American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History

This book was a very good read – it offered unique insight into the mind of a soldier fighting in the Middle East – and Chris Kyle (the author), has a great way of talking colloquially to the audience, making it feel like he is telling you his story personally. He has some interesting stories about the war in Iraq, the way things operate and what the soldiers are doing on a daily basis. It’s hard to know if his experience is the ‘typical’ experience, considering he was a SEAL, and that he constantly mentions that one of the main reasons he has so many kills is that he is ‘lucky’, in the sense that he was involved in many attacks, battles, etc.

From his book, you understand that he is very patriotic. He truly believes that he is killing these people to protect his country. And he has no problems with this. He separates himself from the targets, calling the insurgents ‘savages’. Another interesting aspect was that he says he is a Christian, with his order of importance being “God, country, family”. This is a hotly debated issue in Christianity, along the lines of ‘just war theory’, whether going to war and killing is ever acceptable or allowed as a Christian. Kyle clearly believes that it is okay, and seems to think that America is on mission for God – killing all the evil insurgents. I’m not sure how I feel about this – the Bible clearly calls us to love others, and Jesus died for all of us, including Iraqis. However, it also talks about the government being put in place by God, as well as the difference between murder and killing, the focus being on the intentions – the posture of your heart. But that’s a debate for another day.

I thought one of the most interesting things that Kyle talks about is the strict Rules of Engagement (ROE). They had very strict rules on when they could and could not shoot enemies, and Kyle talks about how seriously these rules were followed. He said that every kill is tracked, and there is extensive paperwork to make sure every kill is legal and following the ROE. I had no idea that this was the case.

Interestingly, there are parts of the book written by his wife. She is incredibly honest, giving insight into what it’s like to be married to a soldier. It’s also very sad and heartbreaking. She clearly feels abandoned at times, and who wouldn’t when their husband leaves two days after you give birth to a child? She states that her order of importance is “God, family, country”, which obviously clashes with what her husband believes. The uplifting part is that they tough through it all – through him doing 4 tours in Iraq before finally retiring and coming home for good. Kyle left the military in 2009, and started his own company, Craft International, which focused on tactical training for military and police officers. He also worked extensively with veterans. Tragically, in February 2013, he was killed at a gun range in Texas by a young veteran with PTSD.

A movie, based on his autobiography, was just released (starring Bradley Cooper). I went to see it and I thought that they actually did a fairly good job of depicting his views and ideas. The events aren’t all accurate – you can tell that they mixed together (and made up) certain things to create a storyline that flowed. But the general feeling of the movie is pretty accurate to his book and they actually show a lot of his interactions at home, depicting the struggle that soldiers have when they leave the battlefield. The movie also tells you what happened to Kyle – showing him smiling and saying goodbye to his family before heading out to meet someone on the range, and then words flashing on the screen telling you that he was killed that day. It’s pretty sobering. I think what struck me the most was that Kyle was killed by one of the very men that he would do anything to protect. Rather than being killed by an Iraqi soldier, he was killed by an American soldier. He survived 4 tours in Iraq, only to be killed at home. Overall, both the book and the movie tell the story of a man who was so sure that his country was “good”, that he was willing to die for it – that’s pretty powerful.

No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the Surveillance State

This book was a very interesting insight into the story of Edward Snowden because it was written by Glenn Greenwald – the author who first met with Snowden, got the files, and published the first articles, as well as the video where Snowden identifies himself. He starts off by saying that the motive for mass surveillance is always the same – suppressing dissent and mandating compliance. Converting the internet into a system of surveillance turns it into a tool of repression, threatening to produce the most extreme and oppressive weapon of state intrusion that human history has ever seen.

Snowden was 29 years old at the time of their first meeting in 2013 – I had no idea that he was that young – and seemed aware of all the consequences of his actions. Obama’s administration has prosecuted more government leakers under the Espionage act of 1917 (seven) – than all previous administrations in U.S. history combined…in fact more than double that total. The documents Snowden gave Greenwald left no doubt that the NSA was equally involved in economic espionage, diplomatic spying and suspicionless surveillance aimed at entire populations. Every day, the NSA works to identify electronic communications that are not being collected and stored and then develops new technologies and methods to rectify the deficiency. The agency regards itself as needing no specific justification to collect any particular electronic communication, nor any grounds for regarding its targets with suspicion. They forced Verizon to give it access to all calls made inside the U.S. and from the U.S. to other countries. They also gathered data from the servers of all the big technology companies (Apple, Google, Skype, etc.) and lied to congress about everything. All the companies denied involvement and knowledge of the program known as PRISM, however it appears as if they all cooperated (perhaps reluctantly).

