在接受《財富》獨家專訪時，蘋果CEO蒂姆·庫克暢談這家科技巨頭如何通過投資可再生能源和教育等領域來實踐其企業使命。對于矢志改變世界的蘋果來說，最重要的途徑當然是制造一系列暢銷世界的產品。

史蒂夫·喬布斯有句名言，“我們在這里是要給這個宇宙留下印記。否則的話，為什么我們還要存在下去呢？”假如有一家公司自覺地專注于產生影響——用《財富》雜志年度榜單的行話說，就是改變世界——它就是蘋果。

然而，對于喬布斯而言，他尋求讓蘋果在這個宇宙留下的印記，幾乎完全圍繞著創造一批足以改變人們生活的新產品。這些產品不僅華麗，有用，而且很有趣，讓人驚喜連連，但它們自身幾乎跟“善行”無關。盡管它帶有嬉皮士般的虛飾，并展開了一系列貼心的市場營銷，但喬布斯治下的蘋果是一臺效率驚人的賺錢機器，社會事業基本上都留給了其他人來做。

56歲的蘋果首席執行官蒂姆·庫克在職業生涯的中期加入該公司。盡管他展現出了一位改變信仰者的熱情，但他的商業頭腦絲毫不亞于喬布斯。當被要求解釋蘋果如何改變世界的時候，他立即回答：“我們的產品”。

但就它如何將其社會意識投射到世界，以及它在企業界的地位而言，庫克執掌的蘋果是一家徹底改變的公司。在2008年一篇題為“史蒂夫背后的天才”的封面報道中，《財富》執行主編亞當·拉辛斯基首次向讀者推介這位未來的蘋果掌門人。三月下旬的一天，庫克接受了拉辛斯基的專訪，暢談蘋果對自身作為一股向善的力量的看法。

庫克的一些表述令人驚訝，包括為什么他拒絕設立企業基金會?；蛘咛O果的一些醫療保健措施（它源自為蘋果手表設計的應用）并沒有明顯的賺錢模式，可能永遠不會。

庫克還描述了這樣一幅圖景：蘋果的慈善活動和其他在商業上有益的善行，與該公司的產品開發精神是一個有機整體。它試圖做相對較少的事情，以更好地保持專注。蘋果最大的優先事項包括可再生能源（它自己運營一套主要依賴這類能源的設施），教育（它專注于從幼兒園到社區學院的編碼教學），以及醫療保健——比如，通過與全球基金會合作的“紅色產品”計劃，該公司已經為抗擊艾滋病毒事業籌集了1.3億美元。

最后，庫克指出，通過其“應用程序經濟”，蘋果為美國創造了200萬個工作崗位，為世界其他地區創造了“數百萬個”就業機會。他認為這是蘋果為社會做出的最大貢獻。對于蘋果來說，所有這一切都回到了其產品本身。此時此刻，大約10億個蘋果產品正在給這個宇宙留下印記。

《財富》雜志：蘋果是否改變了世界？

蒂姆·庫克：是的，我認為蘋果以多種方式改變了這個世界。在我看來，蘋果改變世界的首要方式是通過我們的產品。我們為人們制造產品，這些工具能夠幫助用戶做他們此前無法做到的事情，使他們能夠創造，學習，教學或玩耍?；蛘咦鲆恍┓浅０舻氖虑椤?/p>

這就是我們改變世界的主要方式。我們也試圖通過我們經營公司的方式來改變世界。無論是非常專注于環境，以確保我們沒有留下碳足跡，還是以100%的可再生能源來運營我們的公司。

我們支持人權事業，因為蘋果向來致力于為每個人制造產品?？梢哉f，如果人們在世界任何地方被視為二等公民，那么這一目標就很難實現。

我們認為，教育是一種旨在促進平等的絕佳途徑。所以，我們竭力將教育帶入主流?，F在，我們的工作重心是編碼，因為我們認為編碼是世界上每個人的第二種語言，無論他們是否從事科技類工作。我認為，即使你并不是科技工作者，編碼也非常重要。

