Apple in China

The Capture of the World's Greatest Company

By: Patrick McGee

Narrated by: Fred Sanders

“Phenomenal…a jaw-dropping book.” —Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Named by The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Prospect magazine as a best book of the year, this “scrupulously reported” (The New Yorker) and “astonishing” (The Daily Telegraph, London) book rivets with its portrayal of how Apple allowed itself to become dependent on China for a huge percentage of its manufacturing, making it vulnerable and unwittingly laying the groundwork for the Asian superpower to rival the US in technological expertise.

After struggling to build products on three continents, Apple turned to China’s seemingly endless supply of cheap labor. It soon deployed thousands of engineers, trained millions of workers, and invested hundreds of billions of dollars to create the most advanced global supply chain. These efforts fueled the iPhone’s dominance—but also laid the foundation for a powerful, state-supported Chinese electronics industry. What began as a business decision evolved into a cautionary tale of global trade, tech rivalry, and national security.

Without intending to, Apple helped Beijing acquire technological influence that could now be weaponized—a central concern in the ongoing US-China tech war. Drawing on over two hundred interviews, Patrick McGee exposes never-before-reported details from Silicon Valley to Shenzhen: internal emails, secretive executive meetings, and overlooked voices inside the company’s China operations.

You’ll meet the “Gang of Eight” executives tasked with appeasing Beijing, a Mormon missionary who launched Apple retail in China, and a veteran whose dreams of improving factory conditions were crushed by both Apple’s demands and Xi Jinping’s authoritarian crackdown. From Foxconn and Tim Cook to the Chinese Communist Party and Taiwan Semiconductor, this is a revelatory look at how Apple, in seeking efficiency, became entangled in the very politics it once claimed to challenge.

For readers of Chip War, American Factory, and The Big Short, Apple in China is a searing examination of corporate power, Chinese nationalism, deglobalization, and the fragile relationship between Silicon Valley and the world’s rising superpower.

AI reading distracting

Kind of misleading to say it was read by a person when it’s very clear that AI is reading it. Why would I pay this price just to have AI read it?

Excellent

I had no idea how dependent our current economy and technology is trapped in China

This was an awesome take on where China is today!

Nothing to dislike about this book.

A must read for all those concerned about the future of the global economy.

Awesome!!

Amazing history on how and why Apple became what it is today.

Great detail in the history and people who drove Apples sourcing strategy and growth from the very beginning. All told with engaging storytelling.

exposing the rotten apple

this book brings to light important information not known to the public. Glad I don't use I products.
Amazing how Apple sold out to the commies just to enrichen the top people at Apple and it's shareholders. Super cheap labor to deliver expensive final product to the world. Liberals with the "liveable wage" doctrine should all boycott Apple and quit using all its products.
The future just got scarier.