Trung Phan
@TrungTPhan • 731,204 subscribers
Write on business with @workweekinc. Building @bearlyai.
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![Steve Jobs really pulled a reality distortion field to poach Tim Cook from Compaq (in 1998, it was worth $30B+ to Apple’s $3B). All of Cook’s friends and advisors told him not to join almost-bankrupt Apple. Cook says it took Jobs one meeting to convince him: “I had gotten a call several times from the search people that [Jobs] had employed, and I kept saying no. I was happy at Compaq — or thought I was — and they were persistent. So, I finally thought, ‘you know, I’m going to go out and take the meeting. Steve created the whole industry that I’m in. I’d love the meeting.’ […] All of a sudden, he’s talking about his strategy and his vision and what he was doing. He was going 100% into consumer when everybody else in the industry had decided you couldn’t make any money in consumer. They were headed to servers and storage and the enterprise. […] I always thought following the herd was a bad idea. He showed me a bit of the design to get me interested [of what later would be called the iMac]. The way that he talked and the chemistry. I could tell I could work with him. I looked at the problems Apple had and I thought ‘you know, I can make a contribution here’ and working with [Jobs would be] the privilege of a lifetime. All of a sudden I thought, ‘I’m doing it. I’m going for it.’ You hear this voice in your ear that says, ‘Go west, young man, go west.’ [The move to Apple] didn’t make sense. And yet my gut said ‘go for it’ and I listened to my gut. There was literally no one around me that was advising me to do it.” In March 1998, Cook joined Apple as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations on a $400k base salary (and a $500k signing bonus). He was 37. Incredible gut call. *** Full episode here from 2014:](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2094474984089612790/amplify_video_thumb/2094474831597277185/img/QE3L4JBTPOjOqRLH.jpg)
Steve Jobs really pulled a reality distortion field to poach Tim Cook from Compaq (in 1998, it was worth $30B+ to Apple’s $3B). All of Cook’s friends and advisors told him not to join almost-bankrupt Apple. Cook says it took Jobs one meeting to convince him: “I had gotten a call several times from the search people that [Jobs] had employed, and I kept saying no. I was happy at Compaq — or thought I was — and they were persistent. So, I finally thought, ‘you know, I’m going to go out and take the meeting. Steve created the whole industry that I’m in. I’d love the meeting.’ […] All of a sudden, he’s talking about his strategy and his vision and what he was doing. He was going 100% into consumer when everybody else in the industry had decided you couldn’t make any money in consumer. They were headed to servers and storage and the enterprise. […] I always thought following the herd was a bad idea. He showed me a bit of the design to get me interested [of what later would be called the iMac]. The way that he talked and the chemistry. I could tell I could work with him. I looked at the problems Apple had and I thought ‘you know, I can make a contribution here’ and working with [Jobs would be] the privilege of a lifetime. All of a sudden I thought, ‘I’m doing it. I’m going for it.’ You hear this voice in your ear that says, ‘Go west, young man, go west.’ [The move to Apple] didn’t make sense. And yet my gut said ‘go for it’ and I listened to my gut. There was literally no one around me that was advising me to do it.” In March 1998, Cook joined Apple as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations on a $400k base salary (and a $500k signing bonus). He was 37. Incredible gut call. *** Full episode here from 2014:
Trung Phan400,420 görüntüleme • 1 gün önce
Wild story. Chinese mom (in her 60s) and son (30s) duo spend 5 years making 86-minute animated animal film “Niu Lai”. Budget of $200. Hustle to get theatre distribution. Flops with $1,000 in first week. So bad it’s good. Goes viral. Now made $4m on $200 and 20,000x return easily tops Paranomal Activity ($193m/$15k = 12,890x) and Blair Witch Project ($248m/$60k=4,133x) for most profitable film box office haul against original production budget ever.