我們試圖倡導人們的隱私權，因為我們生活在一個技術可以做很多事情的世界，但有些事情它不應該做。所以，我們非常努力地保護人們的隱私和安全，并希望幫助他們防止壞事。

所以，我們試圖用我們運營公司的方式來做所有這些事情。但我們改變世界的主要方式永遠是通過我們的產品。因為我們以這種方式觸達了如此多的人。

你說，蘋果致力于制造每個人都能使用的產品。但蘋果的經營策略是制造高價位，高利潤的高端產品。這就是為什么你們現在是世界上最有價值的公司。

嗯，不是高利潤。我不會用那個詞。有很多公司的利潤要比我們高得多。我們基于產品的價值定價。我們嘗試著制造最好的產品。這意味著，我們不會制造商品類產品。我們無意貶低制造這類產品的人；這是一個很好的商業模式。但它并非我們涉足的業務類型。

但如果你瀏覽我們的產品線，你今天可以用不到300美元購買一部iPad。你也可以購買一部同樣價位的iPhone手機，這取決于你選擇的產品類型。所以說，這些產品并不是為富人制造的。倘若我們是為富人制造這些產品，我們的活躍設備數量顯然不會超過10億，因為任何看到這個數字的人都會認為它相當龐大。

談談圍繞蘋果生存的經濟。

不妨想想蘋果正在賦予人們——特別是開發商——多大的權力。我們正在為開發人員提供的工具，不僅僅是設備，還包括一套隨同設備一起使用的開發工具包。這樣一來，他們就可以利用自身的激情和創造力來構建產品。

然后，蘋果商店給予他們面向全世界銷售的能力。以前不可想象的是，你可以坐在你的地下室，經營一門全球業務。所以，在世界上每個國家，一批企業家正在涌現出來，做自己想做的事情。

我們也制造產品。但我們自己不做，而是第三方為我們制造。在美國，我們有很多這樣的合作伙伴。在美國之外，也有許多公司為我們制造產品。但我們用這種方式創造了大量工作崗位。通過應用經濟和產品，當然還包括我們自己聘用的員工，我們已經為美國創造了200萬個就業機會。

為世界創造了多少就業機會？

數百萬。

最近，蘋果似乎對健康領域很感興趣。這是一門潛在的賺錢業務，還是某種更加無私的事業？

幾年前，我們開始研發蘋果手表。我們專注于健康。健康的真諦不僅在于監測活動，還包括對你的健康進行某種測量——人們通常不會進行這種測量，至少不會進行持續性測量。比如你的心臟。很少有人戴心臟監護儀。所以當我們致力于研發蘋果手表的時候，我們開始意識到，我們能做的事情遠比這樣一款智能設備更加深刻。

我們對這個領域很感興趣。是的，這是一個商機。如果你仔細觀察的話，你會發現，醫療活動是經濟體中最大或第二大組成部分，這取決于你正在跟哪個國家打交道。在這一領域，設備層面的關注焦點從來都不是純粹地致力于制造偉大的產品。人們關注的焦點向來是制造某種能夠通過保險公司、聯邦醫療保險和聯邦醫療補助獲得補償的產品。所以在某些方面，我們正在將一個全新的視角帶入這個領域，并且說，“忘記所有這一切吧。什么樣的產品會幫助人們？”

真正讓我們驚訝和高興的是，拜其監控心臟的功能所賜，這款設備事實上能夠通過其收集的數據提醒人們，他們有問題。這會激勵他們去看醫生：“看看我的心率數據。有什么問題嗎？”不少人已經發現，要不是及時就醫，他們很可能已經不在人世了。