The NSA is the largest intelligence agency in the world, with the majority of its surveillance work conducted through the five eyes alliance (Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S.). It is a military branch of the Pentagon, and was originally mandated to focus on activities outside of the U.S. The NSA frequently collects far more content that is routinely useful to analysts – more than 20 billion communication events each day. There are 3 different types of foreign relationships: (1) with the five eyes, the U.S. spies with these countries, but rarely on them, unless requested to by those countries’ own officials, (2) countries the NSA works with for specific surveillance projects while also spying on them extensively, (3) countries on which the U.S. routinely spies but with whom it virtually never cooperates. Its closest ally is the British GCHQ, however Canada is also a very active partner and an energetic surveillance force in its own right (CSEC=Communications Services Establishment Canada). The five eyes relationship is so close that member governments place the NSA’s desires above the privacy of their own citizens.

Greenwald explains that there are 2 types of information: content and metadata. Content refers to actually listening to people’s phone calls or reading their emails and online chats, while metadata refers to amassing data about those communications, such as who emailed whom, when it was sent, the location of the person sending it, etc. but not what the email actually says. And while the NSA claims that the collection of large quantities of data is necessary to stop terrorism, it is actually using this data for economic and political purposes as well. The U.S. used the NSA to eavesdrop on the planning strategies of other countries during trade and economic talks, gaining an enormous advantage for American industry. It has also spied on international organization such as the United Nations, to gain diplomatic advantage. The NSA routinely receives or intercepts routers, servers and other computer network devices being exported from the U.S. before they are delivered to international customers. The agency then implants backdoor surveillance tools. All of this is because the U.S. wants to maintain its grip on the world.

Greenwald says that authorities faced with unrest generally have 2 options: to placate the population with symbolic concessions or fortify their control to minimize the harm it can do to their interests. He believes that the west seems to go with option 2. I don’t really understand his characterization of the options – seemingly another option would be to actually listen to the people and change things? He says that collective coercion and control is both the intent and effect of state surveillance. Those who are being watched affirm their endorsement of prevailing social norms as they attempt to actively manage their reputations. The evidence shows that assurances that surveillance is only targeted at those who ‘have done something wrong’ should provide little comfort since a state will reflexively view any challenge to its power as wrongdoing. The true measure of a society’s freedom is how it treats its dissidents and other marginalized groups, not how it treats good loyalists.

As for the people who say that the collection of this data stops terrorists, Greenwald has several rebuttals. The Justice Department failed to cite a single case in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk metadata collection program actually stopped an imminent terrorist attack. The metadata program was not essential to preventing attacks and could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional court orders. It has no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism. The best (worst?) example of this is that for 9/11, the government was in possession of the necessary intelligence but had failed to understand or act on it. This is one of the problems with collecting so much data – you can’t possibly sort through it all to figure out what is relevant.

As well, the NSA’s efforts to override the encryption methods protecting common internet transactions – such as banking, medical records and commerce – have left these systems open to infiltration by hackers and other hostile entities. The risk of any American dying in a terrorist attack is considerably less than the chance of being struck by lightning. After these documents were released, the government was calling for Greenwald to be arrested and charged – for doing his job. The worst part was that other journalists started to agree with this. Greenwald says that Snowden denied doing any interviews because he didn’t want to take away from the story, yet the media called him a fame-seeking narcissist.

Obedience to authority is implicitly deemed the natural state, whereas disobedience is portrayed as crazy, paranoid, mentally ill, etc. However, both observing and breaking the rules involves moral choices. In the face of severe injustice, a refusal to dissent is the sign of a character flaw or moral failure. The reflexive demonization of whistle blowers is one way that the establishment media in the U.S. protects the interests of those who wield power. The only leaks that the Washington media condemns are those that contain information officials would prefer to hide. There is a double standard applied to publishing classified information. A lot of people leak things, it’s only considered bad when it doesn’t support the government and its narrative. Opinions are problematic only when they deviate from the acceptable range of Washington orthodoxy.

Greenwald says that the British government stormed in and made the Guardian (newspaper that Greenwald works for), destroy all the hard drives with information from Snowden. As well, Greenwald’s partner was traveling and they held him in the UK airport for 9 hours, under supposed ‘terrorism’ charges. The government has shown itself as abusive and repressive, which means the only proper response is to exert more pressure and demand greater transparency and accountability.

He finishes off by talking about the changes that have started, thanks to Snowden’s revelations. 2 members of congress jointly introduced a bill to defund the NSA metadata collection program (a member of the liberal party and a member of the tea party). House members stood up to vehemently denounce the NSA program, scoffing at the idea that collecting data on the calls of every single American is necessary to stop terrorism. The bill failed by a small margin (205-217). The UN general assembly unanimously voted in favour of a resolution affirming that online privacy is a fundamental human right (introduced by Germany and Brazil). There are international efforts – led by Germany and Brazil – to build new internet infrastructure, so that most network traffic no longer has to transit the U.S.

