Guthrie

"Guthrie argued this was a mistake. And he was purporting to solve a major riddle: why Apple was perceived as a negative force in Beijing. Apple contributed greatly, creating millions of jobs and supporting a sophisticated supply chain that ricocheted well beyond its own needs. But its contributions were unknown because of Apple’s secretive, insular culture. He advocated something radical: Get the message out to everyone, sing it from the hilltops if necessary, until every government official understands just how much the country is gaining from Apple’s presence. “China wants the constant learning,” he says. “The fact that Apple helps bring up 1,600 suppliers for China—it’s an incredible benefit.”"

"It was common to predict that the party’s role would simply wither away, but Guthrie observed that it was evolving. Government officials were no longer a heavy bureaucratic hand weighing on development; in their relationship with local and foreign companies, officials were acting more like venture capitalists—the kind that take a cut of equity, sit on the board, and aim to promote growth."

"In light of Xi’s other actions, the *Consumer Day* attack on Apple the year before didn’t look, to Guthrie, like some one-off misunderstanding that Cook had neatly solved with an apology. It was a signal that Apple was in trouble. Guthrie began to see that Beijing was pivoting in ways that were bound to catch Apple off guard. It was becoming clear Xi would welcome foreign corporations only if they were “in China, for China”—and if they didn’t like it, they could leave. Guthrie began to fret that Apple’s enormous operations and retail presence in China were at great risk."

"The fact was, China wasn’t just catching up to the West; its system was maturing into something novel. “One of the great ironies of our time,” Guthrie told students in 2013, “is that the largest Communist society in the world is also the most dynamic capitalist economy in the world. There’s a tremendous amount that we can actually be learning from China.”"

"Hard-liners in Beijing had viewed Apple as an exploitative power because through their conventional lens, it looked that way. Samsung had several dozen formal partnerships in the country; Apple had none. Samsung had its own manufacturing plants; Apple had none. But Guthrie’s argument turned this logic on its head. He emphasized that Apple was embedding its top engineers into more than 1,600 factories, making a few dozen partnerships look paltry. The difference was that the likes of Intel and Samsung were trumpeting their joint ventures and investments in the country, while Apple was silent. Worse, Apple was allowing Foxconn to take credit for all manner of investments that ultimately traced back to iPhone and iPad demand."

"What saved him was a visit from a childhood friend whose father had died of suicide when he was just twelve years old. Guthrie, a dad himself, asked his friend how long it took to get over his father’s death. At the time, Doug was in a deep depression and looking for absolution, someone to tell him it was okay to say goodbye to the world. His friend responded with both care and anger. “I don’t know what you’re thinking of, but that was thirty-six years ago, and not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about it—and been hurt by it. You don’t get over something like that.” The interaction shook Guthrie out of his state and compelled him to seek medical help. Only then was he diagnosed with Bipolar II, giving him a new lens to understand his entire life."

"Apple, meanwhile, had become too intertwined with China. Guthrie had been hired to help understand the country and to navigate it. And Apple had followed through—very successfully. But it had burned so many boats, as the saying goes, that Guthrie felt its fate was married to China’s and there was no way out. “The cost of doing business in China today is a high one, and it is paid by any and every company that comes looking to tap into its markets or leverage its workforce,” he later wrote in a blog. “Quite simply, you don’t get to do business in China today without doing exactly what the Chinese government wants you to do. Period. No one is immune. No one.”"