“Tim Cook’s declaration on Thursday that ‘I’m proud to be gay’ made him the first publicly gay chief executive of a Fortune 500 company,” James B. Stewart reports for The New York Times. “But Mr. Cook isn’t just any chief executive. And Apple isn’t any company. It’s one of the most profitable companies in the Fortune 500 and ranks No. 1 on the magazine’s annual ranking of the most admired companies.”
“As Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, put it, ‘He’s chief executive of the Fortune One. Something has consequences because of who does it, and this is Tim Cook and Apple. This will resonate powerfully,'” Stewart reports. “Trevor Burgess, the openly gay chief executive of C1 Financial in Florida, and one of the first publicly gay chief executives of a public company, said Tim Cook used ‘the metaphor of laying a brick on the ‘path towards justice.” But, ‘This is more like 600 million bricks,’ Mr. Burgess said. ‘He has the most influential voice in global business.'”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Human Rights Campaign: Tim Cook’s announcement that he is gay will save countless lives – October 30, 2014
Apple CEO Tim Cook: ‘I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me’ – October 30, 2014
Apple joins Gay Pride parade in Austin, Texas – September 21, 2014
Apple releases video highlighting employee participation in San Francisco’s LGBT Pride Parade – July 8, 2014
Tim Cook, Apple employees march in LGBT Pride Parade in San Francisco – June 30, 2014
Apple inviting employees to march in annual San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade – May 7, 2014
Apple donates $100,000 to fight same-sex marriage ban in California (Proposition 8) – October 24, 2008
Wow, this is just such a non-story to me that it blows my mind. So Tim Cook is gay, big deal. It doesn’t affect his ability to run Apple.
I guess I “evolved” on the issue when I was in college in the early ’90s and had a good friend who was totally out. Being from Iowa it was a shock at first but I realized his dating problems with guys were the same as mine with girls so it became a non-issue. Now my wife and I have a lot of gay friends but maybe we’re in the minority in this country.
It’s a non-issue in the U.S., but it could have an effect worldwide. Remember Tim Cook meeting with Erdogan of Turkey in the past year or so? Or how about the recent rumors of Apple selling devices in Iran, where gays are still spurned by religious leaders? How about Russia, where “gay propaganda” laws were put into place?
The scope is global.
… a non-issue in a lot of places. Have not the homophobes been complaining about this for well over a year?
If Russia and Iran want to block the sales of Apple products due to Cook’s gayness, good for the rest of us. They don’t deserve the nicest tech if they insist on living in the stone age! (message to Rush … get it together!) 😉
Unfortunately, good guys like you are still minority. The more so, internationally. In many “right-wing” countries like Russia and Poland Apple can have public image ramifications because of Cook’s statement.
Morons come out of the closet with their insane religious prejudices against LGBTs.
So Cook’s decision is a big story, and the fact that he consulted with Apple Board on whether to go this route is, alas, obviously necessary due to issue “conservative” markets both inside USA and abroad.
But even in such markets, for those who are struggling and live in fear to be attacked for no reason just because they are LGBTs, Cook’s statement means a lot.
Thus this event is big for both Cook personally and Apple as company and to people whom it may concern worldwide.
In the past couple of days writers and commenters have characterized TC as focused on his job, courageous and generous. Those sound like pretty good qualities in a CEO.
There will continue to be some noise about this announcement from Cook for a few more days. It will then simply go away and that will be that.
Meanwhile, while there are few who are annoyed that this is such a big story, we have to understand that it is indeed a BIG STORY.
Human society has evolved over centuries, and that evolution continues. Long ago, we stopped bringing young girls as sacrifice to our gods. We also stopped stoning our women who would “allow themselves to get raped” (although in some parts of the world, they still do that). We then stopped buying and selling people like property (although in some part of the world, they still do that). Then we made it illegal to beat our wives (although in some parts of the world…). Then we gave our women the right to vote (although, in some parts…). Then we allowed people of different religion to inter-marry (although in some parts…); then we allowed people of different race to marry (although in some parts…); then we allowed people of same sex to marry (although…).
The point is, as we as a society evolve, we remove artificial obstacles which we as a society have put up long ago for those who aren’t like the majority. Even in today’s modern and developed world, there is still residual resistance against the minority of the society that is homosexual. This resistance creates stress and pressure on all those who are homosexual, making them aware that sooner or later in the course of their life, they will be discriminated against only because they are gay, and there is a strong chance and constant threat of physical violence for the same reason.
