“In February of this year, a group of investors visited Apple as part of a ‘bus tour’ led by a research analyst for Citibank. The session started with a 45-minute presentation by Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s chief financial officer,” Adam Lashinsky writes for Fortune. “What shocked the Apple (AAPL) investors that day was that CEO Tim Cook popped into the room about 20 minutes into Oppenheimer’s talk, quietly sat down in the back of the room, and did something unusual for a CEO of Apple: He listened. He didn’t check his e-mail once. He didn’t interrupt.”
“After the CFO finished, Cook, at that point chief executive of Apple for all of five months, stood to offer his remarks. He strode confidently to the front of the room and held court in the no-nonsense style that has become his trademark. ‘He was in complete control and knew exactly who he was and where he wanted to go,’ says one of the investors. ‘He answered every question head-on and didn’t skirt any issue,'” Lashinsky writes. “Here’s what’s most remarkable about Cook’s appearance that day last winter: Steve Jobs wouldn’t have bothered.”
Lashinsky writes, “The legendary company co-founder, who stepped down as Apple’s CEO last Aug. 24, six weeks before his death, rarely deigned to meet with investors… It’s a subtle but significant change — investors now have the CEO’s ear for the first time in years — and it’s one of many Cook has instituted at Apple as he approaches his one-year mark at the helm. Taken together — his rapport with Wall Street as well as government officials, his decision to grant a dividend to shareholders, the creation of a program to match employee gifts to charity — Tim Cook’s stewardship of Apple is beginning to come into focus. A 14-year veteran of the company, Cook is maintaining, by words and actions, most of Apple’s unique corporate culture. But shifts of behavior and tone are absolutely apparent; some of them affect the core of Apple’s critical product-development process. In general, Apple has become slightly more open and considerably more corporate. In some cases Cook is taking action that Apple sorely needed and employees badly wanted. It’s almost as if he is working his way through a to-do list of long-overdue repairs the previous occupant (Jobs) refused to address for no reason other than obstinacy.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Jax44” and “Arline M.” for the heads up.]