我們也發現——在某種程度上是出于好奇心的偶然發現——人們從事健康研究的方式仍然非常老派。許多研究機構還在投放分類廣告，以鼓勵相關受眾踴躍參加。我們推出軟件開發工具ResearchKit，并且讓它成為一個源泉，以便人們從事規模龐大的研究。事實上，我們利用這個平臺進行了世界歷史上規模最大的疾病研究，比如帕金森病等等。老實說，我們還沒有賺到一分錢。但我們認為，這種事情對社會有利，所以我們就做了。它最終將引領我們走向何方？我們將拭目以待。我今天不能回答。

健康領域還有很多潛力可挖。我們正在進行大量研究，具體細節我不方便告知。其中一些顯然是商業項目，另一些顯然不是。還有一些目前還不清楚。我認為，對于蘋果的未來來說，這是一個龐大的領域。

現在有很多公司都成立了基金會，但蘋果還沒有。為什么？

這是一個很好的問題。我們曾經仔細考慮過。

什么時候？

我曾經在2012年初審視過這個問題。

出于多方面的考量，我決定不這樣做。根據我的判斷，一家公司成立基金會的風險在于，它有可能成為另一個與公司沒有聯系的實體。它有另一套董事班子。有時候，他們會獨立做出合理的決策?？傊蔀榱硪粋€不相關的實體。這是我不希望在蘋果看到的。我希望每個人都參與其中，因為我認為，我們之所以擁有如此大的力量，能夠做如此多事情，是因為我們更加強大，是因為我們足夠團結，是因為我們全力以赴。

我們從事的公益事業并不多。但我們試圖全力以赴，做到最好。

從產品的設計和開發，到我們使用的材料，我們一直致力于保護環境。在制造方面，我們一直在關注可再生能源。每當建立一個數據中心的時候，我們總是確保它使用的是可再生能源。在地球日，我們希望所有的蘋果店都行動起來，設法讓客戶意識到他們能做的事情。我們試圖讓所有人參與其中，是因為這樣做可以產生更大的影響。我們可以成為池塘中的漣漪。倘若我們成立一家基金會，我擔心它會成為10個、12個、20個或50個人做的事情。突然間，對于蘋果的12萬員工來說，它就成為與他們無關的事情。人們來這里工作，是為了改變世界。所以，我認為這應該成為蘋果不可或缺的一部分，而不是轉交給一家基金會的次要任務。

有沒有人不同意你的決定？

我收到了一些建議。這些建議都是跟建立一家基金會相關。但我自己的判斷是，當你真的開始詢問5個為什么的時候，他們最終給出的理由都是，其他人都這樣做了?；蛘咭驗橐恍┤擞X得，通過成立一家基金會，你可以向外界發出一個訊號：你真的很關心社會。我認為這幾乎就是一種營銷手段。我們“做善事”不是為了宣傳自己。這絕非蘋果的營商之道。我意識到，建立一家基金會可以獲得稅收優惠等好處。但我的觀點是，如果你想做善事，你需要最大化做善事的方式。

我認為，有12萬人作為后盾，我們能做的善事遠遠多于讓12個人坐在一個角落里制定決策。我不是批評這樣做的人。我想也許他們找到了一種不錯的方式。但蘋果不是這樣。

讓我們談談教育。我知道，這是史蒂夫·喬布斯酷愛的事業。

他對教育市場非常感興趣，但不止于此。他非常熱衷于學習。史蒂夫是一位終身學習者，他知道終身學習的價值。而且他覺得，傳統的教育方式并不奏效。

他認為現代教育的一大要素就是數字教室。所以在不同階段，他一直在推動蘋果設備進入課堂，最初是Mac電腦——實際上，在Mac電腦問世之前，他就推動蘋果電腦進入課堂——然后是iPad。因為他看到了iPad可以釋放出來的力量，他希望所有使用課本的孩子都能用上iPad，因為他看到許多孩子背著重達50磅的書籍行走在街上。一個僅有50磅重的小孩竟然背著50磅的書籍！此外，書籍很單調，沒有什么令人興奮的地方。所以，他花費1000萬美元打造了一本教科書，以顯示另一種可能性。

