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On Tuesday night, Apple CEO Tim Cook gave a terse, unhappy answer to this question from UBS analyst Steven Milunovich: "Does Apple today have a grand strategy for what you want to do?" Milunovich asked the question two different ways, and Cook gave two nonanswers, one of which was "as usual, we're not going to talk about what's ahead." There is a reason Milunovich asked that question. It's not merely about Cook's tradition of not giving clues about what Apple will do next. Rather, Milunovich's question was based on a theory by Clayton Christensen, the Harvard Business School professor. The theory makes for uncomfortable reading for observers of Apple and perhaps for insiders too. The morning of Apple's earnings call, Milunovich published a lengthy, thoughtful note about the theory and how it related to Apple. Very briefly, Christensen's theory is an attempt to explain why companies succeed. His conclusion is that consumers buy products that complete specific jobs for them. They want to complete "the job to be done." This is a restatement of the truism that while people buy quarter-inch drills, what they actually want are quarter-inch holes. A good example of this is the iPod. Before the launch of the iPod, consumers who wanted portable music were apparently satisfied by the Walkman and the Discman - even though those devices limited your listening to just a few dozens songs on a cassette or disc. The iPod, by contrast, gave you 1,000 songs in your pocket. Consumers bought the iPod because it did the job of granting listeners a massively extended portable library of music. Clearly, Apple's products have completed some major jobs for consumers: Macs can do anything. The utility of the iPhone has made the device difficult to live without. And who knew a need existed for the iPad in the gap on the coffee table between the laptop and the phone? 'The company seems to be struggling to identify the jobs for Apple Watch and Apple Pay'But recently, Milunovich believes, Apple has had difficulty identifying new "jobs to be done." People don't really need an Apple Watch, and the device's sales reflect that. Apple TV appears to be going nowhere. And the company seems to have backed off making a car from scratch. Milunovich wrote: "Jony Ive's Industrial Design Group has shown a knack for identifying jobs even before consumers know of their need. The iPod's '1,000 songs in your pocket' was an example. Moreover, Apple's functional organization and metrics appear to align with the jobs to be done approach. Still, the company seems to be struggling to identify the jobs for Apple Watch and Apple Pay."
The best example is perhaps Stewart Butterfield's messaging service Slack. Slack is the workplace chat-room app that is revolutionizing the way offices communicate internally and - most important - replacing a large portion of the useless internal email that companies generate. But Slack was created almost by accident. Butterfield founded his company with a $17 million investment to create an online game called "Glitch." The company created a private chat room for itself so its employees could communicate better as they worked on the game. But the game turned out to be a failure. The chat room, however, turned out to be much more useful, so they developed that instead. Now Slack is one of the most important workplace-productivity software companies on the planet. Slack solved a "job to be done." 'Do you know what you want to do over the next 3 to maybe 5 years?'With that as the background, Milunovich's exchange with Cook on Tuesday night looks much more gloomy. Note that Milunovich specifically cites Christensen's "the next job to be done" concept: "Steven Milunovich - UBS Securities: Tim, some investors are antsy that Apple has not acquired new profit pools or introduced a financially material new product in recent years. The question is, A, does Apple today have a grand strategy for what you want to do? I know you won't tell us what it us, but do you know what you want to do over the next three to maybe five years? Or is it more a read the market and quickly react? And B, do you have any sense that we're kind of in a gap period where the technology and arguably what we'd call the next job to be done haven't yet aligned? And so maybe in a couple years, we will see this flurry of new products and it'll sort of match what people want to do, but it's not quite here yet? "Tim Cook - Apple: We have the strongest pipeline that we've ever had and we're really confident about the things in it. But as usual, we're not going to talk about what's ahead. "Milunovich: But in terms of your approach I guess to new products, do you have a strong sense of where technology is going and where you're going to play? Or is it still enough up the year that you are willing to react fairly quickly, which arguably your organization allows you to do for the size of company you are? "Cook: We have a strong sense of where things go and we're very agile to shift as we need to."