Trung Phan2,344,384 görüntüleme • 12 gün önce
![John Ternus takes over as Apple CEO on September 1. The 51-year old SVP of Hardware Engineering has spent 25 years at Apple. Back in 2024, he gave a commencement speech at Penn Engineering School and did a version of Steve Jobs “paint both sides of the fence even if other people don’t know” attention-to-detail story…about screws for the Cinema Dislay monitor: “Here’s my first [advice]: the care that you put into your work really matters. My first project at Apple was the Cinema Display. It was a large desktop monitor. It had a beautiful clear plastic enclosure that was held together with some screws coming in from the back. These screws were made of stainless steel, and the head of every screw was machined to have a pattern of concentric grooves that shimmered like a CD when light moved across it. I should probably say, if some of you have never seen a CD before, you can ask your parents afterward. At some point in my first year, I found myself at a supplier facility. I was far away from home, it was well past midnight. I was using a magnifying glass to count the number of grooves on the head of this screw, which, remember, lives on the back of the display. And I was arguing with the supplier because these parts had 35 grooves, they were supposed to have 25. I distinctly remember stepping back for a minute and thinking to myself, “What the hell am I doing? Is this normal?” And I thought about it, and I realized it might not be normal, but it’s right. It’s right because I’d already spent months working on that product, and if you’re going to spend that much time on something, you should put in your very best effort. Maybe a customer notices, maybe they don’t, but either way, whenever I saw one of those displays on someone’s desk, it mattered to me to know that my teammates and I had considered everything about it and done the very best job we could.”](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2094113155131822231/amplify_video_thumb/2094112948608503808/img/UyxV_FHuiKcUhz9x.jpg)
John Ternus takes over as Apple CEO on September 1. The 51-year old SVP of Hardware Engineering has spent 25 years at Apple. Back in 2024, he gave a commencement speech at Penn Engineering School and did a version of Steve Jobs “paint both sides of the fence even if other people don’t know” attention-to-detail story…about screws for the Cinema Dislay monitor: “Here’s my first [advice]: the care that you put into your work really matters. My first project at Apple was the Cinema Display. It was a large desktop monitor. It had a beautiful clear plastic enclosure that was held together with some screws coming in from the back. These screws were made of stainless steel, and the head of every screw was machined to have a pattern of concentric grooves that shimmered like a CD when light moved across it. I should probably say, if some of you have never seen a CD before, you can ask your parents afterward. At some point in my first year, I found myself at a supplier facility. I was far away from home, it was well past midnight. I was using a magnifying glass to count the number of grooves on the head of this screw, which, remember, lives on the back of the display. And I was arguing with the supplier because these parts had 35 grooves, they were supposed to have 25. I distinctly remember stepping back for a minute and thinking to myself, “What the hell am I doing? Is this normal?” And I thought about it, and I realized it might not be normal, but it’s right. It’s right because I’d already spent months working on that product, and if you’re going to spend that much time on something, you should put in your very best effort. Maybe a customer notices, maybe they don’t, but either way, whenever I saw one of those displays on someone’s desk, it mattered to me to know that my teammates and I had considered everything about it and done the very best job we could.”
Trung Phan310,181 görüntüleme • 2 gün önce
The biggest cheese banks in Italy store 300,000+ wheels of Parmesan. Dairy farmers use cheese as collateral and get loans up to 80% of market value. At ~$1,000 per wheel, that’s $200m+ in loans (banks seize and sell cheese if farmer can’t pay back). Best part: banks use automated machines that brush and turn the cheese wheels everyday to keep them fresh. *** Vid link:
Trung Phan4,294,894 görüntüleme • 22 gün önce
Roger Federer was asked why the one-handed backhand is dissappearing from tennis. Starts by saying “I don’t know” then gives an incredible four-part answer: ▫️Modern coaches grew up playing two-handed backhand and passed it down to students. ▫️One-handed backhands take a lot of time to perfect control and coaches/players don’t want to dedicate the time when they can make faster improvements elsewhere. ▫️Tennis went from 50/50 between baseline and net play to 90/10 baseline play (two-handed backhands much more useful for defensive and sliding baseline play). ▫️Equipment for tennis has changed (stiffer strings, modern rackets, heavier balls) and slower surfaces…more difficult to attack with only one hand. *** Tennis Channel link:
Trung Phan667,954 görüntüleme • 5 gün önce
![Tim Cook ends his 15-year run as Apple CEO tomorrow. At the 2026 Berkshire AGM, Warren Buffett — who saw his initial $35B Apple investment in 2016 grow to $185B — praised Cook for carrying the torch from Steve Jobs (Cook was sitting next to incoming CEO John Ternus): “About 10 years ago, we made a commitment to move 10% of Berkshire Hathaway resources and turn it over to a person who was not well known at the time. We did that by roughly spending $35B to buy stock in Apple. We turned that money over to Apple to essentially make Berkshire look good without any work by us…which is our preferred way of operating. Ten years later, the $35B — counting dividends, realized appreciation and unrealized appreciation — has turned into $185B pretax. And I didn’t have to do a damn thing. Our largest holding is still Apple [~$60B]. When Tim Cook went into the top position at Apple [in 2011], he succeeded a legend. Steve Jobs. Everyone in America knew his name. Not many knew Tim’s name. Steve did these marvelous things, developing products and he had an untimely death. Everyone asked who would run the company. […] How would you like to step in the shoes of Steve and come through with [Cook’s record]? It’s one of the miracles of American business management. Anyway, thank you Tim.”](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2094245957437386977/amplify_video_thumb/2094244343477669888/img/yEXvf0BJJ5p0lpnt.jpg)
Tim Cook ends his 15-year run as Apple CEO tomorrow. At the 2026 Berkshire AGM, Warren Buffett — who saw his initial $35B Apple investment in 2016 grow to $185B — praised Cook for carrying the torch from Steve Jobs (Cook was sitting next to incoming CEO John Ternus): “About 10 years ago, we made a commitment to move 10% of Berkshire Hathaway resources and turn it over to a person who was not well known at the time. We did that by roughly spending $35B to buy stock in Apple. We turned that money over to Apple to essentially make Berkshire look good without any work by us…which is our preferred way of operating. Ten years later, the $35B — counting dividends, realized appreciation and unrealized appreciation — has turned into $185B pretax. And I didn’t have to do a damn thing. Our largest holding is still Apple [~$60B]. When Tim Cook went into the top position at Apple [in 2011], he succeeded a legend. Steve Jobs. Everyone in America knew his name. Not many knew Tim’s name. Steve did these marvelous things, developing products and he had an untimely death. Everyone asked who would run the company. […] How would you like to step in the shoes of Steve and come through with [Cook’s record]? It’s one of the miracles of American business management. Anyway, thank you Tim.”