現在，我們試圖將這種策略推向下一步。我們的下一步是，我們認為每個人都應該學習編碼。這不僅僅是因為現在懂編碼的人存在巨大缺口，還因為我們認為，技術的本質正在日益水平化，而不是垂直化。很多人認為，技術像其他事物一樣，是一種垂直化技能。我真的不這樣認為。我認為，技術已經變得非常水平化。

但在進一步觀察之后，我們發現有多個問題。一個問題是，編碼被認為是計算機科學家的工作，它是針對某種類型的學生的，一種非常技術性的學生。所以我們創建了一個新的編程語言Swift。Swift的整個概念是，你創造了一種易于使用蘋果產品的編程語言。所以每個人都可以學習。然而，它足夠強大，可以編寫你夢想的最復雜的應用程序。然后，我們開始思考，我們還能做什么。于是，我們就推出了Swift Playgrounds，這是一套面向小學四五年級那個年齡段的課程。它就開始起飛了。所以我們退后一步，為整個K–12階段的學生開發了一個更大的課程，即“人人都能編碼。”

所有這些課程都是免費的。世界各地的任何人只要想學習，都可以獲得這套課程。我們推出了多個語言版本。在過去一年半左右，我們學到了不少東西。但我們意識到，我們還沒有觸及社區學院。我們需要進入社區學院。令我們驚訝的是，我們已經建立了30個社區學院系統。

相對于技術行業的其他公司，蘋果在保護隱私方面的立場一直很強硬。技術行業是否正在進一步轉向蘋果的立場？

我不認為有很多人像我們一樣把隱私問題置于最重要的優先事項。我所看到的是，隨著用戶社區的不斷擴大，隱私的重要性正在增加。安全性的重要性正在呈指數級增長。這是因為黑客事件頻發，關于此類事件的報道不絕于耳。我認為，現在沒有碰到這類問題，或者沒有聽聞信用卡信息失竊等問題的人恐怕不是很多。

所以我覺得，人們將更加重視這個問題，我相信的一幕終將發生，因為那些不遵循客戶意愿的公司不會做得太好。所以，我認為這意味著更多的公司將更加重視隱私問題。

我希望這一幕發生，因為我們的數據非常私密，我們的個人信息是私人信息。此外，這些設備可以讓你的生活變得更好，但你也希望它們足夠安全。

許多人將iPhone和iPad視為不良社交行為的工具，例如容易分心，一些孩子長時間地盯著屏幕。你怎么看？

我們的整個前提是，將我們的產品與人融為一體。因此，如果你仔細想想蘋果手表的功能，除了我們剛剛從健康角度談論的所有內容之外，你會發現，它允許你保持一定程度的連接，而不會完全沉浸其中。所以，如果你只想要某些人給你發消息，那么你只需等待那個重要信息。

或者有一些你真正需要的通知，你可以在這里做其他事情，或者進行這樣的談話，而不是等待，不斷地拿起設備查看。

此外，隨著iOS 11 (iPhone和iPad的最新操作系統)的推出，當你開始旅行，啟動汽車的時候，你會發現你的手機不會接收通知。如果你拿起手機，說“我沒有開車，”它就會給你發送通知。如果你想的話，你可以將這些推送關閉。但我們一直嘗試著幫助人們保護自己，幫助人們做正確的事情。

我認為所有的公司都應該這樣做，真正想明白消費者如何使用他們的產品。使用一款產品有點像吃健康的食物。真的很棒。但你有可能吃太多的健康食物，你也有可能過度使用某種設備。

這款手表還有一個呼吸應用——我發現你沒戴蘋果手表。它會經常提示你進行一分鐘的呼吸運動。如果你這樣做一個星期，那么在這個星期結束的時候，你就會驚奇地感到你的呼吸多么順暢。不這樣做的話，你根本體會不到。