Lastly, he emphasizes that the alternative to mass surveillance is not the complete elimination of surveillance. It’s not one or the other. An alternative to mass surveillance is targeted surveillance, where the NSA only targets people they believe to be a threat. I think this is a reasonable suggestion.

Pay Any Price: Greed, Power & Endless War

This book by James Risen is essentially a series of stories about events and people that most of us have never heard of. He uses these events and people to weave a story about three things – greed, power and endless war.

One of the stories he talks about is the huge misuse of money by the American government during the war. In 2003, pallets of $100 bills were driven from the Federal Reserve in New Jersey, and then put on a cargo plane and taken to Iraq where they…disappeared. $12-$14 billion in cash and another $5.8 billion in electronic funds transfers are unaccounted for, largely because there were no clear orders on how to use the money. An investigation led to the discovery that $2 billion was stolen and secretly transported to Lebanon, but the government seemingly has no intention of getting it back, even going as far as to block the lead investigator from entering Lebanon to go see the warehouse where they believed it was being kept. U.S. forces also found $4 million in $100 bills in Saddam’s palace, which belonged to the Iraqi Central Bank, but the U.S. simply kept it and gave it to military commanders to use as they saw fit. A large chunk of money was also stolen by soldiers and contractors working in Iraq. Between 2004 and 2008, there were at least 35 convictions in the U.S. and more than $17 million in fines, forfeitures and restitution payments made in fraud cases in connection with the American reconstruction of Iraq (and that’s just the people they caught…). The U.S. also used money from the Development Fund of Iraq, which was money from the sales of Iraqi oil, meaning it belonged to the people of Iraq. This would have been fine if they had actually used the money to rebuild Iraq, but clearly money was incredibly poorly managed.

Another story was about how quickly the government threw money at people, without making sure they could provide what they promised. He tells the story of a conman named Dennis Montgomery who convinced the CIA & the Pentagon that his technology could help them catch Al Qaeda – but it was all fake. He even got Bush to ground several planes around Christmas 2003, and they even discussed shooting down passenger planes. Some of the planes grounded were from France and they demanded to see the technology, quickly identifying it as a hoax. The CIA didn’t tell anyone about this incident and no one was reprimanded, meaning that Montgomery continued to get contracts from Special Ops and the Pentagon for years after this happened. For me, this just indicates how much secrecy surrounds these organizations and the negative effects that it can have.

He also talks about General Atomics, the privately held company that is the maker of the predator drones. They are the beneficiaries of one of the largest transfers of wealth from public to private hands in American history, having received $1.8 billion in government contracts in 2012 alone. It has made the owners, Neal and Linden Blue (brothers), oligarchs of 9/11. He says that government spending on homeland security has been so excessive that the only way it could be considered cost effective would be if it funded programs that prevented 1,667 terrorists attack each year (4 every day). I’m not sure where he gets this number – presumably he is putting a value on the lives of American citizens? The Blue brothers originally bought General Atomics for $50 million, which is quite the deal. Interestingly, General Atomics started off as a subsidiary of General Dynamics before being sold off. They have also been allowed to begin selling unarmed predators to other nations, even in the Middle East. Demonstrating the high use of drones, the author says that the air force is now training more personnel to operate drones than to actually fly manned aircraft.

He then goes on to talk about KBR, an offshoot of Halliburton, which is the contracting firm that made the most money from the war on terror, surviving many scandals and controversies, with some thinking it was ‘too big to fail’. At the height of the war, they had 50,000 people working in Iraq. They had giant open burn pits outside of every base to dispose of waste, even though they were supposed to use other methods. Many soldiers came back with lung problems such as asthma, bronchitis, etc. all caused by the burn pits. Another soldier was electrocuted (and died) while taking a shower in his quarters in Iraq, which was due to the fact that KBR had improperly wired and grounded the area. His mother pushed for answers after his death and discovered that at least 18 American military personnel were electrocuted during the war in Iraq, and another soldier had reported that he was electrocuted in that same shower a few weeks earlier, but the problem was never addressed. Overall, KBR received $39.5 billion in contracts during the war. Anyone who stood against them, like one auditor who tried to get them to show paperwork for their expenses, was quickly removed from their position.

The last piece he talks about is the effect that endless war has. Going into the war, psychologists knew that torture can’t be used to collect accurate intelligence, that it was used for compliance – to break people. However the APA (American Psychological Association) went along with the torture, ‘supervising’ the interrogations and changing its ethics code to allow more questionable behaviour. The soldiers that were ordered to torture prisoners were also severally damaged, with most of them suffering from severe PTSD. After the public found out, the government didn’t reprimand any superiors, but tried to use the soldiers as scapegoats and brought charges against them. He also talks about how after 9/11, the 5,500 mile long border with Canada was considered a vulnerability that had to be sealed off, even though there was no evidence that the Canadian border had become a real threat. The level of resources devoted to fighting terrorism still remains out of proportion to the actual threat level posed by terrorism.

