A CEO, Captured. 

I keep thinking about a line Lawrence Sanders wrote: a character asks whether money makes the world go round. The reply: “I do not believe it is money itself. After all, that is just metal and paper. No, it is the power money confers that makes the world go ’round.”

Power. Comfort. A seat at the table. Or, in this case, the crushing weight of a trillion-dollar valuation that demands constant appeasement. MG Siegler puts it plainly: Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, is captured. And so is the rest of the technology community. This is what happens when valuations trump values.

At a time when the nation is being ripped apart by the brutal shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, by ICE agents, Cook is facing criticism for attending the White House premiere of “Melania,” a documentary about the first lady. No one is questioning Jeff Bezos, who attended. Bezos is no paragon of humanism. The scorn is reserved for Cook. (The New York Post’s PageSix says Jeff Bezos was not at the event. It was Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO.)

Why? Because Apple once stood for “Think Different.”

When your company is worth more than most nations, you cannot afford principles that inconvenience presidents. The moral equation changes. What once seemed unthinkable becomes necessary. Cook learned this the hard way after he skipped a presidential photo op and was thrown back under the tariff bus. So now he shows up. He sits in the front row. He claps when expected. This is what happens when valuation becomes destiny.

Cook is not stupid. He is not evil. He is trapped. The iron clasp of market expectations has turned him into what he never meant to be: a man who goes to parties at the White House while nurses die.

In Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Roy Bland captures a cynical, post-ideological, corrupt English society: “You scratch my conscience; I’ll drive your Jag.” You could say the same of today’s Silicon Valley. It used to believe it could change the world. Now it just hopes the world won’t change its stock price.

Think Different? Not anymore.

Read this. What did you think of the movie, Mr. Cook?

January 27, 2026. San Francisco