cook making idealistic decisions with your retirement savings? Do you mind losing 80% of it because you don’t want them doing business in china anymore?

That settles it then: dystopian miasma it is! Can't let morality or ethics stand in the way of a small number of my dollars[1].

[1] Your 80% figure is totally bullshit. Only an idiot has 80% of his savings in Apple stock and Apple does not do 80% of its business in China. It has manufacturing elsewhere and so much cash that I'm sure it could quickly ramp up whatever production capacity it needs wherever it needs it.

Again, it isn’t his money. It isn’t his savings, it’s yours. People are all high and mighty about other people’s money, but shut up when it’s their own.

Apple doesn’t care so much about making stuff in china as it does sells stuff. It is their second biggest market, quickly becoming its first, and is very profitable. Taking china out of Apple would remove probably 50%+ of its market cap, Cook would be put in an insane asylum by his board very quickly.

> Again, it isn’t his money. It isn’t his savings, it’s yours. People are all high and mighty about other people’s money, but shut up when it’s their own.

Again, ownership and stewardship of money isn't the highest good, and shouldn't be the compass that we use to guide all of our moral and ethical decisions (checked only by bare-minimum legal compliance).

Your logic is the same kind of reasoning that could easily be used to justify abusive sweatshops, child labor, and worse.

You also assume too much: some of this money is my own, though that's irrelevant. I'll be high and mighty about anyone's money if it's being used to prop up something unjust.

How does one determine should or shouldn't? If we are looking at the factors that Cook will actually be judged upon that he cares about, which is his ability to make money for Apple shareholders, then he is doing the right thing. He is lying, but in doing so is gaining positive PR which increases people's opinion of Apple and thus their willingness to buy it. This is what he should be doing.

Yes, the problem is far beyond Cook and it is systemic. People with no investment in the actual work, culture, employees, or purpose of the company (the board and shareholders) are the ones with control over the business. This fundamental disconnect between the people with power and the people who actually do any real work (called capitalism) pushes companies to behave more and more monstrously with no repercussions because "well that's just how it is" -- but that doesn't have to be how it is. Would google employees vote to help authoritarians crackdown on the people in China? I doubt it.

I wonder how many CEOs Apple could run through before the damage to their image hurts the bottom line more than not appeasing to the Chinese government.

Of course we'll only find out if multiple people individually discover their backbones and forgo personal profit to take a moral stand, and I don't think that'll happen anytime soon.

You are assuming most people care what Apple does in china, and I can garauntee you they do not. I’m a china critic myself and I’ve seen lots of stuff working for Microsoft there. Let’s be realistic: if consumers judged Apple for what they did in china, then something might change, but beyond a very small fringe, that doesn’t happen.

Didn't Google leave China a few years back, doing exactly that?

Google left because their main business is collecting information about people to sell them ads later, China did not allow that - thats why they left, they did not leave because of their great moral stand.

That isn’t true at all. First, China allows collecting similar info about people as in the west, and all the Chinese internet companies do it probably more aggressively than their international counterparts. Second, google left china (search market) because the Chinese government was hacking gmail accounts to root out dissidents.

Google left because China hacked them: https://www.google.com/search?q=china+google+hack

you mean the company named google that literally pay no tax to countries where it is making big $? check news, countries like UK and Australia were forced to come up with google tax to fight such criminal offences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_tax

Any source to back up this claim that China wouldn't allow that? I find it hard to believe.

Any source about China not allowing collecting information?

Google was getting their butt kicked by Chinese competitors, namely Baidu. They weren't exactly making tons of money anyway. So they gracefully did a PR move and pulled out of China.

Google surely wasn’t as good as Baidu in scamming terminal cancer patients with the help of the PLA.

Going by that logic, it should even be more easier for Apple to leave China. They are also getting their butts kicked by the local Chinese firms.

Apple makes a lot of money in china. Much much more than local Chinese mobile phone producers. Huawei might sell more phones than Apple, but their margins are slim to negative.