One senator said that ‘it’s almost like there are 2 sets of laws, one the public can read, and one the government has developed in secret’. While some people at the NSA and in oversight committees tried to stop the data collection programs as soon as they found out it was targeting Americans, they were quickly pushed out and ignored. The New York Times even found out about the NSA surveillance but held the story for over a year at the request of the government – long enough for Bush to get re-elected. Lastly, the author finishes off by mentioning that the new focus is cybersecurity, and that the NSA is now one of the world’s leaders in the use of offensive cyberattacks. No longer focused on the military-industrial complex, the U.S. has shifted to a cyber-industrial complex and a homeland security-industrial complex.

“War must be regarded as a finite, extraordinary and unnatural state of affairs” –Jeh Johnson.

13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

This book takes a look at the events surrounding the overrun of the American consulate in Benghazi that resulted in the death of the American Ambassador. However, it is written from the point of view of the military contractors (soldiers) who were on the ground and responded to the events. Rather than looking at the political side, it looks at the very human side of what happened. It is essentially written as a first person point of view story.

The author starts of by explaining the Global Response Staff (GRS), which is the support team that was on the ground in Benghazi, outside of the American consulate compound, as extra security. It was created after 9/11 and consists of full time CIA security staffers and former military operators. They serve as bodyguards for spies, diplomats and other American personnel in the field. He also explains a bit about Libya itself. Libya is a North African country divided into 3 parts. Tripolitania (with Tripoli as the capital), Cyrenaica (with Benghazi as the capital) and Fezzan. Most of the 6 million Libyans live in or around Tripoli and Benghazi. 97% of the population is Sunni Muslim. In 1951, after having traded hands multiple times and bombed often in WWII, the allies helped establish the United Kingdom of Libya, an independent constitutional monarchy. It was the world’s poorest country and one of its least literate until the discovery of immense oil reserves in 1959. Muammar al-Gaddafi, a 27 year old army officer at the time, led a bloodless coup in 1969 when the king was abroad. Benghazi suffered while Tripoli grew rich, even though most of the oil came from the area around Benghazi. This caused a lot of dissent, which led to the revolution in 2011. After this revolution there was an abundance of weapons, the absence of a working Libyan government and lingering anti-western sentiments among certain militias. Things began to escalate in the summer of 2012, and tensions grew between the GRS staff and the CIA’s Benghazi chief over the lack of security.

The book walks through what happened on the ground and leaves you with a lot of questions about how the CIA handled the incident. This isn’t helped by the fact that there were a lot of lies and controversy in the media and in Washington. Some of the questions that were common were: Why didn’t they allow the operators to react sooner? Why didn’t they provide backup sooner? Why didn’t they better arm the compound in the first place? The book also does a good job of giving life to the operators who lost their life that day, helping to show that while we may not understand private military companies, most of the operators are ex members of the U.S. military and still serving their country proudly.

Reading this book also opened my eyes to the shift that has been happening in the way countries (especially the U.S) wage wars, and left me with some questions that merit further investigation: How prevalent is the use of contract operators, as opposed to U.S. military soldiers? Why is this? Why do people leave the U.S. forces to join private military forces (money?)? Why can’t they get the same medals for serving their country? This is a very thought provoking book that helps you form your own opinions on what happened in Benghazi and what could have been done differently.

Plutocrats: The Rise Of The New Global Super-Rich And The Fall Of Everyone Else

This book is an interesting look into the lives of the uber wealthy, not just the 1% but the 0.01%. Instead of just hating on them, the author (Chrystia Freeland) offers a look into their lives and why they think the way they do. She also offers some compelling evidence on how great the divide truly is.

She starts off by explaining how economists thought that fully industrialized or post-industrial societies would see income inequality decrease as education became more widespread and the state played a bigger, more redistributive role. What they discovered was that equality is prevalent only at the historical poles of a civilization. “Savages are equal because they are equally weak and ignorant. Very civilized men can all become equal because they all have at their disposal similar means of attaining comfort and happiness. Between these two extremes is found inequality of condition, wealth and knowledge - the power of the few, the poverty, ignorance and weakness of the rest” – Alexis De Tocqueville.

