You can now stream part two of Apple CEO Tim Cook's interview with Charlie Rose
Part two of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s interview with Charlie Rose on the journalist’s namesake show aired last night on PBS. And now it’s available to watch online on the official “Charlie Rose” website or on Hulu, whose video of the conversation is embedded below.
The second part of the interview begins with Cook’s answer to the teaser question posed by Rose at the end of the first part: “What comes after the Internet?” “It’s something that we think about,” Cook replies. “And I don’t know what the answer is. We always have some ideas here and there.”
Rose then steers the talk toward the related topics of freedom, privacy, and national security, about which Cook says:
I think it’s a tough balance. I don’t think that the country or the government found the right balance. I think they erred too much on the “collect everything” side. And I think that the president and the administration is committed to kind of moving that pendulum back. However, you don’t want, it’s probably not right to not do anything. And so I think it’s a careful line to walk. You want to make sure you’re protecting the American people, but you don’t want to take, there’s no reason to collect information on you, or 99.99 percent of other people.
Next comes Cook’s clarification of Apple’s position vis-à-vis data collection, which has been highlighted by “Charlie Rose” in its teaser clip for part two of the interview. “Our view is, when we design a new service, we try not to collect data,” Cook says. “We’re not the treasure trove of places to come to.”
Mentioning the photos of human rights icons Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. that Cook keeps in his office, Rose asks him what values he considers important beyond those of Apple. He answers:
Treating people with dignity. Treating people the same. That everyone deserves a basic level of human rights, regardless of their color, regardless of their religion, regardless of their sexual orientation, regardless of their gender. That everyone deserves respect. And, you know, I’ll fight for it till my toes point up.
Cook goes on to point out the value of diversity, reiterating that “inclusion inspires innovation“:
And I also see, as a businessman at Apple, I can see the value in diversity. I see a tremendous company that because we don’t judge each other, because we don’t have different rights and so forth, because we allow anyone in the front door, I see a company that, where, that this inclusion really inspires innovation. And I see the value of it from that point of view as well. But more from a human point of view, I feel it’s just and right. And I’ve seen it not occur. And I’ve seen the devastation of it not occurring. And so I want to do everything I can do to not only not propagate it but also to stop it.
Cook also explains what Apple has been doing to combat “the threat to the planet”:
There is. And this is one that we’re putting a lot of energy in. We at Apple. We want to leave the world better than we found it. And what does that mean for us? It means that we take toxins out of all our products. We’ve done that. I think we’re still the only consumer electronics company that’s done that. It means that we focus on renewable energy.
Cook then touts Apple’s data center in Maiden, North Carolina, which has reach 100 percent renewable energy, and Apple’s new headquarters under construction, which is said to be 100 percent renewable as well.
If you can’t see the video embedded above, please click here.
“And the Apple of your future stands, as Steve (Jobs) once said, at the junction of tech and humanities?” Rose asks. “Yes, it does,” Cook responds:
And you can see it in these products and this incredible watch. You can feel it. You can see that in everything that we do we have this focus on, “How am I changing the world?” “How am I enriching somebody’s life?” “How am I making things easier for people?” And we’re just not making products to sell. You know, that’s a very, that doesn’t get me up in the morning. I get up in the morning and many other people get up in the morning to change things. That’s who we are as a company. That hasn’t changed… We may change other things. We may become more open. We may participate in these things that we haven’t done before. But what drives us are making great products that enrich people’s lives. This is the same thing that’s driven Apple forever.
Apple has been a good business nonetheless, Rose notes, adding that it’s now the largest company in the word in terms of market cap. But Cook says that Apple doesn’t fixate on that distinction, focusing instead on what it can contribute to humanity:
I see it as a responsibility and I feel that this gives us even a greater ability to contribute more. Not just in the monetary sense. We’ll always contribute the most to humanity through our products. Because these products will change people’s lives and enable them to do things they couldn’t do before. And we can reach more people doing that. But I’m proud to be working on Product (RED) with Bono and eliminating AIDS in Africa. I’m proud that we’re out in front of environment. I’m proud that we’re pushing like crazy in human rights. I’m proud that we’re working on education and trying to change the way teachers teach and students learn. These things excite me. These things move the dial on the world.
Finally, the conversation moves to the subject of U2′s rather controversial album, “Songs of Innocence,” which was released by Apple last week at the end of its iPhone 6, Apple Pay and Apple Watch event free of charge to more than 500 million iTunes customers.
You know, from our point of view, it’s kind of simple, is, we love music. We were thrilled with the album. We think the album is killer… And so what we wanted to do was, we wanted to give something to our customers. And I think the vast majority of them are going to love the music and love the gift. Some may not love it. I hope they all do. But it was more about our customers. And so it felt great to participate in something that’s music history, on the largest album release ever. But the real thing was giving something to our users.
You can watch part two of Cook’s interview with Rose in the video embedded above. Note that the conversation with Cook ends at around the 21-minute mark, at which point Rose begins talking with Fuseproject founder and Jawbone chief creative officer Yves Béhar.
You can also watch part one of Cook’s interview, which we’ve summarized in our article here, in the video embedded below:
If you can’t see the video embedded above, please click here.
