Best vs. First

CNBC story from 2016:

At a recent public appearance at the Utah Tech Tour, in a conversation moderated by Utah’s Senator Orrin Hatch, Apple CEO Tim Cook pointed out that Microsoft had tablets on the market decades before Apple.

Cook emphasized his company’s timing coming to market with new products to underscore the idea that it’s nearly impossible for a company to be the best, the first and to make the most of a given product. [...]

“It doesn’t bother us that we are second, third, fourth or fifth if we still have the best. We don’t feel embarrassed because it took us longer to get it right,” says Cook.

“For Apple, being the best is the most important and trumps the other two by far.”

This has been one of Apple’s guiding mantras for decades, and it has served the company very well. But it stops holding water when they promise to be first, but then aren’t first and aren’t the best.

If you only ever promise A, B, and C — and never mention X, Y, or Z — even when competitors ship their versions of X, Y, and Z first, your silence speaks for itself. Either you don’t think X, Y, and Z are important, or, you think it’s worth taking more time to get them right. But if you promise A, B, C, X, Y, and Z, and then only ship A, B, and C, you just look lost when competitors ship X, Y, and Z.

★ Saturday, 15 March 2025