Geoffrey Cain
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Author: Steve Jobs in Exile | Samsung Rising | The Perfect Police State. @Spectator columnist. Covering tech, business, and reinvention. geoffreycain.substack.com
Articles by Geoffrey Cain
America’s Anthropic blackout won’t make the world safer
For the first time, the United States government has switched off frontier artificial intelligence and forced the world to go without it. Two of the most capable AI systems ever built, Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5, went dark last week. Not just in China or Iran. A researcher in London, a developer in Tokyo, an entire company in Berlin, all cut off at once, all treated as equally dangerous.
Il server che non andava spento: l’origine del World Wide Web
Nel dicembre del 1990 il World Wide Web andò online per la prima volta, ospitato su un unico cubo nero di magnesio nel laboratorio di fisica più famoso d’Europa. Non fu il frutto di un grande programma di ricerca né di investimenti miliardari, ma di un problema pratico — la memoria istituzionale che si disperde — e di un computer fuori dal comune. La storia di come Tim Berners-Lee costruì l’architettura del web in pochi mesi è anche la storia di un’occasione che nessuno seppe riconoscere in tempo.
NeXT chapter Il periodo in cui Steve Jobs non sapeva più cosa fare
«Hai presente quando ti tirano un pugno nello stomaco e resti completamente senza fiato?», raccontò Steve a Newsweek nel 1985. «Devi rilassarti per ricominciare a respirare. È così che mi sono sentito per tutta l’estate.» Per tutta l’estate del 1985 Steve aveva cercato di rilassarsi e respirare. Erano sparite le frenetiche riunioni sui prodotti, le scadenze incessanti e le folle adoranti che fino ad allora erano state la sua vita.
Quando Steve Jobs pianse davanti alla segretaria del suo nemico: la storia di come Apple lo esiliò in «Siberia»
Questo articolo è pubblicato sul numero 24-25 di Vanity Fair in edicola fino al 16 giugno 2026. «Chiederò a Steve di farsi da parte», annunciò John Sculley, CEO di Apple, dinanzi al consiglio di amministrazione della società. «Potete appoggiarmi in questa mia decisione [...] o trovarvi un nuovo amministratore delegato». Era l’11 aprile 1985 quando le tensioni che covavano da tempo tra John Sculley e Steve Jobs esplosero.
5 formas como Steve Jobs quase destruiu a Apple
Depois de perder uma disputa de poder na diretoria para o CEO da Apple, John Sculley, Steve Jobs foi exilado para um pequeno prédio do outro lado da rua da sede da empresa. Era maio de 1985. Ele e seus colegas chamavam o novo escritório de “Sibéria”. Relatórios corporativos deixaram de chegar à sua mesa e executivos pararam de ligar, deixando-o entediado e isolado.
5 maneras en que Steve Jobs casi destruyó Apple
Tras perder una lucha de poder en la junta directiva con el CEO de Apple, John Sculley, Steve Jobs fue relegado a un pequeño edificio frente a la sede de la marca. Era mayo de 1985. Él y sus colegas llamaron a su nueva oficina “Siberia”. Los informes corporativos dejaron de llegar a su escritorio y los ejecutivos dejaron de llamarlo, lo que lo dejó aburrido y solo.
5 ways Steve Jobs almost destroyed Apple
After losing a boardroom power struggle with Apple CEO John Sculley, Steve Jobs was exiled to a small building across the street from Apple’s headquarters. It was May 1985. He and his colleagues called his new office “Siberia.” Corporate reports stopped flowing to his desk, and executives stopped calling, leaving him bored and lonely. “It was amazing to see how ostracized he was in the Valley,” recalled Susan Barnes, a Macintosh financial controller who had previously reported to him.
5 ways Steve Jobs almost destroyed Apple
; ; ; ; Continue reading More for You Continue reading More for You
5 ways Steve Jobs almost destroyed Apple
After losing a boardroom power struggle with Apple CEO John Sculley, Steve Jobs was exiled to a small building across the street from Apple’s headquarters. It was May 1985. He and his colleagues called his new office “Siberia.” Corporate reports stopped flowing to his desk, and executives stopped calling, leaving him bored and lonely. “It was amazing to see how ostracized he was in the Valley,” recalled Susan Barnes, a Macintosh financial controller who had previously reported to him.
