Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke at the Time 100 Summit. I’ve put together some of the highlights of what he had to say below.

“Technology needs to be regulated”

• We “need tech regulation” because what the tech industry is doing “isn’t working”. “Even though I’m a deeply free market person in mind set, but we have to be intellectually honest and admit that what we are doing isn’t working”
• “There are too many examples where no rails have resulted in a great damage to society.”
• GDPR isn’t ideal but it is a “step in the right direction”.
• The centre of gravity for advancing privacy may be in Europe and may then come to the U.S.
• Business tends to think all regulation is bad regulation, but we are advocating strongly for regulation because I do not see another path.
• Equally important in our view as maths and science is creativity.
• Apple is probably the only large company that doesn’t have a Political Action Group (PAC) because they shouldn’t exist. “I refuse to have one because I don’t think they should exist.” Cook thinks political finding should be transparent.
• Cook wanted to fight the DOJ over privacy and encryption.
• The battle was about if government could force Apple to create a tool that puts hundreds of millions of people at risk in order to access on phone.
• “We said no, the law does not support the government having the authority to do that.”
• “Privacy at this point is much more meaningful now.”

“People I know who were in the military got it” because they fought for such freedom. “When it begins to impact democracy it means even more.”

Here is the full video, he starts around 50 minutes in.

• Cook also said the case was “rigged”. My understanding is that the FBI had failed to use its existing powers before threatening to bring a case through which to extend those powers.
• “I have personally never seen the government apparatus move against a company like it did here in a very dishonest manner,” said Cook.
• Surveillance has a chilling impact on free speech, warned Cook
• Cook also warned that surveillance of speech has been/can be used to pit groups of people against each other.
• Why did the people who wrote our constitution think freedom of speech is so important?Asked Cook. Think how it goes if people are under surveillance and don’t feel able to speak.
• Being valued on your values: “It’s been an interesting time period to be a CEO, says Cook. “I have always felt that people have values and by extension a corporation should have values.”
• We started pulling the string [of health] years ago now in the run up to Apple Watch.”
• “We have always had a set of things that are important to us.”
• The issues that we face “cannot be addressed solely by government”. It will take public, private and academia working together.
• Climate change will not be solved by government, to take one example.
• We think that how we do what we do says as much about us as what we do.
• We are a company of immigrants. These issues are deeply personal to us and I would hope that every CEO would stand up and represent their employees.
• Yes, you do upset some people when you do these things. … At the end of the day we’ll be judged more by if we stood up for what we believed in. I think people respect that even if they do disagree.
• “We focus on policies not politics.”
• We need to get the immigration system fixed so it works for America.
• We have to work out how trade can be good for everyone, not just a set of people in America.
• “When your founder [doesn’t have a college degree] you have to think about” how much a college degree matters…
• “I think every kid in the world should learn to code.”
• “I do think there will be a day when people looking back will say Apple’s greatest contribution to the world was healthcare.”
• “We don’t want people using their phones all the time. This has never been an objective for us. Yah.”

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