Trung Phan156,395 görüntüleme • 2 gün önce
Enhanced Games athlete in photo is James “The Missile” Magnussen. Australian swimmer with an Olympic silver medal. Said he’d “juice to the gills” if offered $1m to break 50m freestyle record of 20.88. Enhanced Games agreed. This vid of him is most viewed on its YouTube channel and top comment is incredible: “you can see his back from his front”. Absolute tank. 6’6 and will weigh ~250lbs for the swim. For the inaugural Enhanced Games this weekend, Magnussen will also wear a full-body polyurethane super swimming suit that was banned after 2008 Beijing Olympics (he’s been training and doping at a facility in LV).
Trung Phan11,031,453 görüntüleme • 3 ay önce
One of funnier moments from Speed's World Cup run. Two people ask for a selfie at Spain vs. France. He thinks randos. It's Ana Botín (Exec Chair of Banco Santander) and Juan Rigo (head of Mercadona, Spain's largest grocery chain). Botín says "he's the Walmart of Spain and I'm the JPMorgan of Europe." She pitches him to open a checking account at her US brand OpenBank with a juicy 4% deposit interest ("OpenBank like OpenAI"). Two billionaires and some of the "most important people in Europe" but Speed "has more followers" lol
Trung Phan3,945,763 görüntüleme • 1 ay önce
While playing at FC Barcelona, Messi became a Spanish citizen in 2005 and Spanish National Team tried to recruit him. Argentine Team didn’t know Messi well but he wanted to play for his home country. So, Messi’s dad made highlight tape and sent it around. Eventually, someone from Team Argentina saw it and tried tracking down Messi’s family by lookign up “Messi” in the phone book for residents of Rosario, Argentina. Called them one-by-one until they got a hold of Messi’s grandmother and the rest is history.
Trung Phan2,843,914 görüntüleme • 1 ay önce
Mirka Federer intro speech for Roger’s Tennis Hall of Fame induction must watch. They have twin daughters and twin sons. When they found out the first pregnancy, Mirka said “my travelling days were probably over.” “Without missing a beat, he said ‘then I won’t play anymore’”. Roger wanted the family together. They made logistics work. The Federers ended up travelling around the world on the Tennis Tour with their kids coming along for over a decade.
Trung Phan122,203 görüntüleme • 3 gün önce
Dolly Parton told Andy Warhol her proudest accomplishment was controlling song rights for her catalog from the beginning. When Elvis wanted to cover “I Will Always Love You” (1974)…she turned him down because he wanted half the songwriting profits. Way too much. She was incredibly business savvy. The Beatles and Rolling Stones both regretted their early record deals made around same time as Dolly started. Parton knew the economic opportunity of song rights because she began her career as a country songwriter in Tennessee, which very much valued the writer (this differed from rock). Of course, she minted a fortune when Whitney Houston did her incredible version of “I Will Always Love You” in 1992. Per WSJ, Parton’s catalog of 3,000 songs is valued at $120m (an even better business move was Dollywood; a majority of Parton’s reported $450m net worth was from a stake in the theme park she co-founded in mid-1980s). Incredibly, Parton wrote “I Will Always Love You” on the same day that she wrote “Jolene” during a late-night writing sesh.
Trung Phan135,680 görüntüleme • 3 gün önce
Pretty dope. This site takes streaming libraries (Netflix, Prime, Disney+) and lets users search them like walking in Blockbuster.
Trung Phan1,223,148 görüntüleme • 25 gün önce
Pringles manufacturing is interesting but best detail is that the product isn’t even allowed to be called a chip. The FDA says a “chip” is thin slices of potato (fried or baked). Pringle are made from a giant sheet of potato dough. The Pringles “dough” is 1/3rd water and 2/3rd potato flakes (it’s technically a “crisp” or a “snack”). Why the shape? In the 1960s, P&G wanted to make a “chip” that didn’t crumble, give customers greasy fingers and could be stacked in special packaging…thus staying fresh longer without going stale. (side note: P&G sold Pringles to Kellogg, which spun off snack arm as Kellanova, which Mars acquired for $36B in 2024) Famously, Pringle’s settled on a hyperbolic paraboloid shape (looks like a saddle), which self centres for max stacking. *** Full video here:
Trung Phan1,074,690 görüntüleme • 26 gün önce