She talks about how political decisions helped to create the super elite in the first place and as the economic might of the super elite class grows, so does its political muscle, which creates an endless loop. A stark example of this is that income inequality in communist China is now higher than in the U.S., and is on the rise in India & Russia. This has created a new ‘virtual nation’ of mammon (worshipping wealth/greed), where the rich have more in common with each other than with their countrymen. The business example she gives of this is Citigroup, a global bank, which has a devised a ‘consumer hourglass theory’ where they invest in super-luxury goods producers and deep discounters. They are working under the assumption that as the middle class is hollowed out, the companies that sell products to them will disappear.

In the U.S., the first income inequality gap was created by the industrial revolution and the 1% were called robber barons. Between the 1940s and the 1970s, this gap shrank, largely due to the government compromising with the 99% due to the rise of communism in Europe. In 1980, the average U.S. CEO made 42 times as much as the average worker, while in 2012, that number was 380 times as much. This change was largely due to the fact that in the early 80’s Ronald Reagan (President at the time), slashed the highest marginal tax rate from 70% to 28%, reined in trade unions, cut social welfare spending and deregulated the economy. The U.S. was emboldened by the fall of communism – it no longer had a strong ideological competitor to Freidman’s free market ideas. They underwent 3 major transformations in this time: a technology revolution, globalization and the rise of the Washington consensus (the World Bank’s decision on how best to pull a country out of poverty). The rules of the game again favour those who are winning it.

The author then talks about how we aren’t reliving the ‘Gilded Age’ – we are living through 2 simultaneous Gilded Ages. The West is experiencing its second, while emerging markets are experiencing their first. She argues that with time, the creative destruction of capitalism inevitably brings an overall improvement in everyone’s standard of living, and that this twin Gilded Age is positive. However, the costs and benefits of trade are unevenly shared. “As individuals we aren’t getting smarter, but society as a whole is accumulating more and more knowledge” –Joe Mokyr. We have the ‘unhappy growth paradox’ due to the uncertainty and inequality of periods of rapid economic change.

She then discusses the current group of plutocrats. She says that the defining quality of the current crop of plutocrats is that they are the ‘working rich’. They are not aristocrats but rather economic meritocrats, preoccupied not only with consuming wealth, but also with creating it. We are in the age of alpha geeks, where education is key. They are seen as the ‘heroes’, trying to battle for the collective good. They move in circles that are defined by ‘interests’ rather than geography. Essentially, they are global citizens. For these super rich, ideas conferences are a big thing (ie. TED talks), as is philanthropy. They want to bestow their fortunes the same way they made them – entrepreneurially. All their wealth allows them to test new ways to solve big problems. They are trying to apply the secret behind their money making success to their giving. The biggest question becomes, where to give when you’re a global citizen? She talks about how Bill Gates and Warren Buffett made it important, not only to give away a lot of your money, but also to be actively engaged in how it is spent. They want to transform how charity works and change how the state operates. The plutocrat as politician is becoming an important member of the world’s governing elite. America’s super elite has been particularly effective at using the tools of a political democracy – where in theory, the majority should rule – to protect its minority privilege. She mentions how they corner the market for positional goods, which are products and services whose value is derived in part from their scarcity and how much everyone else wants them (ie. A place in the Harvard first year class). If you have them, I don’t.

She then begins to explain the gender gap within the 0.1%. Of the 1226 billionaires, only 104 are women and most of them are wives, daughters and widows. Within the 99%, women are earning more money, getting more educated and gaining more power, but the top 1% has remained an all-boys club. In 2009, it was the first time women outnumbered men on the country’s pay rolls (in America) and in 2010, 4 in 10 working wives were the chief bread winners for their families. She guesses that this hasn’t translated into the same percentage of women at the top because women aren’t as cutthroat, they are missing that killer instinct. She also says that the skill biased technical change has brought the technocrats to class power, with technical change being the main driver of income polarization. We live in a world where being the most successful in your field delivers huge rewards, but coming in second place has much less economic value (winner takes all mentality). “The relative fall in the incomes to be earned by moderate ability is accentuated by the rise in those that are obtained by men of extraordinary ability” –Alfred Marshall. This environment of superstar economics takes meritocracy to the next level, only rewarding those who are at the very top, and rewarding them with insane amounts of money.

Technology has allowed superstars to export their skills to the masses. It’s has always been a battle between capital (the people who have the money) and talent (the people who have the skills), and previously capital was winning. But now, it’s possible for the talented to practice their profession independently, cutting out the ‘capital’. Superstars are able to be better paid for the value they create - thanks to richer clients, more clients and better terms of trade with their financial backers. The superstar phenomenon also feeds on itself because the world tends to give credit to people who are already famous. CEO’s and executives at the very top are rewarded for corporate success but almost no one else is. CEO’s are a special type of superstar; the one who is in charge of the company that pays his salary. The reason this system has lasted so long is because we all like to think we are superstars in waiting and will get our big break any day now.