你自己做嗎？

我做。有時候，它會在不方便的時候點擊我，而我不能做。但我可以讓它隨后提醒我。它真的會給你帶來驚喜。所以，我們一直在嘗試著思考這一切。

但這個問題顯然要比一款呼吸應用或一款安全應用更大。

這是許多事情的集合。如果你想全天無休地使用這個設備（他指向自己的iPhone），我可能不會阻止你，也許不應該。因為這就是我們生活的國家。你擁有這種自由。但作為這款設備的提供者，我應該考慮一些可能對你有幫助的事情。在這方面，我們真的很努力。

最后一個問題。似乎有充分的證據表明，相當大一部分公眾認為，公司是壞的，它們并不是一股向善的力量。你顯然相信，有一家公司是一股向善的力量。你是否認為公眾的關切是正當的，公司需要做得更好？

我認為，像其他任何東西一樣，有些公司是好的，有些不是。所以，我認為你不能一概而論。就像人一樣。大多數人都是熱心腸。但偶爾，你也會遇到不那么熱心的人。所以，我認為公司也是這樣。我不認同“所有的公司都好”或“所有的公司都不好”那種說法。我認為，生活沒有這么簡單。

《財富》榜單的終極目標畢竟是慶賀那些正在對世界產生積極影響的公司。

我們將永遠致力于改善這個世界。這是我們在上世紀70年代創建蘋果的動機。今天，它仍然是我們的動機。它是我們的驅動力。我們想做正確的事情，而不是容易做的事情。因為我們做的很多事都不容易。一路走來，我們遭遇過不少挫折。但我們總是嘗試做正確的事。（財富中文網）?

譯者：Kevin

IN AN EXCLUSIVE Q&A, CEO TIM COOK TALKS ABOUT HOW THE TECH GIANT IS EMBRACING ITS CORPORATE MISSION BY INVESTING IN EVERYTHING FROM RENEWABLE ENERGY TO EDUCATION TO, YES, WORLD-CHANGING PRODOCTS.

“WE’RE HERE TO PUT a dent in the universe,” Steve Jobs once famously said. “Otherwise why else even be here?” If ever a company was self-consciously focused on making an impact—changing the world, in the argot of Fortune’s annual list—it’s Apple.

And yet, for Jobs the dent that he intended for Apple to make in the universe revolved almost totally around creating new products that would change people’s lives. Those products would be gorgeous and useful and fun and surprising, but rarely “good” in and of themselves. Despite a hippie-dippie veneer and earnest marketing, Apple under Jobs was a ruthlessly efficient moneymaker that largely left social programs to others.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, 56, who joined the company in the middle of his career and has assumed the zealousness of a convert, is no less commercially minded than Jobs. And when asked to explain how Apple changes the world he answers immediately with two words one can imagine Jobs saying too: “our products.”

But Apple under Cook is a company transformed in terms of how it projects onto the world its social awareness and its place in the corporate community. Fortune executive editor Adam Lashinsky, who first profiled Cook in a 2008 magazine cover story titled “The Genius Behind Steve,” sat down with the CEO in late March to discuss Apple’s view of itself as a force for good.

Some of what Cook said is surprising, including why he personally rejected the idea of establishing a corporate foundation. Or that some of Apple’s health care initiatives—which sprang from apps designed for the Apple Watch—have no discernible model for making money and may never.

Cook also paints a picture of Apple’s philanthropic and otherwise commercially beneficent activities as of a piece with the company’s ethos on product development: It tries to do relatively few things so as to better focus on them. Apple’s biggest priorities include renewable energy (it runs its own facilities overwhelmingly on them), education (it is focused on teaching coding from kindergarten through community college), and health care (including the $130 million it has raised for HIV/AIDS through its PRODUCT (RED) partnership with the Global Fund).

Ultimately, Cook sees Apple’s greatest societal contribution coming through the 2 million U.S. jobs it believes it creates through its “app economy” as well as the “many millions” more it supports in the rest of the world. For Apple, everything comes back to its products, about a billion of which are denting the universe at this very moment.

FORTUNE: Has Apple changed the world?

