TIME Magazine Person of the Year 2012 Runner-Up: Apple CEO Tim Cook

TIME Magazine has come out with their annual Person of the Year for 2012 [Barack Obama], a rather diminished title after many dubious choices in recent years (some of them not even a person at all) and named Apple CEO Tim Cook among the many several “Runner-Ups” — #3 on the POTY list, to be exact — including Malala Yousafzai, Mohamed Morsi, and Fabiola Gianotti.

Lev Grossman writes, “Tim Cook has the decidedly nontrivial distinction of being the first CEO of Apple since the very first to come to power without blood on his hands. For most of its history, Apple has had a succession problem: it had no internal mechanism for transferring power from one CEO to the next without descending into civil war in between. ‘Each time,’ Cook says, ‘the way that the CEO was named was when somebody got fired and a new one came in.'”

“This clearly bothered Steve Jobs, because he spoke to Cook about it shortly before he died. ‘Steve wanted the CEO transition to be professional,’ Cook says. ‘That was his top thing when he decided to become chairman. I had every reason to believe, and I think he thought, that that was going to be in a long time.’ As we now know, it wasn’t,” Grossman writes. “As long as he was handpicking his successor, you’d think Jobs would have chosen someone in his own image, but he and Cook, who was Jobs’ COO at Apple, are in a lot of ways diametrical opposites. Jobs was loud, brash, unpredictable, uninhibited and very often unshaven. Cook isn’t. He doesn’t look like the CEO of Apple, he looks more like an Apple product: quiet, tidy, carefully curated, meticulously tooled and at the same time strangely warm and inviting. He doesn’t look like Jobs, he looks like something Jobs would have made. Cook’s flawless cap of white hair could have been designed by Jony Ive and fabricated in China out of brushed aluminum.”

Much more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: It’s ridiculous that Steve Jobs was never named TIME Magazine‘s “Man of the Year,” especially back when it mattered.

46 Comments

    1. Ha!, In 2006, TIME said the POTY was “You.”

      This has to be one of the best examples of, as MDN describes, “many dubious choices in recent years” that have led to POTY becoming a “rather diminished title.”

  1. TIME rag officially jumped the MOTY shark the year (2001) they named Rudolph Giuliani over Osama bin Laden, if not earlier. (See: 1988, The Endangered Earth or 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev, Man of the Decade – just two notable jokes.)

    The left-leaning TIME rag now makes weak, neutered, fearful choices. Another American institution ruined by so-called “Political Correctness” and spineless “leadership.”

      1. Still sad America is lead by the Biggest Loser and I’m not talking about a TV show. Still sad America is filled with low information voters who put America’s Biggest Loser in a position to totally Ef America up for decades to come…

        1. You mean the biggest loser George Bush who single handedly destroyed this country with two illegal wars while cutting taxes? Wars that put us trillion of dollars in debt? Name me one other country in the history of the world that went to war and cut taxes simultaneously?
          You are a fool

        2. That’s hilarious, because I voted for Obama for many reasons, one of them being that Romney WOULD NOT GIVE OUT specific details (“low information”) about any of his plans.

          I agree with the conservative side more often, but Romney just wouldn’t give any details & flipflopped so many times, I couldn’t vote for him.

        3. The One never gave specifics in 2008 or ’12, only Hope and Change, and Move Forward. Why guys like you post pretending to be something you’re only shows you’re a pathetic loser willing to take from someone else’s well earned stuff.

    1. Your swill is sub-moronic. Time Magazine, founded by Henry Luce, remains one of the foremost right-leaning publications available to the general audience. Historically, Newsweek catered to the so-called liberals, Time to the so-called conservatives, and US News and World Report to the capitalist crowd.

      Mikhail Gorbachev did more to end the cold war than your buddy Reagan. The Soviets collapsed because their economic system could not support nominal government spending and massive military exploits (also known as empire building or imperialism). When he took power, he realized that the only way that Russia could survive was to defuse the cold war. Reagan, OTOH, merely increased military spending to bankrupt the soviets.

      It would seem that the Endangered Earth is still a good choice today, as capitalists continue to choose to pursue policies that will leave the earth a smoking stone. IU hope you’re not planning on having children.