In April 2014, he hinted that he saw the physical wallet as problem to be solved: "It's an area where nobody has figured it out yet. I realize that there are some companies playing in it, but you still have a wallet in your back pocket and I do too, which probably means it hasn't been figured out just yet." After that, Apple launched Apple Pay. In February 2015, Cook suggested that Apple's Touch ID fingerprint security could be used to replace physical keys. The Apple Watch is an extension of that. And on Tuesday night, he said: "Television has intense interest with me and many other people here ... I think it's a great opportunity for us both from a creation point of view and an ownership point of view, and so it is an area that we're focused on." So clearly, we cannot read too much into Cook's responses. He sounded tired and subdued on the earnings call. Maybe he just had a cold. Maybe he was just sick of being asked "What is Apple going to do next?" a question he must encounter 1,000 times a day. 'Is it reasonable to think that this is an ongoing growing business for the company?'Now look at this exchange with Antonio Sacconaghi of Bernstein. It's brutal. Sacconaghi is suggesting that Apple can't grow iPhone sales even when its competitors implode and it has extra time to sell them: "Antonio Sacconaghi - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co: I guess a cynic could say Apple is benefiting from an extra week this quarter and is benefiting from Samsung being in complete disarray. And yet from your guidance, it's unclear that iPhone unit growth will be up ... you have terrific new products, your major competitor's laying down, you have an enormous, you have a significant contribution from an extra week, arguably 7% or 8%, and yet the iPhone growth is sort of flattish. What does that really say about how investors should think about iPhone on a sustained basis growing forward? And is it reasonable to think that this is an ongoing growing business for the company? "Luca Maestri (Apple's CFO): You're right, we've got an extra few days ... But maybe the most important element of this is the fact that we are supply constrained on 7 and 7 Plus. And so when you talk about other competitors, it's not particularly relevant to us right now because we are selling everything that we can produce." OK, so Apple can't make the iPhone 7 fast enough. But it isn't supply constrained on all its other products - and they're sinking too. This is becoming a theme with analysts. One way to look at Milunovich's question is to regard it as a sea change among analysts who appear to no longer be confident that Apple knows where the next big thing is coming from. Back in September, Colin Gillis of BGC said buying an iPhone "will be like buying a microwave - something people do but not a major event." He called the iPhone a "liability" because Apple was so dependent on it and because the company wasn't growing its sales. This is a new, negative environment for Apple, one that Cook is not used to dealing with. It is not surprising he doesn't like it. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Alec Baldwin: Why Tim Cook or Howard Schultz should run for president Snapchat's parent company, Snap Inc., is aiming to raise "as much as $4 billion" when it goes public early next year, according to a Wednesday report from Bloomberg's Alex Barinka and Sarah Frier. A source previously told Business Insider that Snap plans to go public by late March at around a $25 billion valuation, but now Bloomberg is saying that number could swell as high as $35 billion or even $40 billion. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will lead the deal, while JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Allen & Co., Barclays, and Credit Suisse will be joint bookrunners. The Los Angeles-based company last raised $1.81 billion in private funding in May, which pegged its valuation at between $18 billion and $22 billion. Raising $4 billion on the public market would put Snap well behind Facebook's $16 billion IPO raise in 2012 and ahead of Twitter's $1.82 billion in 2013. Snap has told investors that it expects to make between $250 million and $350 million in advertising revenue this year. A recent eMarketer report predicted the company would near $1 billion in revenue in 2017 - meaning an IPO that valued the company at $35 billion would be 35 times its projected revenue numbers. By comparison, Facebook was estimated to make $5 billion in ad revenue the same year it went public at a $104 billion valuation. With annual revenue under $1 billion now, Snap could file its Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the JOBS Act. In such a scenario, the initial filing would be confidential. Snap wasn't immediately available to comment. SEE ALSO: Meet the secret power players who run Snapchat AND ALSO: What it's like to work at Snapchat, one of the most secretive tech companies Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's everything we know about Snapchat's new camera sunglasses, Spectacles There's been a mini exodus of sorts among executives at Google's parent company, Alphabet. Alphabet, which formed last year as a conglomerate of separate companies, is designed to help the company find the next big thing outside of Google's core advertising and search businesses. But within a year of Alphabet's formation, there have been several shake-ups and departures at the top of these divisions, especially since this summer. The challenge for these companies and their leaders is to prove to Alphabet's CEO, Larry Page, and CFO, Ruth Porat, that they can turn into growing businesses. While