TIM COOK: Yes, I think in numerous ways. I think the No. 1 way Apple changes the world is through our products. We make products for people that are tools to enable them to do things that they couldn’t otherwise do—to enable them to create or learn or teach or play. Or do something really wonderful.

So that’s the primary way we change the world. We also try to change the world by the way we run the company. And whether that’s being very focused on the environment and making sure that we have a no-carbon footprint, essentially, or running our company on 100% renewable energy.

We advocate for human rights, because Apple has always been about making products for everyone. And, arguably, if people are treated as second-class citizens in any part of the world, then it’s kind of hard to accomplish that objective.

We believe education is a great equalizer. And so we try our best to bring education to the mainstream. And right now our major thrust is in coding because we think that coding is the sort of the second language for everyone in the world. And that’s regardless of whether they’re in technology or not. I think that you don’t have to be in technology for coding to be very important.

We try to advocate for people’s privacy because we are living in a world where technology can do lots of things, but there’s things that it shouldn’t do. And so we try very hard to protect people’s privacy and security and hopefully keep some of these bad things at bay for them.

So we try to do all of those things in the way that we conduct ourselves and run the company. But the primary way we will always change the world is through our products. Because we touch so many more people in that manner.

You say that Apple makes its products for everyone to be able to use. But Apple’s business strategy is to make premium-priced, high-margin, high-end products, which is why you’re the most valuable company in the world.

Well it’s not high margin. I wouldn’t use that word. There’s a lot of companies that have much higher margins. We price for the value of our products. And we try to make the very best products. And that means we don’t make commodity kind of products. And we don’t disparage people that do; it’s a fine business model. But it’s not the business that we’re in.

But if you look across our product lines, you can buy an iPad today for under $300. You can buy an iPhone, depending upon which one you select, for in that same kind of ballpark. And so these are not for the rich. We obviously wouldn’t have over a billion products that are in our active installed base if we were making them for the rich because that’s a sizable number no matter who’s looking at the numbers.

Talk about the economy that exists around Apple.

Think about Apple empowering people, particularly developers. The tool that we’re giving developers is not only a device but the developer kit that goes with the device so that they can in turn utilize their passion and creativity to build their product.

And then the App Store gives them the ability to sell to the world. It wasn’t imaginable that long ago that you could sit in your basement and run a global business. And so there’s entrepreneurs springing up in every country in the world and doing things they want to do.

We also manufacture. We don’t do it ourselves but we have third parties manufacturing for us. We have a ton of companies within the United States that do that; we have a ton of companies outside the United States that do that. But we create a lot of jobs in that way. Between the app economy and manufacturing, and then of course our own employment, we’ve created over 2 million jobs in the U.S.

What’s the corresponding figure for the world?

It’s many millions.

Recently Apple has become interested in health. Is this a potential moneymaker, or something more altruistic?

We started working on the Apple Watch several years ago. And we were focused on wellness. And wellness was about activity monitoring and also about performing some measurements of your health that people were not measuring, at least continually. Like your heart. Very few people wore heart monitors. So when we got into working on the watch we began to realize that the things that we could do were even more profound than that.

We’re extremely interested in this area. And, yes, it is a business opportunity. If you look at it, medical health activity is the largest or second-largest component of the economy, depending on which country in the world you’re dealing with. And it hasn’t been constructed in a way where the focus at the device level is making great products from a pure point of view. The focus has been on making products that can get reimbursed through the insurance companies, through Medicare, or through Medicaid. And so in some ways we bring a totally fresh view into this and say, ‘Forget all of that. What will help people?’

One of the things that we’ve learned that we’ve been really surprised and delighted about is this device, because of the monitoring of the heart, has essentially alerted people through the collection of the data that they have a problem. And that spurred them to go to the doctor and say, ‘Look at my heart rate data. Is something wrong?’ And a not-insignificant number have found out if they hadn’t come into the doctor they would have died.