However, the rich tend to get richer by buying to get rich. Many people have become richer by using their influence to bend the rules of the economic game in their own favour, benefiting greatly from things like Russia’s super sale of public assets which helped create arguably the greatest number of billionaires. The world’s richest man at the moment is Carlos Slim, who hugely benefited from the privatization of Mexican assets. Financial deregulation has been crucial to the emergence of the plutocracy, leading to the pre-eminence of the financiers within the global super elite. One telltale sign the state is deciding who gets rich is how much time and money plutocrats spend on selecting their government and influencing decisions. ‘Legal corruption’ is increasing the gap between the rich and everyone else. The threat that business, particularly finance, might move to another country, was one of the most powerful arguments in favour of deregulation. The rich argue that the common good is better served when the wealthy ‘self-tax’ by supporting charities of their own selection, rather than paying taxes to fund government spending. Most lobbying is pro-business, in the sense that it promotes the interests of existing businesses, not pro market in the sense of fostering truly free and open competition.

Nearly half of all members of congress were millionaires in 2010 and their median net worth was $913,000, which just shows that the people are not truly represented in their democracy. “We may have democracy, or me may have wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we cannot have both” – Louis Brandeis. What separates successful states from failed ones is whether their governing institutions are inclusive or extractive. Extractive means controlled by ruling elites whose objective is to extract as much wealth as they can from the rest of society and to maintain their own hold on power; inclusive means everyone has a say in how their society is ruled and has access to economic opportunity. Greater inclusiveness leads to more prosperity. As the people at the very top become every richer, they have an every greater ability to tilt the rules of the game in their favour. She finishes by saying that the next big threat posed by income inequality is the transfer of privilege from one generation to the next, those who are ‘born rich’ and how that will affect our society.

Crazy fact from the book: It now costs less than $600 to buy a disk drive with the capacity to store all of the world’s recorded music. 

Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products

This book was an interesting look at Apple from a design side and did a good job of explaining how the culture and decisions they have made, have led to huge successes and to some of their failures. It’s important to keep in mind that the author, Leander Kahney, is also the editor and publisher of a blog titled ‘Cult of Mac’, and therefore is very informed, but also biased, when it comes to all things Apple.

He starts off by talking about Jony Ive, and how his childhood and education has brought him to such a place of prominence today. Ive was born in England, and he learned a lot from his father, who loved design and constantly encouraged him. At a young age his talent was obvious and he would build scores of models and prototypes. Ive had a talent for adding tactile elements to his designs, and often used the colour white, which would eventually become significant for Apple. He also focused on simplicity and minimalism, and was very interested in humanizing technology. His starting point for designs was always what something SHOULD be. Ive also understood that style had a corrosive effect, aging a product before it’s time if it’s design went out of style. He often got upset when his work was ruined by the people he was working for, and he disliked consulting because he couldn’t see projects through to completion.

His interest in Apple grew when he noticed that they gave personality and meaning to technology that was still being treated as though it were anonymous. A man named Robert Brunner tried 3 times to get Ive to join Apple, and he finally succeeded. He was the man who set up the design studio at Apple, hired the talent, and when he left, he recommended that they promote Ive, which they did. When Jobs was gone, Apple tried licensing out the Mac operating system because they saw Microsoft successfully doing it, but it failed for Apple. When Jobs returned he said that the goal was not just to make money, but to make great products. That’s what convinced Ive to stay with the company.

Jobs had a new strategy. Apple was going to make 4 products: a desktop computer for a consumer, a desktop computer for a professional, a portable computer for a consumer and a portable computer for a professional. When he first came back, he laid off 4200 people. He decided he didn’t want to compete in the broader market for PCs because they competed on price, not features or ease of use, which Jobs viewed as a race to the bottom. He believed that well designed, well made computers could command the same market share and margins as a luxury automobile. With Ive’s help, industrial design would be the centerpiece of Apple’s comeback. Design was not just about how a product looked, but also about how it worked.

“As industrial designers we no longer design objects. We design the user’s perceptions of what those objects are, as well as the meaning that accrues from their physical existence, their function and the sense of possibility they offer” – Jony Ive. The computer industry had become about product attributes that you could measure empirically (very inhuman and cold), but Ive wanted to design objects that dispensed positive emotions.

The author then begins to talk about each of the Apple products under Jobs and how they led to the Apple products we see today. First is the iMac, which they decided would be the first all in one PC, built with focus and simplicity. During the summer leading up to the release of the iMac, Apple spent $100 million on advertising. The iMac launched ‘translucence’ as a product trend. Apple then focused on the PowerBook, which was a laptop designed for professionals. They were the first to recognize the potential of USB and Wi-Fi, and also incorporated a magnetic latch (buttons and latches that make a design pop are called jewelry), which would become very standard for Apple. Then there was the Power Mac Cube, which represented breakthroughs in manufacturing techniques and miniaturization, eventually leading to the Mac Mini. The design team challenged every preconceived notion about every material. Toshiba then came up with a 1.8” hard drive that could hold 5GB (1000 cds), which allowed the iPod to be possible. The iPod was the first product where they thought about packaging.