      One more thing: How is it that the right wing assholes lille you are the ones who complain against “political correctness where there is no evidences of such? Much like the assault on Christmas which is a complete fantasy. I’m looking out my window now at a public park displaying all sorts of seasonal motifs including Christian, Jewish and other traditions. Go fuck yourself, asshole.

    2. Message to America you pay less taxes then you govt needs to run. This is a path to bankruptcy, you need to raise taxes to pay for the services you clearly need.
      What difference does the party in power matter, both are pretty moronic…aren’t they, really? Come on.

    3. The left-leaning TIME rag…

      Oh First-Then. Your lack of intelligence remains profound. Time has historically been the CONSERVATIVE LEANING magazine. Ask your Neo-Con-Job pals and they’ll verify. Oops. It’s Newsweek magazine that’s left leaning.

      Should we laugh at you or just spit on you for your worthless commentaries, your willful ignorance? 😛

      1. You tell him genius. Nice. His “lack of intelligence” (because he doesn’t agree with you) means that you should “laugh at him and spit in his face” too! Talk about crawling out from under a rock? You are really a classy human being. How’s your new iPad mini working out for you clueless?

    1. Communism? Seriously? Corporate profits are at record highs (that means more money) than ever before, and you think it’s the same thing as Communism. Please. This is why we say the right-wing has lost touch with reality. You hate the black guy – I get that. But pretending he is something he is not only puts emphasis on your racism.

      1. There you Brown Shirts go. Maliciously false attacks for speaking the simple truth. Comparing Your Dear Leader to Lenin, Mao, and Musssolini you somehow find a race connection.

        Have you read The One’s own books! He’s an admitted Marxist. Record profits on selling,out before the coming collapse is not a good thing.

        1. If only. Facts are facts botvinnik. And facts are almost never on the side of the HATERS and IDIOTS such as yourself. Thus you obfuscate facts with PROPAGANDA and more HATE. You FAIL. You make me personally feel ill. I would like to pity you destroyers, but the damage you do is too dire for me to do anything but give you the ridicule you richly deserve.

        2. Dear botvinnik: Thank you for this motivation to quote your fascist mentor, Benito Mussolini. I’ve got a lot of them. I’m sure they’ll make sense to YOU:

          Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.
          – Benito Mussolini

          War is to man what maternity is to a woman. From a philosophical and doctrinal viewpoint, I do not believe in perpetual peace.
          – Benito Mussolini

          All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.
          – Benito Mussolini

          We become strong, I feel, when we have no friends upon whom to lean, or to look to for moral guidance.
          – Benito Mussolini

          Fascism is a religious concept.
          – Benito Mussolini

          Enjoy your look in the mirror. Motivations for further reflections upon your corrupt and lost soul are most welcome.
          :mrgreen:

  2. “Cook isn’t. He doesn’t look like the CEO of Apple, he looks more like an Apple product: quiet, tidy, carefully curated, meticulously tooled and at the same time strangely warm and inviting. He doesn’t look like Jobs, he looks like something Jobs would have made. Cook’s flawless cap of white hair could have been designed by Jony Ive and fabricated in China out of brushed aluminum.”

    lol

  3. Whenever TIME magazine announces their person of the year, people begin chiming in with their opinions. Obviously, different people have different idea about who should be PotY and why. Most seem to think that this particular title implies someone deserving, as if the title has positive implications. The magazine has always stated that the title is NOT an honour, and is only about the person who was most news worthy and influenced the world. While vast majority of choices are remarkable, exceptional people who left permanent mark on the world, there are also Hitler, Stalin (twice) and Khomeini.

    For the same reason as naming George W Bush in 2004 (winning re-election), they likely chose Obama this year.

    What TIME does accomplish during the slowest news week of the year is that people talk about them. That is, essentially, the entire purpose of the whole POTY concept.

  4. Cook certainly deserves Human Of The Year. His first official year as CEO has been remarkable, despite the famous flaws of imperfection. Apple continues to show the self-destructive BIZNIZZ BOZOS out in our global economy how to do things right. The same cannot be said of anything going on in Washington, DC, where the BIZNIZZ BOZOS rule and the vultures are circling in ever larger flocks.

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