We also discovered, somewhat by happenstance out of our curiosity, that the way that research was being conducted was sort of an old-world kind of thing. People were still putting classified ads in to try to get subjects to sign up. We put out ResearchKit [a software developers tool] and made it a source so that people could run enormous-sized studies. And there have been studies in Parkinson’s and so forth that literally are the largest studies ever in the history of the world. And we’re just scratching the surface right now. There’s no business model there. Honestly, we don’t make any money on that. But it was something that we thought would be good for society and so we did it. Will it eventually lead us somewhere? We’ll find out. I can’t answer that today.

There’s much more in the health area. There’s a lot of stuff that I can’t tell you about that we’re working on, some of which it’s clear there’s a commercial business there. And some of it it’s clear there’s not. And some of it it’s not clear. I do think it’s a big area for Apple’s future.

Why does Apple not have a foundation the way so many companies do?

That’s a really good question. We looked at it in some detail.

When?

I looked at it in early 2012.

And I decided not to do it. And here’s why. When a company sets up a foundation, there is a risk, in my judgment, of the foundation becoming this other thing that is not connected to the company. It has a separate board of directors. They make reasonably independent decisions sometimes. It becomes a separate thing. I don’t want that for Apple. I want everybody involved. Because I think that the power that we bring, the things that we can do is because we’re stronger—it’s with our unity there. It’s when we put all of ourselves in it.

We don’t work on that many things. But we try to put all of ourselves in it.

With the environment we’re working from the design and development of our products, the kind of materials that we use. In manufacturing we’re looking at the renewable energy sources. When we put a data center in, we want to make sure that’s with renewable energy. On Earth Day we want all of our stores involved in making our customers aware of things they can do. We try to get all of us involved because it makes a much bigger difference. We can be the ripple in the pond then. If we had a foundation, my fear was it becomes something that 10 or 12 or 20 or 50 people do. And all of a sudden for the 120,000, it’s just this separate thing out there. People work here to change the world. So I think that should be integral to what the company does. Not peripheral in a foundation.

Did anyone disagree with your decision?

I got several recommendations, all of which were to set up a foundation. But I think my own judgment was when you really started asking the five whys, they all eventually landed on, because everybody else has done it. Or because some people felt that by having a foundation it was a signal that you cared. I see that as marketing almost, and we don’t ‘do good’ to market. That’s not what we’re about. And I realize there’s tax benefits with a foundation and all that kind of stuff. But look, again my perspective is, if you want to do good you maximize how to do good.

My view, we do a lot more good with a 120,000 people behind it than we would putting 12 people over in a corner to make decisions. I’m not criticizing people that do that. I think maybe they found a way and maybe it’s great. But it wouldn’t be Apple.

Let’s turn to education, which I know was a passion of Steve Jobs.

He was very interested in education as a market, but more than that. He was very keen on learning. And Steve was a lifelong learner, and he knew the value of it. And he felt that the traditional education approaches were not working.

And he thought one element of modern education was the digital classroom. And so at various stages, in early days, he was pushing Macs in classrooms. Actually pre-Mac he was pushing Apple computers in classrooms. And then iPad. Because he saw what iPad could unleash, he wanted to get all the textbook guys on the iPad because he saw kids walking with these 50 pounds of books, this little kid that weights 50 pounds trying to carry 50 pounds of books. And also that the book was flat. That there was nothing exciting. So he went out and spent $10 million on one textbook to show what was possible.

What we’ve tried to do is take that now to the next step. And our next step was we think everybody should learn coding. Not only because there’s a huge shortage of people that know how to code today, but because we see technology increasingly horizontal in nature and not vertical. A lot of people think of technology as kind of a vertical like all the others. I don’t really see that. I see that technology has become very horizontal.

But when we looked at it we found that there were multiple issues. One issue was that coding was viewed as being for computer scientists, that it was for a certain type of student, a very technical kind of student. And so we created a new programming language called Swift. And the whole concept of Swift is you make a coding language that has the ease of use of our products. And so everybody can learn it. Yet, it’s powerful enough to write the most complex apps that you’d ever want to dream up. And then we thought, well, what else can we do, and so we came out with Swift Playgrounds, a curriculum for say K4, K5, sort of in that age range. And that began to take off. And so then we took a step back and we made a bigger program for all of K–12 called “Everyone Can Code.”