Alphabet doesn't report financials for these "other bets," the recent departures are our best hint that some divisions have struggled or their leaders aren't thrilled with the new pressure now that they're no longer hiding under Google's umbrella. Here's a breakdown of the most important Alphabet executive departures so far this year: Tony Fadell, NestThe highest-profile departure was Tony Fadell, the former Apple executive and CEO of Nest, Alphabet's smart home appliance company that makes connected thermostats and cameras. Fadell stepped down as Nest's CEO in June following reports of inner turmoil in the company and a damning blog post by Greg Duffy, the former head of Nest's camera business. Fadell gave a particularly rough interview to The Information before his departure in which he tersely defended his management style. He was out shortly after that. Fadell is still an adviser at Nest. Bill Maris, GVBill Maris was the head of GV, formerly known as Google Ventures, an Alphabet company that invests in early-stage startups. Maris founded GV in 2009 and left in August after some other members of his team left the company. Craig Barratt, Google FiberCraig Barratt was the CEO of Google Fiber, the internet service provider that offered super-high-speed broadband in select cities. Barratt stepped down as CEO on Wednesday and announced the company had stopped plans to expand its service to more cities. Instead, it will focus on new ways to deliver internet through wireless technologies. Barratt is now an adviser at Google Fiber. Dave Vos, Project WingDave Vos was the head of Project Wing, a division of X, Alphabet's "moonshot" lab that works on a bunch of crazy, futuristic projects. Project Wing experimented with delivery drones and even ran a pilot program to deliver Chipotle burritos to students at Virginia Tech. Vos stepped down from Project Wing earlier this month. Chris Urmson, self-driving carsChris Urmson, the tech lead for X's self-driving car project, left the company in August. He had worked on the project for seven years. Do you know anything about what's happening at Alphabet? Shoot me a note at [email protected]. I'm discreet! SEE ALSO: How Google embarrassed Apple Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: We got our hands on the Home - Google's answer to the Amazon Echo If you're curious to know who's running the show over at Google and the other Alphabet companies, good luck: Alphabet no longer lists it senior management team on its website. The names of the company's top executives, their headshots, their bios, or any other information that shows who's who inside the various Alphabet subsidiary companies have vanished from the company's website. And it looks like it's been that way for a few months now. There's an old photo of Larry Page and Sergey Brin on the company overview page, but it doesn't list their current titles (Page is the CEO of Alphabet), referring to the pair simply as the founders of Google who met at Stanford back in 1995. It's unusual for a major public company not to post such basic information online, and Google is the only company of its ilk that doesn't display its senior management - Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple all list their execs publicly. According to a person familiar with the matter, the management bio page is undergoing a redesign. But there's no word on when the redesigned page will go up. And the previous management page appears to have been taken offline several months ago, based on searches for cached versions of the page kept by the internet archive. TransparencyIf you needed to know who oversees financial maters for parent company Alphabet (Ruth Porat), or know who the CEO of the core Google internet business is (Sundar Pichai), or if you wanted to get a sense of who is leading businesses like smart home appliance maker Nest, the company's investor relations page won't be of much help. Right now, the company's management page just takes you to an Error 404 page: Google and Alphabet have long been criticized by investors for a lack of transparency about the business -  the company still does not disclose financial information about key products, such as YouTube and Android. And Google angered Wall Street for a period of several years by eliminating the customary annual briefings with analysts and investors. When CFO Ruth Porat joined Google in September 2015, she promised that the company would become more transparent. Soon after being hired, she created 15-30 minute "office hours" for analysts and investors. Improving investor transparency was also part of the reason Google reorganized as Alphabet last year. The shake-up happened with the idea that it would allow all of its businesses to operate more effectively and efficiently, a move the company was said to be considering for four years. It's not clear why Google decided to take its executive page offline, or when it'll be back up. But after a mini exodus of some of Google's top talent in the past few months, it may look a lot different when it's back online. SEE ALSO: Here are all the companies and divisions within Alphabet, Google's parent company Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: The psychological formula that Google uses to build the perfect team This week, Apple will announce a new Apple TV feature that allows people to discover new TV shows from a single app, USA Today reports. This feature, reportedly known internally as âthe Watch List,â will "recommend shows based on the content viewers access through their Apple TVs." Basically, the app will tie together whatever services you have, from