Fast Company

Lessons of Innovation for 2018

Apple CEO Tim Cook, photographed with outgoing Fast Company editor Robert Safian, on January 10, 2018, at Apple Park.

I got my first glimpse of Apple’s newest product as the sun was coming up. It was just after 7 a.m. on a Wednesday in January, two days after Apple executives, including CEO Tim Cook, began moving into Apple Park, the company’s new spaceship-like headquarters in Cupertino. As I was escorted around the gleaming structure, it occurred to me that it embodied everything Apple’s products represent: a glimpse of the future, and yet also something familiar—not science fiction, but a tangible vision made real.

When I sat down with Cook a while later, in a conference room labeled simply CEO, he talked about how central “humanity” is to Apple’s products, how tech specs and silicon advancements only matter if they enable users to improve their lives.

Apple has long been an icon of innovation. In

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Fast Company

Fast Company2 min readPopular Culture & Media Studies
Finding Your People
THE DESIRE TO FEEL SUPported, included, and in community with others, online or IRL, is universal. But many huge social media apps today seem more adept at making users feel on the outs—or worse. Algorithmic and content-moderation changes at X (forme
Fast Company1 min read
10 kinetx
IN SEPTEMBER 2023, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft dropped off the first samples from an asteroid collected by the U.S. The half-pound capsule that parachuted to the ground in Utah was the payoff of the craft's miraculous journey on which it landed on a
Fast Company2 min read
The Kitchen Of Tomorrow, Today
1. Mill Industries 2. Solo Brands 3. Cruz 4. GE Appliances 5. King Arthur Baking Company 6. Moen 7. Leica Camera 8. Nowadays 9. C16 Biosciences 10. Kangaroo THE 1939 WORLD'S Fair featured a pavilion where GE showcased an all-electric “Magic Kitchen”

Related Books & Audiobooks