5 ways Steve Jobs almost destroyed Apple
Exodus and Exile: Before Steve Jobs Could Make a Historic Comeback at Apple, He Had to Walk Out First In an exclusive excerpt from, Steve Jobs in Exile, go inside the explosive board meeting that left Jobs in tears. “I’m asking Steve to step down,” Apple CEO John Sculley told the company’s board of directors, “and you can back me on it . . . or you’re going to have to find yourselves a new CEO.” It …
Steve Jobs’s Lost Decade
After being forced out of Apple in 1985, its founder spent 12 years running a floundering start-up. A new book claims this exile set the stage for Silicon Valley’s greatest comeback story For a generation, Steve Jobs was the figure in the black turtleneck on the keynote stage, holding up a rectangle he was about to convince you was the future.
The three things Trump wants from his China trip
Donald Trump flew to Beijing this week, and when he sits down with China’s President Xi Jinping on Thursday morning he will want three things: a tariff truce that survives his own courts, Chinese pressure on Iran to end the war that never seems to end, and a photograph that makes him look victorious. Xi has problems of his own.
Exodus and Exile: Before Steve Jobs Could Make a Historic Comeback at Apple, He Had to Walk Out First
“I'm asking Steve to step down,” Apple CEO John Sculley told the company's board of directors, “and you can back me on it . . . or you're going to have to find yourselves a new CEO.” It was April 11, 1985, and long-simmering tensions between John Sculley and Steve Jobs had finally erupted. It marked a stunning reversal.
Tim Cook Built Apple in China, but Beijing Owns the Keys
Tim Cook stood inside Apple’s newest Shanghai store, the second-largest Apple Store in the world, and was explicit about the company’s bargain with China. “There’s no supply chain in the world that’s more critical to us than China,” he toldChina Daily. Apple’s relationship with Chinese suppliers, Cook said, was almost 30 years old. “We’ve been building up and investing more and more.” That was in March 2024.
3 tests Apple's new CEO must pass to prove he can grow the company in ways Tim Cook never did
By Geoffrey Cain Apple's future rests on this massive pivot New CEO John Ternus will need to turn Apple into an AI leader. The big question is whether new CEO John Ternus can make the kind of AI investment Tim Cook never did. When Apple announced on April 20 that Tim Cook would hand the CEO role to John Ternus on Sept. 1, the stock market read it as continuity. Nearly every major sell-side analyst kept a buy rating on the stock.
Lessons for new Apple CEO Ternus in Steve Jobs’s wilderness years
Apple has named John Ternus, its head of hardware engineering, as its next CEO. At the same moment, Apple is paying Google roughly a billion dollars a year to run the AI brain of Siri, because Apple’s own AI hasn’t been good enough. Apple’s hardware is excellent but the AI is not. And the AI is where the next decade of computing is going to be decided. These two things are true at once, and I’ve been turning them over this week.
Microsoft Cares About Your Privacy 3 tests Apple's new CEO must pass to prove he can grow the company in ways Tim Cook never did
Use precise geolocation data and actively scan device characteristics for identification. This is done to store and access information on a device and to provide personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development. List of partners (vendors) Geoffrey Cain The big question is whether new CEO John Ternus can make the kind of AI investment Tim Cook never did.
Opinion: Apple’s new CEO is a hardware legend. That didn’t save Intel investors — and it won’t guarantee an AI win.
When Apple announced on April 20 that Tim Cook would hand the chief executive role to John Ternus on Sept. 1, the stock market read it as continuity. Nearly every major sell-side analyst kept their buy rating on the stock. Yale University’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian published a commentary calling Ternus exactly the right CEO for the AI era.
The greater game: Trump’s ultimate target in this war is China
The United States and Israel killed Ayatollah Khamenei, and Xi Jinping’s decade-long project to build an alternative to the American-led order died with him. For years, Beijing quietly assembled a network of dictatorships and client states designed to blunt American power. Iran supplied China with cheap oil and kept Washington bogged down in the Middle East.
