Unlike typical co-branded credit card portfolios that sell for a premium, Goldman Sachs offloaded the Apple Card's debt to JPMorgan at a significant loss. This underscores the program's unprofitability, driven by high defaults and operational costs, despite the prestigious Apple brand.

Apple insisted all card statements be sent on the first of the month to enhance customer experience. This forced Goldman Sachs to staff a massive, costly customer service team that was overwhelmed at the start of the month and idle for the remainder, unlike the staggered billing used by other banks.

Apple insisted all statements drop on the first of the month for a better user experience. This created massive spikes in customer service demand, requiring inefficient staffing. It reveals that what seems like a sloppy incumbent practice (staggered billing) is often a deliberate and crucial cost-optimization strategy that a disruptor ignores at its peril.

Steve Jobs fostered an inclusive premium brand accessible to anyone with money. Applying this to the Apple Card meant low credit score requirements, which conflicted with the financial necessity of risk-based rejection in lending. This philosophical mismatch contributed significantly to Goldman Sachs's portfolio losses and the partnership's failure.

Many brands aspire to fit into the middle of their category, fearing that being too different will alienate consumers. This pursuit of the average leads to a sea of sameness, where entire industries—from cars to banks—lose their distinctiveness by copying category norms.

In 2004, Apple considered a credit card whose points could only buy iTunes songs. This was economically brilliant for Apple due to high margins on digital music. However, the rise of streaming services like Spotify would have quickly rendered this reward system obsolete, highlighting the risk of tying loyalty programs to a single, disruptable product category.

Steve Jobs' vision of Apple as an inclusive brand conflicted with the necessary exclusivity of credit risk assessment. This led to lower underwriting standards (credit scores around 600) for the Apple Card, contributing to its poor performance and eventual sale by Goldman Sachs at a discount.

Apple's historic commitment to user privacy prevented it from using the vast data pools competitors leveraged for AI. This created a technical disadvantage, forcing Apple to use its marketing prowess ('lipstick') to mask a technologically inferior AI product ('the pig').

The consumer partnership with Apple represented less than 5% of Goldman Sachs's revenue but received disproportionate negative attention. The leadership team made the tough call to exit because the strategic distraction and damage to the firm's narrative outweighed its actual financial impact.