“If there was ever a product that catalyzed Apple’s reason for being, it’s this (iPod), because it combines Apple’s incredible technology base with Apple’s legendary ease of use with Apple’s awesome design. Those 3 things come together in this, and it’s like, that’s what we do. So if anybody was ever wondering why Apple is on the earth, I would hold this up as a good example” – Jony Ive.

The author then talks about where Tim Cook fits into the picture. He originally worked on an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and reduced inventory on hand to 2 days. He sold off Apple factories to increase profit margins, and his team figured out how to produce the products in their millions and deliver them all over the world, on time and in utmost secrecy. This allowed Apple’s designers to do more. They started to work on a unibody process, where products could be made out of one piece of metal. Machining is the way to make the best parts possible, the pinnacle of refinement and precision, but it takes time and money.

The author then delves into how Ive and the design team started to be involved in designing the software side of things too. It’s presumed that Scott Forstall lost a power struggle with Ive in 2012 and was fired, allowing Ive to become the head of hardware and software (the creative side). The biggest disagreement he had with Forstall was about skeuomorphic design, which basically means graphic interfaces that resemble real world objects. The user interface conventions looked like their real life counterparts (ie. Bookshelves for ebooks). It allowed neophytes (beginners, newcomers) to be immediately familiar with an unfamiliar device. Problems started because Jony didn’t like skeuomorphism, and because Apple started to get criticisms that it was ‘tacky’, which put Forstall in the line of fire. This is why iOS 7 is drastically different than previous operating systems. It had Jony’s minimalism, stripping away anything that was unnecessary. It was also infused with a deep appreciation for print graphic design (ex: typography=Helvetica Neue). Ive believed that hardware changes could only be incremental, not fundamental, at this point. Software was the new design frontier and Ive wanted to be a part of that.

Ive believes that Apple’s goal is not to make money, but to make great products, and that if you do that, everything will follow. Jobs always said that focus isn’t a question of saying yes to projects, it’s saying no. Under Ive’s guidance, Apple has remained highly disciplined in saying no to products that are competent as opposed to great. However, Apple no longer takes risks, generational leaps grow more incremental and the continuity Ive has brought means the ‘shock of new is gone’. Apple has gone from being the alternative to the mainstream and that brings with it more challenges. Ive and his design style are seen as the establishment, as the status quo, and Apple has to find a new design language if they want to survive. Jony Ive’s new challenge is to find a new design style for Apple, and essentially, for himself.

Thoughts: I thought this book was a great look at how Apple’s products came to be the way they are, building a story around how each design element came to be. Things that users take for granted like magnetic latches, white products, touch screens, all came to life in Apple’s design studio. I also learned a lot about design and various terms used when designing. The book would perhaps be a bit more balanced if it talked about how this shift to a design focus hurt Apple in some ways. The most recent example of this would be the iPhone 6 bending, which I would guess is due to engineering having to give up some things to make the design teams designs come to life. 

Part 2; America: Imagine A World Without Her

(This is a continuation of the previous post because there was too much valuable information to share it all in one post!)

He then moves into the topic of capitalism. He says that America is based on the invention of wealth creation, on the understanding that wealth can be created through innovation and enterprise, not just conquest. The old frontier was new land, now its new wealth and new technology (unending). Many argue that we aren’t entirely responsible for our own success because the roads were built by the people, workers are educated by the people, firefighters are paid by the people, etc. However, everyone has access to these things, and the people who make the most of them will succeed. It does not follow that achievement is unearned. They are trying to argue that the capitalist wealth – all of it – belongs to the community.

He then talks about Adam Smith and how his theories are based on the paradox that individual selfishness can be channeled to the collective benefit of society. This thought is echoed by Rand who says that it is ethical for people to do what is good for themselves. Actual societies must be built on human nature as it is, not as we wish it to be (which is why communism doesn’t work in society, only in families). Successful entrepreneurs (ie. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg) have already made their money and don’t need to come into work every day, however they continue to work because they have the gift of creativity and want to share it with society. They are not primarily motivated by money, they are primarily motivated by the love of what they do. He puts forth the idea that capitalism is based on altruism. This is because success comes from attending to the wants and needs of others. Capitalists who make good profits do so because they are especially good at empathizing with and serving other people. “Extreme sympathy” is when entrepreneurs are providing for the wants of consumers before consumers even know what they want. Profit is simply a measure of how well they have served the wants and needs of their customers. He argues that capitalism civilizes greed in the same way marriage civilizes lust. Labour gets paid ‘wages’, entrepreneurs get paid ‘profits’.

