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Tim Cook on building Apple’s next campus: ‘We’re not doing a beauty contest kind of thing’

Tim Cook on building Apple’s next campus: ‘We’re not doing a beauty contest kind of thing’

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He’s not a fan of Amazon’s contest

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Apple Hosts Education Event At Chicago High School
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In an interview with Recode’s Kara Swisher and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Apple CEO Tim Cook made thinly veiled remarks about Amazon’s city search for a new headquarters and how it compares with Apple’s plan to build a new campus somewhere in the US. Although he wouldn’t specify where Apple’s new campus is going to be (beyond that it won’t be in California or Texas), he did take the opportunity to cast some aspersions on Amazon’s high-profile competition.

Cook said Apple will be running no such competition. “We’re not doing a beauty contest kind of thing,” Cook said. “That’s not Apple.”

“We’re not doing a beauty contest kind of thing. That’s not Apple.”

He continued: “From our point of view, we did not want to create this contest because I think what comes out of that is you wind up putting people through a ton of work ... [only for a company to select one winner] ... So that is a case where you have a winner and a lot of losers, unfortunately. I don’t like that.”

Cook said he didn’t “condemn” those states that throw their hats into a competition for a headquarters. For Apple, Cook said he looks for “win / win” situations, rather than creating a bunch of losers.

Speaking more generally about job creation in the US, Cook strenuously argued that many of the parts in the iPhone are, in fact, manufactured in the States. “We love this country,” he said. “We are patriots. So we want to create as many jobs as we can in the US.”

The majority of the interview up to that point was about education, which makes sense. Yesterday, Cook announced a new iPad and led an overview of Apple’s efforts in the education market, trying to make the case that the iPad is a better choice for schools than Chromebooks. Cook also spoke passionately about immigration, saying he “personally” is lobbying for DACA reform. The Swisher and Hayes interview with Cook will air on MSNBC on April 6th.