“Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, has run Apple before: four years ago when Jobs underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer. Only this time, the 48-year-old Cook’s stint running the company may end up being the ultimate job tryout. If Jobs’ health does not improve, Cook certainly seems a leading candidate to run the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer and device maker,” Lashinsky reports. “But… Cook doesn’t see himself as Jobs’ replacement.”
“‘Come on, replace Steve? No. He’s irreplaceable,’ Cook said recently, according to a person who knows him well. ‘That’s something people have to get over. I see Steve there with gray hair in his 70s, long after I’m retired,'” Lashinsky reports.
“In interviews with two dozen people who have dealt directly with Cook, a picture emerges that is reassuring if unanticipated. It turns out that although Cook and Jobs are in many ways opposites, the No. 2 exec is equally obsessive and exacting about his work,” Lashinsky reports.
The extensive full article is here.