Steve Jobs in Exile
The Untold Story of Steve Jobs’s Wilderness Years—and the Creation of a Legend In 1985, Steve Jobs—the brilliant, volatile founder of Apple Computer—walked out of his company’s headquarters, driven from the very corporation he had created. What happened next would transform not only his life and career, but the future of technology itself. For twelve years, from 1985 to 1997, Jobs wandered the business wilderness with his new venture, NeXT.
China’s AI has hacked the West - we gave them the keys Original
The future that science fiction writers once warned about — autonomous systems deployed against the U.S. — arrived overnight. China has proven it can use artificial intelligence to hack into American companies and government agencies with the machine almost entirely in charge. In November, Anthropic disrupted a Chinese espionage campaign. The difference this time: It used AI with little human oversight for 80 to 90 percent of the hacking.
The tariff test: Big Tech’s moment of truth in China Original
Imagine running your company out of a high-tech campus with armed guards at the gates, listening devices in the walls and a landlord who insists you turn over your blueprints to keep the lights on. Most executives would scramble for the exits. But for years, American tech companies made peace with that setup in China. Now, exposed by tariffs, they’re feeling the consequences of their devilish bargain. One story of the tariffs has gone untold.
Thought Leaders in the Wine Scene
By Geoffrey Cain As an author, sommelier, and former journalist, I’ve carved out an unusual niche in the world of wine: I turn my fellow sommeliers and winemakers into thought leaders. Books, articles, social media, video channels—all these are our bread and butter at Alembic Partners, our thought leadership agency where we act as strategists and ghostwriters for Fortune 500 CEOs, founders, and executives. How did I land on this niche in the wine and spirits industry?
DeepSeek Is a Wake-Up Call. Is America Listening?
On Monday, Nvidia’s stock price fell by 17 percent. The firm, whose chips have powered America’s AI revolution, lost nearly $600 billion in market capitalization—the largest single-day sell-off in history. Other tech stocks plummeted too, with more than $1 trillion wiped off U.S. stock markets. Why? Because DeepSeek, a small Chinese start-up almost no one had heard of until last week, announced that it had built high-performing AI models at a fraction of what America’s tech giants spend on theirs.
Thanks to AI, Apple’s China problem is only getting worse
Continue reading More for You
Thanks to AI, Apple's China problem is only getting worse Original
For years, Tim Cook insisted Apple could change China from the inside. Instead, China changed Apple. The latest evidence? Apple spent billions developing cutting-edge electric vehicle battery technology with Chinese automaker BYD, only to watch its innovations become the cornerstone of BYD’s rise to global electric vehicle dominance. Apple walked away with nothing. China walked away with everything. This isn’t just another story about corporate research and development gone wrong.
Patriotism over profit: The US can’t allow Big Tech to sell out to China
“When it comes to emerging technology, you cannot be both in China’s camp and our camp.” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo described the global competition for supremacy in artificial intelligence (AI) this way last April. She’s right, and the Biden administration has taken important steps to restrict China’s access to advanced AI capabilities, from banning the sale of advanced chips last year to formulating restrictions on the export of certain AI models.
Surveillance, privacy, apps, law enforcement, privacy
SURVEILLANCEThere’s a Cop in My Pocket: Policymakers Need to Stop Advocating Surveillance by Default Published 5 September 2023 All this year, U.S. leaders have attempted to pass a wave of misguided online security bills, designed to break that encryption and place Americans in a panopticon of surveillance by default. Encryption, cybersecurity, and technology policies, like the RESTRICT and EARN-IT Acts, with nonexistent tradeoffs address symptoms, not problems, and they do it badly.
Next Generation Perspectives on Taiwan: Insights from the 2023 Taiwan-US Policy Program
Taiwan faces growing threats to its security. The circumstances and factors that have deterred for decades an attack by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on Taiwan and enabled its people to remain secure and prosperous are changing. The conventional military balance in the western Pacific has tipped in China’s favor, although its military, the People’s Liberation Army, is not yet ready to seize and control Taiwan.
North Carolina and the Regional Roots of American Industrial Strategy
The engine of innovation exists in space and quiet. The North Carolina Biotech Center is nestled behind layers of birch trees, on a spacious modernist campus where rustling leaves and birds pierce through the silence. The noisy city-goer wouldn’t realize this is one of the leading hubs of American innovation, with semiconductor fab plants and biotech laboratories hidden behind layers of forest. The idea of the “tech hub” calls to mind Silicon Valley, Austin, and Miami.