Having a CEO of the most valuable company in the world and most respected brand declare in public the fact that he is homosexual makes it easier to mange that stress and cope with those risks. When you know one of your own has successfully risen to the very top regardless of being what he is, gives hope to those who lost hope and may be on the ropes.
For all of you who are annoyed by this “non-story” getting so much press, fret not, it will go away. This is a major story for very obvious reasons, and it needed to be told.
“It was a generous and courageous thing to do.”
Indeed, it was and it raises my already high admiration for Mr. Cook into the stratosphere. It also reflects well on Apple as an ethical company.
How will it resonate with those of us who have only heterosexual proclivities? 😇
With most of us, it likely won’t resonate much (we oscillate on different frequencies), but there may be some who might become a bit more tolerant (I mean those who currently may have some resistance or resentment).
How will it resonate that Cook provided a thoughtful statement that may help others in the world? Hard to figure out, I guess.
I think TC will just presume apple will be the tip of the spear for mentally challenged men and women to…..be freeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
I don’t care what his sexual leanings are as long as he does a good job running the company. However, I’m sure it must be some turn-off to investors in the Bible Belt and they’ll probably avoid investing in Apple. Better to have a homosexual CEO that runs a company well than a heterosexual guy who runs a company into the ground.
Look at Microsoft… and Ballmer…
Did Ballmer ever announce the gender of his sexual partners?
Not really; he did appear with his wife and kids at many events and functions, so he didn’t have to make any announcements.
If Apple is making you money I doubt they will care if TC is gay or not. This wasn’t done to help or hurt the Bible belt – but its huge for helping a lot of people .
OK, enough now. Tim Cook will already be sick of everyone talking about this. It’s done. Let’s move on.
Wow! Tim Cook you suck so bad! You have officially isolated a nation and 70% of your end users. Oh and another nation. You have demonized other groups and officially destroyed others, including your own.
This will trickle down for years to come. You make technology, not GAY Technology.
But whatever. 1984 “Hello World”. 2014- “Goodbye Apple”.
Were you born an idiot, or did you cultivate it? WTF indeed.
Isolated a nation? You are not aware that the world already knew there were gay people in the US? Not surprising.
Demonized other groups? Such as hateful bigots? Since I’m not a bigot apologist, it seems OK to demonize such a group.
Your whole 1984 thing is so impossible to interpret that I won’t try. However, I will offer that it seems you’ve created some bizarre narrative about what happened that is so far divorced from reality that no one knows WTF you are writing about.
Stupid. wtf is right. All this is because your comments are from people who don’t know business.
I find people that have a need to talk about their sexuality in public utterly boring especially when its not required by their profession. Jobs was a Genius, Cook is a Homosexual, one fact made apple product better the other is irrelevant and a distraction.
like someone said above- your an idiot. TC is the CEO of Apple that happens to be gay- theres nothing wrong with that. and its high time others is those high positions open those closet doors. He’s not the only gay CEO around- but he’s the first to talk about it. It has to start somewhere
You say that because you don’t know what it is to make a mistake in a business!
Exactly. He’s a bore. Gay or not he’s a bore,… A s well as most that have to push their beliefs on others. Narcissistic. It shouldn’t even be a topic or a issue it should be why do we have to deal with someone else’s choices behind their private doors. I’m so sick of it, in not phobic I just think it’s time to move on to what really is important and not so all about the person.
Why is MDN giving the NYTs hits, and in particular James Stewart who wrote a front page hit piece on Apple being a bubble and the Law of Large Numbers back at the end of 2012? Now Apple is again above $700, presplit and I didn’t hear him make a peep when he was on CNBC this morning.
I would not screw a guy anymore than I would screw a fat girl. But who cares.
I’m glad he’s happy too…
This “announcement” can only hurt the company in my opinion. They already had the “rainbow” crowd as customers, which is a very small % of the population. But now, like it or not, this will alienate many potential future customers. Just not smart business at all. smh…
Going forward, history will show this to be the peak of Apple. Smart investors will start slowing dumping this company; mark my words. S. Jobs would not have made this mistake; no way. As Fred Sanford would say, “You big dummy!”