by Jason Snell
Tim Cook’s relationship with the White House
This story posted last week in the New York Times, but it’s got a lot of details about the relationship between Apple and the Obama Administration that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
Although the president and Mr. Cook are not personal friends, associates say they have developed a relationship of professional admiration and mutual self-interest. At the least, the two share similar traits: discipline, a cerebral nature and impatience with office drama. Now they find themselves in roles no one ever imagined, as the central antagonists in the raging debate between personal privacy and the nation’s security.
Also notable: The report suggests that ex-Apple employees cycle through government technology positions much less often than former employees of other American tech giants, and that Apple’s lobbying budget and presence is also much less than those of Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.