“One of the first things Tim Cook did as Apple’s new CEO was to reassure the company’s employees that nothing was going to change now that his legendary predecessor, Steve Jobs, had resigned from active duty,” Peter Pachal writes for PC Magazine.
“This was, of course, true (though The Onion had a hilarious parallel-universe version of events that saw Cook moving printers to the center of Apple’s strategy),” Pachal writes. “But even if the culture and focus of Apple doesn’t change, the man at the top has.
Pachal writes, “Who is this man? And what kind of leader will he be for Apple? …He’s a tireless worker, a brilliant corporate strategist, and a fitness nut. It’s thanks mainly to Cook that Apple now has a tightly knit network of suppliers in Asia. One notable anecdote about Cook is that, as soon as he was tasked to fix Apple’s supply problems, he called a meeting with his top people. He realized 30 minutes in that the company needed someone in China, looked directly at one of the team members and asked, “Why are you still here?” That person, Sabih Khan, left the building and got on the first flight to China, with no return date.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Carl H.” for the heads up.]
Now that sounds like an order Steve would be proud of.
If I were the team member tasked to go, and Cook asked me why I was still there, I would have said, “my bag’s always packed under my desk, but the next flight to China connects in Tokyo, which means the first flight to arrive in China, actually leaves in 4 hours. Since I have the time, I want to make sure I have all the issues understood before I go.”
To which Cook would reply;
“You mean you don’t already understand the issues? You’re fired.”
To which I would reply,
“Ok, I’m on this. I have my bag packed and in my car. I was just waiting for this person to be fired so I, next in line, could go. No… don’t say a word, I’m leaving now to get to the airport ASAP, can’t be too early you know.”
The next flight was leaving in 90 minutes.
And why would you not take the SFO non-stop to Bejing, smartass?
That’s great and all… But what made Steve great was his attention to design details, something that rarely comes from the top. If anything the top guys are usually the ones who kill things that are difficult to make, or let little things slip by.
I’m thinking Jonny Ive has an even bigger role now than he did in the past. I’d trust an OS release or product release with Ive’s stamp of approval over Cook’s anyday.
Ive is pure aesthetic and stickler for ergonomic details. Scott Forstall or Greg Joswiak or Craig Federichi (sp) or Bob Mansfield are the technical guys.
Jos is a marketing guy.
I heard he will lead with a stick….made of carrots.
Tim unquestionably now the broadest experience across all the fields in the Apple products compared to anyone else.
He’s certainly on top of the supply chain system more than Steve Jobs and thus integrated with the design guys on those issues and has worked closely with Steve and the other top VPs in what is arguably the CEO position for several years.
I’ll bet Tim Cook does a superb job and would not be surprised to see his public speaking advance with the job.
how – the same HE has been since 2009…
and doing an amazing job TIm is.
And placed him in that position because Steve believes he is the right man to do so… do we all doubt Steves mind now?
TIm Cook — here is your CEO
Scott Forstall — here is your keynote host
Jony Ive — here is your designer
Micheal Tchao — here is your marketeer
Bob Mansfield — here is your engineer
Scott Forstall seems to have a passion and youthfulness likeable to be the keynote host or sales presenter that people believe TIm is lacking.
VISIONARY… who to piece all the little innovations together and think BIG – whats the next big thing???? MAYBE…
Steve Woz — perhaps he returns to Apple and will be that person?
Steve has great talent in place. Enough said.
AND he is STILL ACTIVE as chairman. W.T.Hey?
>Scott Forstall — here is your keynote host
>Jony Ive — here is your designer
To be honest : I would have expected that one of these 2 guys would be the next CEO. Maybe Phil Schiller.
Steve has always loathed and mocked companies with sales guys as CEO. And Tim, as stunningly awesome as a COO as he is/was, is a sales guy. Sort of.
I honestly like Tim Cook, but Tim’s keynote presentations were…lacking and boring.
So, yes. Maybe Scott and/or Phil should do the keynote. Scott comes closest to Steve in terms of energy, enthusiasm and skills regarding presentations.
(I somehow doubt that we will see Steve ever again as keynote host. Unfortunatly. And I am more than sad to write this. I am devastated.)
>Steve Woz — perhaps he returns to Apple and will be that
>person?
Don’t be silly. Woz is the most likeable Geek ever and sort of a cute teddybear, yet he was never a visionary. He is a superb and astonishing engineer, but was never more. Never a dreamer and maniac like Steve, but rather down to earth. He would be an really awesome addition to the Apple team and he is an icon, an ambassador, someone from whom I would like to see a keynote, but he would not be able to replace Steve Jobs. Not even by a mile.
Not correct; Timothy Cook is engineer with like twelve years of experience in this role, before moving to components procurement.
And at Apple, he partially went back to engineering since about 2002 Jobs assigned him to oversee Macintosh hardware.
Also, while Jobs was absent for months in 2004, 2009, 2011 years Cook was the one who went between design groups to see what they do and demand the impossible.
Jobs was obviously very satisfied with Cook’s demanding nature.
So Cook has engineering, procurement, administrative experience and low tolerance to good results, demanding the best.
Things that Cook did not prove yet is whether he has “vision” or designer/UI talents. This will not become obvious before like five years will pass from now. Also, while Cook is demanding and pedantic, he obviously can not be compared to Jobs with the level of passion and obsession with details. Jobs is unique with that.
Why wouldn’t you take the non-stop SFO to Bejing flight smartass?