Microsoft Issues Warning About Chinese AI That Microsoft Helped Create
Late last month, Microsoft President Brad Smith issued a dire warning. He noted that a Chinese operation—the “Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence”—was only months behind his own company and Google in the AI technological race. He then raised alarm about AI’s potential as a weapon.
The Left, TikTok, and the World’s Biggest Police State
In 2017, I was in China’s westernmost region of Xinjiang, investigating how China had erected the most sophisticated surveillance state ever with the help of tech companies from both China and America. An estimated 1.8 million people, mostly Muslim Uyghurs, would be hauled away for such thought crimes as praying or showing insufficient loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a process enabled by AI and camera surveillance that monitored the population endlessly.
How China Got Our Kids Hooked on ‘Digital Fentanyl’
The midterm elections of 2022 were many things—a shocker for Republicans, the possible end of Donald Trump, a win for centrist Democrats. Overlooked is the fact that they were also a big turning point for TikTok, the Chinese social-media platform. TikTok is not only the most trafficked news app for Americans under 30. It was also a major political force this year.
The Purges That Upended China’s Semiconductor Industry
Once a technology star, Zhao Weiguo rose fast and fell hard. For the last eight years, Zhao’s semiconductor manufacturer, the Tsinghua Unigroup, had fanfare, ambition, large-scale state backing, and an affiliation with China’s most prestigious institution of higher learning, Tsinghua University. All this made Zhao the face and future of China’s semiconductor industry.
How China Got Our Kids Hooked on ‘Digital Fentanyl’
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How China Got Our Kids Hooked on ‘Digital Fentanyl’
The midterm elections of 2022 were many things—a shocker for Republicans, the possible end of Donald Trump, a win for centrist Democrats. Overlooked is the fact that they were also a big turning point for TikTok, the Chinese social-media platform. TikTok is not only the most trafficked news app for Americans under 30. It was also a major political force this year.
‘The Rebel and the Kingdom’ Review: Rebel With a Righteous Cause
On Feb. 22, 2019, a man calling himself Matthew Chao knocked on the door of the North Korean embassy in Madrid, with a gift for the embassy’s highest-ranking official. The North Korean worker who answered the door escorted the visitor inside and went to fetch his boss. At that moment, five intruders hiding outside, led by the visitor, slipped into the building, produced handcuffs and what looked like pistols—they were actually pellet guns—and forced everyone to the ground.
‘The Titanium Economy’ Review: Making It in America
After many grueling nights designing and building a car in “makeshift tents,” Elon Musk emerged with a prescient lesson for Tesla. “The issue is not about coming up with a car design—it’s absolutely about the production system,” Mr. Musk said in 2019, during the unveiling of the car maker’s SUV, the Model Y. “You want to have a good product to build, but that’s basically the easy part.
Opinion | China Is Buying the Farm
State-owned companies have bought many acres near U.S. military bases. What is Beijing up to? By Lars Erik Schönander and Geoffrey Cain Sept. 8, 2022 6:29 pm ET Alarms went off in Washington when the Fufeng Group, a Chinese agricultural company, bought 300 acres of land and set up a milling plant last spring in Grand Forks, N.D. The plant is a 20-minute drive from an Air Force base that, according to North Dakota Sen.
Ukraine's cyber-war shows us the future
Share A 19-year-old computer hacker invited me into his home in Lviv, Ukraine, ready to show off his weaponry: three large monitors from which he coordinated cyber-attacks into Russia’s increasingly closed-off internet. It was March 2022, and he wanted to strike back at Russia’s opening missile salvos. But he didn’t want to scare his parents by heading to the front lines with an assault rifle. So he signed up for Ukraine’s “IT Army” of computer nerds instead.