Netflix to FX to Hulu, and provide you with a centralized place to find new shows to watch. This seems to fit into Apple's new plan for TV, which revolves around building an advanced TV guide rather than creating its own TV package, industry sources told Recode's Peter Kafka in August. Apps and TVLast year, Apple CEO Tim Cook declared that the "future of television is apps," a refrain that has been repeated by Apple execs over and over since then. But navigating separate apps is a horrible way to watch TV, and it seems that Apple has finally seen the light. This new âWatch Listâ is right in line with recent Apple TV updates, which emphasize things like Siri's ability to circumvent the app system, and seem to move further and further away from the app system. Beyond deeper Siri integration, Apple also unveiled an Apple TV feature in June called "single sign-on." While Apple didn't go into the details of exactly how it would work, the idea is that a content service like Netflix or HBO would connect to Apple's system in a way that lets you use a single log-in for all services on your Apple TV. The right choiceIt's easy to see why Apple is going this way. Most people don't want to navigate 100 different app menus and designs, each ostensibly tailored to the type of TV content that lives within them. It's annoying to deal with an ESPN app, and a Netflix app, and a Showtime app, and a Sling TV app. So most people, in their hearts, don't really want an Apple TV as it was initially conceived. What's much better is a universal search and suggestion mechanism that fetches you the right content - as fast as possible. That is what Apple seems to be building toward, and this new feature feels like a first step. SEE ALSO: AT&T's new streaming TV service will give you 100+ channels for $35 a month Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: An Apple demo froze during the big WWDC keynote and nobody noticed When individuals grow, organizations grow, says Debra Bednar-Clark, CEO and founder of career and leadership coaching firm DB+co. During her time as global head of business strategy and growth at Facebook, and as Microsoft's director of US market strategy and engagement, she found that it's best to facilitate that growth from the moment a job applicant enters the interview. "One of the first things I do when I'm interviewing an employee to hire them is ask questions about, 'How do you want to be of service?'" she told Business Insider. She continued: "I start there because I think it's an interesting place. You can be of service to people, to the planet, to animals - whatever currently inspires you. Different positions require different things, but if you can understand what a person is innately good at and where their interests and passions live, you can better align them with the goals of the organization." "When you have those conversations from the outset you can understand who this person is, what why're best at, and you can make the connection." Bednar-Clark gave an example from her time at Facebook, when she was managing a team that incorporated members of varying backgrounds ranging from creative directors to data scientists to producers "with different backgrounds, experiences, aspirations, hopes, and fears." She learned an employee's father was an inventor, "and that was something he was very proud of and he considered himself to have that trait. I started thinking: He was working on programs for short-term revenue growth, but we didn''t have anyone thinking about building out the pipeline for long term revenue growth. I thought, if he's an inventor, why not give him the opportunity to do that?" Working with a person's strengths doesn't have to mean giving them an entirely new project. It could be as simple as mapping them to different vertical, she said, and allowing them to lend their strongest skills to the company's existing work. In any team, she said, "those small pivots go a long way to make someone feel really fulfilled." SEE ALSO: The 58-year-old CEO of T-Mobile shares the advice he'd give his younger self Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Don't use Q-tips to clean your ears - there's an easier and less dangerous alternative In a call with investors, the chiefs of the companies noted that the combined trove of their consumer data would be useful to marketers and consumers.
Twitter investors are still eager for a sale. The company's shares popped in after hours trading on Tuesday following a report from Betaville that says Disney has "rekindled interest" in buying the struggling social network. Citing "well informed types," Betaville's Ben Harrington says the two companies are "now thrashing out a deal after agreeing on a price - thought to be in the high 20s per share - at the back end of last week." Twitter and Disney declined to comment. Twitter's stock immediately jumped more than 4%  in after hours trading to over $18 per share on the report despite Betaville's caution that it should be treated as "market gossip that hasn't been tested through formal journalistic channels." Wall Street is clearly eager for a Twitter acquisition, particularly after the last round of supposed bidders, including Disney, Google and Salesforce, all vanished. SEE ALSO: Twitter's stock is up on Softbank M&A chatter, but there's no real evidence of a deal Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: A hacker reveals a simple way to come up with a strong password that's easy to remember New Website Brands Reflect Continues Growth and Commitment to Providing the Web's Ultimate Reference Resources
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