“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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