Apple’s Move from a ‘We’ to a ‘They’ Company

My friend
Jason is a VC blogger (VC=Venture Capital), so I often read VC blogs and pretend that I understand what all this business talk means. I usually don't, and this is why I am poor.
However, Hugh Macleod of gapingvoid fame is a smart person whose blog I enjoy reading, and he, today, proclaimed Fred Wilson, another VC blogger, to be a genius,
largely based upon what Wilson says about Apple's shift from a 'We' company to a 'They' Company. Here's an excerpt: "Apple survived the WinTel dominance in the PC business by becoming a 'we' company.  It focused on its base of devoted users and gave them better and better products.  It created a community of users who are incredibly passionate about the company's products. It became the anti-Microsoft.  And it has benefited greatly from that market position in recent years. . . . But in the past couple months, Apple has made some very 'they' company decisions."

Make sure you read the entire post, and check out the comments, which are interesting for making the argument that Apple has always been a 'they' company. I see some of the 'they' company moves that Apple has been making and I cringe, much as I cringed when the colorful Apple logo pictured in this post was replaced by the newer not-quite-as-friendly gray logo that dominates OS X.