“When Apple Computer Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs lured little-known Timothy D. Cook to the company in early 1998, Mr. Cook was charged with straightening out the messy operations of a fallen Silicon Valley icon,” Nick Wingfield reports for The Wall Street Journal.
Wingfield reports, “Now, more than eight years later, Apple is resurgent and Mr. Cook is the company’s chief operating officer and its second in command. But he is still little known to the public — a stark contrast to Mr. Jobs, an executive so familiar that he’s lampooned on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ While Mr. Jobs is widely credited with restoring pizzazz to Apple’s product line, Mr. Cook is the low-key operator making sure the company runs smoothly behind the scenes.”
“‘He’s the story behind the story,’ says Mike Homer, a former Apple executive and Silicon Valley veteran,” Wingfield reports. “When Mr. Jobs was recovering two years ago from surgery for pancreatic cancer, he placed the company’s day-to-day operations in Mr. Cook’s hands. Apple and people who know Mr. Jobs say the CEO is currently in good health and intends to remain at the company’s helm for the foreseeable future.”
Wingfield reports, “Mr. Cook’s low public profile notwithstanding, his contributions at Apple have earned him enough notice within technology circles that he is routinely solicited for CEO jobs, though the 45-year-old has voiced no near-term plans to leave Apple, say people who know him. He isn’t believed to have had a role in the backdating of stock-option grants at the company, in which Apple granted options to employees on 15 dates between 1997 and 2002 at favorable exercise prices before the approval dates of the grants.”
Read the full article, an interesting profile of Apple’s COO, here.
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But his mom still calls him Timmy.
“At times, Mr. Cook makes more public shows of criticism, leavening them with humor. At annual meetings of Apple’s sales force, for instance, he has been known to hand out a toilet plunger to the sales team that underperforms expectations the most.”
I like to be reminded occasionally why I’m not in sales.
the fake blogspot of steve jobs did a really funny interpretation of this article. http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/
Ampar,
Your probably not very comptetive either. That’s probably a great motivator.
Um yeah ampar you should be more comptetive
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My probably did what?
“One executive at an Apple partner who has known Mr. Cook for years says that at moments in negotiations when others might elevate their voice, Mr. Cook has an unsettling habit of staring intensely at his counterparts in silence.
This person recalls leaving a meeting with Mr. Cook and realizing only after the fact that Mr. Cook had subtly dressed down another man in the meeting. The man ‘got his head handed to him, but Tim did it in a professional, surgical way,’ this person says.”
Reminds me of the silent slicing in “Kill Bill.” I’m glad he’s on Apple’s side.
Nothing like humiliation to inspire performance
Interesting. I wonder if this story was planted to introduce us formally to Mr. Cook because SJ is thinking about retirement? It doesn’t necessarily mean anytime soon, but someday. Sorry, I’m reading “The Little Kingdom” by Michael Moritz, and it was interesting to learn how Apple became adepts at massaging and manipulating the press. Planting a story like this seems like exactly the type of thing they might do. Call it, “Corporate Foreshadowing”.
Oops! “adept” not “adepts”! No coffee yet!
Always leave on a high note.
Sounds like someone I would like, except for being an Auburn fan. That I can’t forgive after the way they spanked LSU two weeks ago.
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Cook sounds like a king-size dork. If anyone handed me a plunger, I’d shove it where the sun don’t shine, wide end first.
It sounds like he sleeps with Ballmer.
Creative genius meet Timothy Cook, man of action. Now, go take over the world.