And all this curriculum stuff is free. Anybody can have it that wants it around the world. We’ve done it in multiple languages. And then with things that we’ve learned over the last year, year and a half or so, we thought, We’re not hitting community colleges. And we need to hit community colleges. To our surprise we’ve already got 30 community college systems set up.

Apple has taken a hard line on privacy, relative to others in the tech industry. Is the industry moving more toward Apple’s position?

I don’t think there’s very many people that place it at the top of the list as we do. What I do see is that the broader user community, the importance of privacy is increasing. And the importance of security is exponentially increasing. And that’s because of all of the hacks, all of the reports of things that have gone on. You would be hard pressed to find very many people that haven’t had a problem I think, or heard of a problem from credit cards to whatever.

And so I think people appreciate it more and what I believe will occur, because companies that don’t follow customers don’t do very well, and so I think that will mean that more companies will put a higher priority on it.

And I hope that happens because our data is very private, our personal information is private stuff. And also, these devices can make your life so much better, but you want them to be secure.

How do you deal with the fact that many people view iPhones and iPads as tools of bad social behavior, like distractedness and children who stare for too long into a screen?

Our whole premise is to infuse our products with humanity. And so if you think about what the watch does, other than all the stuff we’ve already talked about from a wellness point of view, one of the things the watch does it allows you to have a curated level of connection without being absorbed in it. And so if you just want certain people to be able to message you or whatever, you’re waiting for that important message.

Or there’s some kind of notification that you really need, you can do that here and sort of be in the moment in a conversation. As opposed to waiting and continually picking this thing up to find out.

Also, with iOS 11 [the newest operating system for the iPhone and iPad], when you start traveling, you’re going to find out your phone is not going to accept notifications when you start moving in the car. And if you pick your phone up, you can say, “I’m not driving,” and it will give them to you. And if you want you can go in there and turn that off. But we’re trying to help people protect themselves and help people do the right thing.

I think that all companies should do that, to really think through how their products are used. Using a product is somewhat like eating healthy food. It’s really great. But you can eat too much of healthy food. And you can use something too much.

The watch also has—I see you’re not using one—but there’s a breathing app on here. And every so often it will tap you and prompt you to go through a one-minute breathing exercise. If you did this just for one week, it’s amazing how you’ll feel at the end of the week vs. not doing it.

You do it?

I do it. Sometimes it taps me at an inconvenient time and I can’t. But I can go in there and prompt it later. And it’s sort of a “Whooo ...” So we really do try to think about all of this.

But surely the problem is bigger than a breathing app or a safety app.

It’s the set of many things. If you want to use this 24 hours a day [he motions to his iPhone], I’m probably not going to prevent you and probably shouldn’t. Because that’s the country we live in. You’re free to do that. But I ought to, as the provider of that, think through some things I could do that might be helpful for you. And we really try hard to do that.

Very last thing. There appears to be ample evidence that many parts of the public believe that corporations are bad, that they’re not a force for good in the world. You clearly believe one corporation in particular is a force for good. Is it a valid concern though on the part of the public and do corporations need to do better?

I think that corporations are like anything else in that there are some that are good and some that are not. So I don’t think you can paint all with one brush. Just like people. Most people are really big hearted. But occasionally you meet somebody that’s not. And so corporations are like that too, I think. I don’t subscribe to “all are good” or “all are bad.” I think life is not simple like that.

The ultimate objective of Fortune’s list, after all, is to celebrate companies that are making a positive impact on the world.

We will always try to change the world for the better. That was the motivation behind creating Apple when it was created back in the ’70s. And it’s still the motivation today. It’s what drives us. We want to do what’s right, not what’s easy. Because a lot of what we do is not easy. And we take some spears along the way. But we always try to do what’s right.