Tim Cook's third idea elicited a wave of nods from the rest of the board. Cooperating with a competitor was never a good idea; it was just giving others a handle by which to exert control over them. And ruining their own hard work over the past decades of building up a specific brand identity for Apple was equally distasteful, if not more. So even if the anti-GAIA coalition was distasteful, and even if it wasn't effective, it was still the only viable option of the three they had been presented with.
Besides, even if they did want to cooperate with GAIA, Sarah had been adamant about not selling the chips they would need, no matter how much they'd offered or how sincere their offers had been.
"We can also claim they're a tech monopoly. It's bullshit and would never stand up, but the more things we throw at them, the more flustered they'll be and the more likely they'll be to submit." That generated a bit of a buzz of chuckles in the meeting room.