The billionaire clubs are keeping us busy with talks of statues.
Have you wondered where Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon, et al have been in the COVID-19 crisis? Have you noticed how absent their solutions and contributions have been?
What leadership have these “brilliant” oh-so-wise visionaries given us?
They are the richest “we do what’s best for our users” entities in the history of the world. They’re flush with enough cash for all of us to have $100 bill-filled swimming pools in our backyards – on our own 40 acres.
I haven’t heard a chip from them.
Have you?
Apple is famous for its Think Different campaign that is credited with associating the use of its products with true revolutionaries – like Einstein, Picasso and Ghandi. Imagine that, a Macbook and a Monk in perfect harmony.
Their Super Bowl commercial is hailed as a triumph of what is possible with 60 seconds of TV time.
Their iPhone Christmas commercial legitimately makes me cry.
Yet with all the creative and technological talent at their fingertips, I can’t think of even one meaningful COVID-19 related video from Apple, let alone something that could actually make a difference like a marvelous new COVID testing app delivered wonderfully on the latest retina display, or test delivery system – beautifully delivered in the most elegantly designed packaging. What is all their Research & Development worth if they don’t use it to help heal the world when the world needs it most?
Reports say that Apple has $192 billion in cash sitting in some offshore tax haven (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/apple-q2-2020-cash-hoard-heres-how-much-apple-has-on-hand.html). Apple, why don’t you show us what that money can really do? Or do you sleep better at night with your money sitting safely collecting dust than you do knowing you used your earthly rewards to help others?
Or do you not consider that a courageous enough effort (https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/7/12838024/apple-iphone-7-plus-headphone-jack-removal-courage)?
In normal times we praise Apple and its visionary team of executives with reverence and jealousy that covers them in praise that implies and sometimes explicitly states that they are truly great men and women (https://www.apple.com/leadership/). Truly people to be admired – people that we should be more like. Don’t be fooled into thinking we should look to them for guidance in matters other than the microchip and supply chain management. Clearly that is not the case.
Leaders show themselves in a crisis. What talents and endless resources of creativity, research & design, manufacturing, messaging, scalability, and cash has Apple dedicated to the cause and to finding the cure? How are they using their platform and assets to do anything other than to profit off of the cell phone addicted populous they created?
Apple, do more. Do better
And don’t worry Apple, you’re far from being the only company who’s shown their true colors – you’re not even the first in the Alphabet (….don’t worry we’ll get to you later 😉 ).
Amazon, Bezos & Crew, the gods of scalability and skimmability. I see your blue vans every day – independently contracting an army of poor chaps into building your 5th house in Malta.
Jeff Bezos could spit and have it delivered to Nepal before it lands.
He owns at the very minimum – a piece of at least 1 thing you do every day. In reality, the number is probably more like 100. Every website you visit, every app on your phone, every piece food you eat (if you’re privileged enough), every movie you watch or video you stream, he owns a piece of that. That’s just the things we know about how. How many gas stations do you think that guy owns?
Where is the Wall Street Journal orgasm-giving model of efficiency, scale, and deliverability in the world of COVID testing, contact tracing, vaccine research, medical equipment cost-reducing COVID-19 effort?
The little plastic guards that schools are supposed to order to place around the desk of students are normally $10 apiece, right now they’re $100 apiece. That means the price of protecting 1 child is 10X what it used to be. (Now think of an entire school of kids, each of them at the bare minimum 10X more expensive to educate than they were last year and that’s not even counting masks, sanitation stations, cleaning supplies, etc., etc., etc.)
$100 for a piece of curved plastic – to prevent kids (…and their parents, and their parent’s co-workers, and their parent’s co-worker’s family….) from spreading the virus – talk about a “second wave”. You’re telling me Amazon can’t figure out a solution to that? They can deliver me ice cream before it melts at 1:00 am, but they can’t solve the problem of bent plastic?
I’ll remember you Amazon. You’ve provided nothing in the way of leadership. You’ve shown your colors.
What a great opportunity to harness your never-before-seen-in-the-history of-the-world ability to scale products in mass and deliver them in truly remarkable speed. This time is made for you, you could truly contribute and change the world.
I don’t see you doing anything like that. Not for the good of others I don’t.
Facebook –
Oh, Facebook.
I honestly thank you for being so clear about the fact that you don’t give a s%!# about anything. You have no morality.
I would say I’m appalled but that would mean that I expected something from you in the first place.
Keep being you.
Google (and parent company Alphabet, Inc.)
Microsoft
Do I have to give you a tongue lashing too, or do you already have an idea of how this is going to go?
….
I could keep going but I hope you get my point by now.
Leaders act leader like in leader needy situations. Read that again.
Leaders act leader like in leader needy situations.
Our Tech leaders are leaders in many facets of our new digital age, but let’s not forget or ignore the fact that those with the most resources to devote to this effort – on a truly worldwide basis – have effectively mobilized 0% of their knowledge, marketing engines, talent, financial wealth, or army of bright-minded engineers and creative thinkers when then world needed them most.
We are supposed to believe you are unlike any companies in the entire history of the world – right now, I do not see any you acting like it.
Don’t believe in the leaders they tell you to believe in.
Believe in the Leaders you see.
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Real change starts with you.
If you disagree, prove me wrong – with action, not with words.