ゼレンスキー大統領、戦争とテクノロジー、ウクライナの未来について語る
わたしたちには母国であるというアドバンテージがありますが、それでも生活水準や安全性、それに収入レベルを元に戻さなければなりません。例えば、英国と同じ収入を用意するというわけではありません。それでも、比較して負けないような生活水準を確保しなければならないのです。 中流階級であれば、戻ってきたら中流階級らしく生きられる状況、つまり下流階級のような生き方を迫られないような状況にする必要があります。わたしたちはあらゆる努力を惜しまず、統一された欧州として何ら変わらず前まで通りに感じられるようにしなければなりません。つまり、帰ってみれば別の惑星のようになっている、ということがないようにしなければなりません。 ──大統領は戦争でどう変わられましたか。 率直なところ、わかりません。難しい質問です。ほとんどの場合、わたしは普通の人間であり続けたいと思っています。いまのわたしはほかの人たちと同じように、昔のわたしと変わらない同じ人間なのですから。雨が降れば、わたしも周囲と同じように濡れます。...
Cutting it as a tech writer
Share Another week, another media blow-up. Yesterday, an editor at The New Yorker, Erin Overbey, accused the magazine of retaliating against her for protesting gender inequalities, when it opened a “performance review” into her work. She claimed her boss, editor-in-chief David Remnick, inserted two errors into her articles during the performance review, potentially sabotaging her job at the worst possible time. (The New Yorker called her accusation against Remnick “absurd.”) David Remnick.
On hostage diplomacy
Share Hostage-taking has become a feature of diplomacy involving authoritarian governments. Today, President Biden signed an executive order that will allow the United States to sanction people or governments that take Americans hostage, and will set up a warning system for Americans planning a trip.
Ucraina, Volodymyr Zelensky su guerra, tecnologia e futuro del paese
Come l'embargo sul petrolio, per esempio. Fino all'80 per cento di tutti i paesi dell'Unione europea dice che sosterrà l'attuazione dell'embargo sul petrolio, ma cosa succederà al 20 per cento dei paesi che non lo faranno? Potranno ricevere il petrolio. Chi controllerà e monitorerà questo processo? Questi paesi potranno ricevere una quantità di petrolio maggiore di quella di cui hanno bisogno e potranno venderne una parte ai paesi che hanno pubblicamente sostenuto le sanzioni.
Behind the Elon Musk-Twitter Saga
Share The ever-growing battle between Elon Musk and Twitter entered its latest round this week. On Wednesday, after Elon Musk accused Twitter of resisting his attempts to gather data on bot numbers, Twitter played an unexpected hand, granting him access to the “firehose.” The “firehose” is the unfiltered stream of tweets and the data about them—locations, usernames, information on the users. It’s been the subject of controversy before.
Behind the Scenes with President Zelensky
Photographs: Yan Dobronosov Welcome to the first edition of The Burner Files, my newsletter on global tech, business, geopolitics, and reportage, which will be published twice a week. Every few weeks, I’ll interview someone who has something interesting to say. My first interview is with President Volodymyr Zelensky on war, tech, and the future of Ukraine, which was published yesterday in WIRED. “We are all in a social network,” said President Zelensky. “This is our world now. It is divided.
Volodymyr Zelensky on War, Technology, and the Future of Ukraine
Ever since Russian forces started their all-out invasion in February, Ukraine has been hailed as an exemplar of how to defend against violent tyranny on the 21st-century battlefield. The country spun up an “IT Army” of volunteer hackers to take down Russian websites, used the Starlink satellite internet system to maintain communications as its own infrastructure was being destroyed, and launched a social media blitzkrieg to win support from around the world.
Volodymyr Zelensky on War, Technology, and the Future of Ukraine
By contrast, Russia’s leaders, despite having a far more powerful traditional army, have been stuck in the obsolete strategic thinking of the previous century. They were seemingly unprepared for the powerful, precise, Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones that Ukraine has used to decimate Russian tanks and ships.
Ukraine versus Afghanistan: Lessons in National Solidarity
Before he was actually president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian, starred as Ukraine’s fictional president in his three-season political satire Servant of the People. He played a junior high teacher who asked his students to leave the classroom one day so he could have a word with a school administrator. In private, he launched a tirade against corruption in the education system, while a student secretly filmed him from an open window nearby.
Review of The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China's Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future
Prior colonial rulers—the Spanish in Mindanao, the Dutch in Aceh, the French in Algeria, the Russians in Central Asia—have sought to control their Muslim subjects and defang Islamic sentiments, always failing. Can the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the territory historically known as East Turkestan and renamed Xinjiang by its Chinese overlords, succeed in this task? As Cain's title suggests, he believes it can.
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