Bob Mansfield
Strategic Concepts & Mechanics
Primary Evidence
"His handling of the situation earned him some credibility in Cupertino. It was now easier to accept that a soft approach to the reseller issue wasn’t the problem. But as Apple’s business boomed in China, the yellow cows were just one challenge. More broadly, Ford worried that Apple was losing leverage with the Chinese government and failing to exert its own power. As early as 2010 he’d told Bob Mansfield, Apple’s head of hardware: “All you gotta do is open up a factory in Vietnam and you’re gonna get some nervous Chinese government officials.”"
"When Jobs unveiled the unibody MacBook during a famous “one more thing…” moment, it marked the first time he spoke about Apple’s operational edge at a major event, showing off a video of how it was made, featuring Jony Ive, Dan Riccio, and Mac hardware chief Bob Mansfield. “It put MD on the map,” says one person involved in the effort, referring to Manufacturing Design, a part of Ops that intimately works with suppliers to figure out how to make Apple products. “We knew we had changed the world, from a design perception.”"