While the idea of hiring all the writers is cute, the "known" writers all have deals in place already. So Apple would be effectively taking a gamble on all unknown talent. That may or may not pay off.
Buying TWC is a monumentally stupid idea for Apple that I won't even go into.
Apple is obviously working on things (including self driving car systems), it just doesn't announce them and it doesn't hesitate to cancel them if it doesn't like the results. Those are, IMHO, good qualities about Apple.
The idea that Apple has to get into a new category is kind of ridiculous. It doesn't have to do anything. It has solid profits and tons of money on hand. They can coast. The stock value will go down or stall for a bit if they do, but so what? When they release another great product, if it is successful, the stock price will reflect it at that time.
When they release another great product, if it is successful, the stock price will reflect it at that time.
One of the things that keep senior engineers at a company like Apple is vast amount of money they can make from their stock options. If the share price tanks then the senior engineers don't make anywhere close to the money they can make elsewhere, so they leave. That makes it harder to develop a successful product.
I'm not suggesting Apple is a single failure away from a death spiral, but I am saying they can't rest on their laurels simply because they're Apple.
> they can't rest on their laurels simply because they're Apple.
No, but they can because they have something like $200 billion cash on hand. Which means if they really care about their stock price they can do a buy back if they want. Or if they are worried about employee compensation due to lagging stock price they can give bonuses, etc.
No, but they can because they have something like $200 billion cash on hand.
That's technically true, but getting that money to a place where they can use it to buy back stock or to pay bonuses to their engineering staff would be incredibly expensive. There's a reason why they've not repatriated it yet.
Even if it costs them 50 cents on the dollar to use that money, that's still a good chunk of money to fall back on, isn't it?
I can imagine that you wouldn't actively take risks with money that's expensive to use, but if they were already in a death spiral, wouldn't they use it to avoid going down the drain entirely?
It seems absurd to me to sit on $200 billion if you can't use at least a good fraction of it - but I don't even begin to understand the legal and accounting issues with handling that sort of money.
I'd expect it to pay off... eventually. This would be the sort of thing where I'd expect it to take a decade, easily -- the idea being, as you point out, to snap up all the new talent. Eventually someone will hit, but it might take a while. (Yes, some writers may well object, but that is orthogonal to which ones will write hits.)
Buying TWC is a monumentally stupid idea for Apple that I won't even go into.
Apple is obviously working on things (including self driving car systems), it just doesn't announce them and it doesn't hesitate to cancel them if it doesn't like the results. Those are, IMHO, good qualities about Apple.
The idea that Apple has to get into a new category is kind of ridiculous. It doesn't have to do anything. It has solid profits and tons of money on hand. They can coast. The stock value will go down or stall for a bit if they do, but so what? When they release another great product, if it is successful, the stock price will reflect it at that time.