He continues by saying that the monetary value of a person’s contribution is determined by the consumer. The beauty of free markets is that the ‘value’ of each provider is decided precisely by the guy who is going to pay for that provider. The morality of capitalism (and democracy) is rooted in consent. Consent is confirmation on the part of all parties that they are better off; if they weren’t, they wouldn’t make the deal. He also argues that unequal prosperity is better than shared poverty. Are the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer? No. The richer are getting richer and the poor are getting richer, just not at the same pace. In America today there is virtually no absolute poverty, only relative poverty (ie. You feel poor compared to Bill Gates). American capitalism has helped to create the first mass affluent class in world history, and in the long term, technological capitalism creates deep and abiding equality among citizens. The broad spread of technology and medicine, far from representing a theft by the rich, represents a subsidy on their part that has greatly benefited the larger society. The rich pay the initial high prices that lead to more research and development, and a way to bring the product to the masses.

He then says that overpopulation was considered the main reason China and India were so poor, but then they started to use this to their advantage (“cheap labour”). Technological capitalism has proven to be the greatest anti-poverty scheme ever invented. There is no significant anti-globalization movement in countries like China and India because they know better than American progressives what is good for them. Globalization helps to reduce immigration from poor countries to rich countries. It’s also a force for peace among nations because countries that trade with each other become mutually dependent. Globalization penalizes inefficient American workers but benefits cost conscious American consumers.

Next he talks about American foreign policy. He says that it is based on two simple concepts. (1) Don’t bomb us, (2) trade with us. He argues that, that’s all Americans want from the rest of the world (I’m not sure if I truly believe this, seems idealistic). He says that America has helped other countries and could have colonized but hasn’t. America does not oppose the rise of other powers, as long as they are peaceful trading powers and not violent conquering powers (I think he means as long as they don’t disagree with America’s ideals and give them all their resources….but anyway). He says that we feel inferior to others when we realize we are not as good as they are and that envy is an invisible vice which leads to resentment and frustration.

He then says that the government is inefficient. They waste money because it’s not their money and they are not subject to market forces (ie. They have no bottom line). They don’t have access to the kind of information needed to make good decisions and that people typically have access to at the local level. A centralized government is ill-equipped to make innumerable decisions that are best left to local people, businesses, government, etc. The government purports to be fostering moral action among citizens while in reality, its policies have nothing to do with morality. Coercive government policies strip the virtue out of every transaction.

One of the key features of the common good is that it benefits all citizens, but the author argues that the redistribution of wealth by government is theft. The top 1% of people pay 1/3 of federal income tax, the next 9% pay another 1/3, and the bottom 50% of people pay nothing. In this scenario, surveillance has the benefit of letting the government collect information for its heist (for taking/stealing from citizens).  The information collected through government spying can also be used to achieve social compliance. The benefit of having extensive reams of personal data is that almost anyone can be found to have fallen afoul of the rules sometime or other (not sure how accurate this is). He argues that the government is becoming a vehicle of terror and an instrument of theft because it is spying on it’s own people, and has the power and discretion to decide whom it wants to prosecute. It’s very common for guilty pleas to be the product of risk avoidance at the expense of truth.

He ends off by talking about what the world would be like without America in charge. “We are so used to the world being western, even American, that we have little idea what it would be like if it was not”. The decline could be gradual or sudden (collapse), and will most likely correspond with the rise of Asia. It will be a return to when China and India used to rule the world (5^th century-1750). America’s military, political and cultural power is all derived from its affluence. The key is economic strength. He wants to see countries succeed not through conquest but through wealth creation. The mantra in Asia, Africa and South America is “modernization without westernization”.

His last point is that Chinese hegemony will look different from American hegemony (who would have guessed eh?). He explains that the Chinese have a deeply hierarchical view of the world based on culture and race, and that they are shrewdly exploiting anti-American sentiments to make themselves look like the better alternative. He argues that the Chinese will have no interest in shared global leadership (goal=singular hegemony) and that they have no intention of actually fighting a war with America. Their objective is to show that such a war would be suicidal for America.

Overall this was a really interesting and eye opening book. It provides a good counter argument to a lot of the things we hear in the media. I do think he goes a little too far at times with his “America is amazing” attitude, acting like they are super nice and innocent and have no bad intentions behind anything they do. They definitely have various goals and intentions when they interact with other countries, and I think we won’t know what the best approach is until we have something else to compare it to. If you don't want to read the book (although you should), he also released a documentary by the same name. I haven't watched it yet so i can't promise that it's as good as the book.