Apple CEO Tim Cook made an appearance at the TIME 100 Summit in New York City today where he spoke about leadership and innovation.
Cook sat down with Time managing editor Nancy Gibbs who asked about everything from education to privacy policy. Of course, politics came up as well. While Cook refrained from talking about his conversations with Donald Trump, he did warn the crowd that some issues like global warming are too big for us to rely on the government to fix.
“I tend to think as I look at the world today, the issues that we face cannot be addressed solely by government. We cannot be looking to the government to solve all the problems,” said Cook during the interview. “I think it takes the public sector, the private sector, and academia working together to solve these problems. Climate change is not going to be solved by government — as just one example. We’ve readily stepped up and participated in the conversations because we think how we do is important as what we do.”
Apple has been the largest corporation pushing for action on climate change lately. It’s been leading by example too. 100% of Apple’s global operations are powered by renewable energy. The company has also been pushing its suppliers to switch to green energy too.
Cook pushes for regulation on Tech
Despite Cook’s stance that you don’t need government for everything, there’s one place he says government should step in, and that’s when it comes to regulating tech companies.
“I think in some cases, and I think I am part of this problem, in the US… business thinks all regulation is bad regulation. Therefore, there is lots of gravity around not doing something,” said Cook. “I think that’s a very difficult tide to work through. We are advocating very strongly for regulation because I do not see another path at this point“
Cook pointed to GDPR in Europe as an example of regulation on tech that although it’s not ideal, it got the ball rolling. He cited a few examples in the US where no rails have resulted in great damage to society.
Apple as a healthcare company
With the Apple Watch Series 4, Apple has made regular ECG readings a possibility for millions of people at a relatively low cost. The effects have been astounding and Cook says he’s received tons of emails from customers saying the feature possibly saved their lives.
Apple’s not done with its push into healthcare. Giving customers the ability to monitor their body 24/7 is becoming an increasingly important endeavor for Apple, and Cook says there are more cool health-related products coming down the pipeline.
“I think it’s a big idea to monitor your body… As we pull this string more, and recognize things we can uniquely do… as long as you have the technology and privacy, which is even more important in the health arena, if you’re really solid in these things, we think you can increase the learning cycles and make significant contributions to healthcare over time,” Tim said. “We’re at the early stages of this with the Watch, and obviously we’re working on a bunch more things. I do think there will be a day we look back and say Apple’s greatest contribution to mankind has been in healthcare.”
Cook also talked a great deal about the importance of teaching kids to code, Apple’s values and his favorite topic, privacy. The full interview can be watched on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJl0_
