The Four

consider very close friends—as the joke goes, people who will help you
move a body (6 people), and the number of people we can work with
efficiently as a team (12), up to the number of people we recognize on
sight (1,500 people). The unseen power of Facebook is that it not only
deepens our connections to those groups, but by providing more
powerful, multimedia lines of communication, it expands our
connections to more members. This makes us happier; we feel
accepted and loved.
Apple started out in the head, firmly in the tech sector’s vocabulary
of logistics. It boasted efficiency: “Ford spent the better part of 1903
tackling the same details you’ll handle in minutes with an Apple,” read
a print ad. The Mac helped you “think different.” But finally, Apple has
migrated further down the torso. Its self-expressive, luxury brand
appeals to our need for sex appeal. Only by addressing our procreative
hungers could Apple exact the most irrational margins, relative to
peers, in business history and become the most profitable firm in
history. When I was on the board of Gateway, we operated (poorly) on
6 percent margins. Apple computers—not as powerful—garnered 28
percent. We, Gateway, had been relegated to the brain (Gateway didn’t
make you more attractive), where Dell had already won the (rational)
scale game. We were in no-man’s-land and sold for scrap. Having
reached $75/share several years earlier, we sold for $1.85/share to
Acer.
The lust for Apple-branded goods has given the company its cult-
like status. People who belong to this cult pride themselves on their
hyperrational choice to buy Apple products based on their ergonomic
design, superior operating system, and resistance to viruses and
hackers. Like the kids who sell them Apple products, they consider
themselves “geniuses,” illuminati, foot soldiers in the Apple crusade to
think different and change the world. Most of all, they think it makes
them cool.
But people outside the cult see it for what it is: a rationalization for
something a lot closer to lust. Android users assuage their jealousy
with their rational self. Buying Apple is irrational (spending $749 on a
phone when you can have a similar one for $99). And they would be
right. You don’t camp out in front of a store waiting for the next-
generation iPhone because you’re making a sound decision.