Taking a bite out of Apple

>>> welcome back to the 30 million jobs tour. one american company where business is certainly booming is apple . in fact, the company recently announced that it doubled profits in the the most recent quarter from the year before thanks largely to the american people and the consumption of the iphones. 37 million of them sold in the period. according to our specialist, there's vastly more to what apple calls their secret sauce for success than simply selling a really cool hand held device. adam lasinski wrote the new book already a best seller "inside apple ." my big focus with am has been, as you know, on fox con and the employment of thousands of chinese workers to physically manufacture not just iphones, but mac products. it's not just apple . other people use the plant. 230,000 employees. 12-hour days. living in barics. huge suicide issue there. they solved the suicide issue with nets as opposed to reforms, which i thought was a curious resolution. give me a sense of whether the fox con entity for apple is as das dardly as it appears, and more broadly, how apple does do their business.

>> i can't persuade you from thinking it's dastardly. all the other manufacturers have set up fox con and others as intermediaries so they are not their factories. thp this has given them plausible deniability. that era is completely behind them now. i think it will be interesting to see how apple deals with that. this is something, as i say in my book, apple doesn't care what other people say about them. they are very focused on what they do and about how to market their products. but i do believe they care deeply about this issue. we haven't heard the last of it from them. they are not used to being by the leader. just 15 years ago, they were the underdog. they played the underdog very well. i think this position of being the one everybody is watching, believe it or not, is new to them. they are being a bit awkward about it now.

>> karen?

>> here's my question as to what you were just saying. one of the things an organization needs to be able to do effectively is adapt to unforseen consequences. the president has done a good job of dealing with that and kept promises. how does apple as a company in the way they approach their business, how do they adapt and make changes?

>> you know, what's fascinating is this is one of the first major tests of the new ceo, tim cook . if steve jobs would have been alive, he would have broken the rigid rules around making public statements and he would have made a grand gesture. he would have flown to china and held a press conference. he would have done something to address this instead "the new york times" a no comment and leaking a memo to employees that didn't say anything. apple is good at breaking their own rules when it feels like it. we'll see. i won't be surprise d if they do.

>> jimmy?

>> so adam , do you own any apple products?

>> i own many apple products, yes.

>> so do i, jimmy. are you trying to make us feel terrible?

>> no. i own three. i'm just wondering.

>> it's terrible. we're all slave employers.

>> i just want to make sure we're honest about what we own.

>> all righty then.

>> now to the gentle lady from new york .

>> in doing your research, i'm curious, what surprised you the most? what did you learn that shocked you in doing your research about apple ?

>> what surprised me the most is that this company does everything exactly the opposite the way most businesses -- including the way it's taught in business school . so for example, businesses today teach transparency. we should be open. apple is opaque and secretive. businesses value this notion of general management . general managers should be jacks of all trades and be able to do all sorts of different jobs. at apple , they laugh at the idea of general management . they value expertise. they would say it's ridiculous to take somebody that's good at what they do and try to get them to see other parts of the world and other parts of the company. they would say nonsense. keep this person doing exactly what they do. and one thing. apple is good internally on the subject of accountability and responsibility. they have something called the dri, the directly responsible individual. it's shockingly common sense , but most companies don't this us. others say he's responsible or she's responsible. apple you say, who is the dri? that's the person you're going to blame if it doesn't get done.

>> in this case, it would be our president.

>> yes. jobs would say periodically if we don't do well, wall street is going to blame me. if you don't do well, he would say i'm going to blame you.

>> listen, adam . congratulations, first off, on the book. your success is well deserved. this is an incredible learning opportunity for everybody both on innovate i have culture and some dysfunction. also want to thank you for your support of greedy bastards along the way. you have been great. i'm excited to see your success. so thank you, adam .

>> and congratulations on yours. it's good to be with another new york times best seller .

>> we can all feel guilty about our apple products. thank