“Shortly after signing on as chief operating officer at Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg was looking to connect with people in a similar role – No. 2 to a brilliant and passionate young founder,” Poornima Gupta and Peter Henderson report for Reuters. “She called Tim Cook.”
“‘He basically explained nicely that my job was to do the things that Mark (Zuckerberg) did not want to focus on as much,’ Sandberg said of the 2007 meeting that lasted several hours with the chief operating officer of Apple Inc. ‘That was his job with Steve (Jobs). And he explained that the job would change over time and I should be prepared for that,'” Gupta and Henderson report. “While Sandberg has enjoyed a steady run at Facebook, it is Cook’s job that has changed radically since then. Now, the man who was handed one of the more daunting tasks in business – filling the shoes of the late Steve Jobs and keeping Apple on top – may himself need a spot of advice.”
Gupta and Henderson write, “It is unclear whether the spread-sheeting-loving, consensus-oriented, even-keeled Cook can successfully reshape the cult-like culture that Jobs built. Though Cook has deftly managed the iPhone and iPad product lines, which continue to deliver enormous profits, Apple has yet to launch a major new product under Cook; talk of watches and televisions remains just that. Some worry that Cook’s changes to the culture have doused the fire – and perhaps the fear – that drove employees to try to achieve the impossible.”
“Still, he has a tough side. In meetings, Cook is so calm as to be nearly unreadable, sitting silently with hands clasped in front of himself. Any change in the constant rocking of his chair is one sign subordinates look for: when he simply listens, they’re heartened if there is no change in the pace of his rocking,” Gupta and Henderson write. “‘He could skewer you with a sentence,’ the person said. ‘He would say something along the lines of ‘I don’t think that’s good enough’ and that would be the end of it and you would just want to crawl into a hole and die.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back in February:
“Those who underestimate Tim Cook do so at their own peril.”
Related article:
Apple CEO Tim Cook will prove the naysayers wrong – July 12, 2013
What do these people really know of the inner workings at Apple if they are not there on a day-to-day basis? It’s all speculation and hype (or even FUD).
Move along, people, nothing to see here…
Tim Cook should be fired. Publicly. Without delay. Send him off to Microsoft, where he belongs.
Does your brain at all engage before the words get typed?
I’m not sure why you picked “The Joker” when “Fucking Retard” would have been far more accurate.
“Retard” really elevated the level of discourse there. Bravo.
While reporters spend their hours speculating, Cook oversees innovation in product design, manufacturing, supply chain, iOS/OSX software, iCloud & retail growth.
… all at a pace slower than we saw for the prior decade under Jobs.
Also, you forgot to add his biggest cash mismanagements: the aerobie office and the stock manipulation schemes intended only to line Wall Street’s pockets.
Nothing to see here … because we’ll die of boredom before seeing anything revolutionary happen under Cook.
Only those who can die of boredom will. A form of natural selection, perhaps? The rest of us will enjoy what we have while we wait.
“… may himself need a spot of advice.”
Or more likely doesn’t need any advice at all from a couple of Reuters reporters.
Yes, Tim is managing the house that Steve Built. A steward. Waiting for what? That is the question.
Tim Cook hasn’t done anything except fire a few incompetent members of Apple administration, shuffle the chairs in the main executive meeting room, and complete the tasks Steve Jobs started. Good job, Tim.
MacFreek, I agree with you. Tim must spend all his time looking at spreadsheets while apple’s product lines stagnate. Profit in the computer division is slumping because nothing new has been released except the MacBook Air. He plays it too safe.
I would like to see a hardware product refresh on a yearly biases with the high end maxed out configurations getting a bump every six months. It doesn’t need to be radical change, just faster processors, updated graphics and memory.
In addition, I think Apple needs to address the “Pro market”. You need to make it easy as pie for the video and audio producers to buy, upgrade and use all of Apple’s pro-hardware and software. There needs to be a special hardware-software Apple corporate group for developers.
In addition, Apple needs a group for general business- even work with Microsoft, Parallels, and VMware to pre-load windows and office (any version) with bootcamp and Parallels or Fusion. If a business wants office, good: get mac, unpack it, plug it in, flip the switch, and start using office. After a short while, people will understand (including IT doofuses) how good a Mac/OS X system is. Even get back into the small rack mounted server business. What I’m saying is a 20 billion dollar a year opportunity.
You should forward your post to Apple so they can get right on it.
Send the queer packing off to Lesbo
This is why MDN should require registration for posting.
Unfortunately, registration wouldn’t stop his opprobrious behaviour. Only moderation would do that. But moderating is a short step from censoring. On a site with a political bent, that tiny step would take a mountain of energy and willpower to prevent.
So let X and his ilk have their self-defining offensive posts. But smack them down every once in awhile just so others don’t think their fatuousness is acceptable.
X gets negative points for garbling the gender terminology
X’s gargling engenders terminating?
😆
Smacking him down is all well and good – and after all, isn’t that just a form of moderation itself? – but requiring registration would be one step (albeit small) towards preventing similar posts from appearing in the first place. Sure, it wouldn’t be completely effective, as we already have registered users posting such offensive drivel, but every little bit would help.
And it is precisely why I link my photo and website to my comments. If I say something out of line, I deserve to be held accountable. The internet taught us to be anonymous. The NSA taught us that anonymity is a myth.
I try to be myself online as much as in person, so it is only reasonable that everyone should know who I am.
While your stance is admirable, it can’t work for a great number of people. Unfortunately, many employers now regularly watch their employees’ web presence. While I see this as a First Amendment issue, those employers see it as not properly reflecting/projecting their “corporate image” — people get fired. (In “right to work” states, it’s grounds for termination. In “will to work” states such as Florida, grounds aren’t needed, the employee is summarily fired.)
It would be better to curate the site.
Regardless of your opinions about people’s sexual orientation or what they do about it, Tim Cook’s private life is no one’s business but his own until he chooses to MAKE it someone else’s business (case in point: Ellen DeGeneris). If the best argument that you can make against Tim Cook is an ad hominem argument, that speaks more to your own incompetence than his.
I’m a Catholic, and my church teaches (and I believe) that private issues like that are between that person and God. I hope that Tim is successful, that he leads a good life, and that his relationship with God, whatever it may happen to be, is a good one.
Now can we please focus on his BEHAVIOR as CEO of Apple, rather than any personal characteristics over which he most likely has no control?
Excellently stated smack-down!
No real innovations from AppleTV (2 years after Jobs said he ‘finally cracked it’); constant placating of Wall St. hedge fund managers, culminating in borrowing money in order to bump up the stock price; an exodus of engineers the likes of which the Valley has rarely seen (and so little talked about on MDN); and the worst transgression of all – working hand in glove with both the US AND PRC surveillance bureaus, compromising Apple’s hardware & software and their customer’s trust …
Let’s face it – Tim Cook was the wrong person to lead Apple after Steve’s death, or ever on his own. He was fine while Steve was alive, taking over when he was too sick or having surgeries, simply because Steve WAS still alive, moderating his worst impulses. Now that Timmy’s on his own, Apple is turning into just another money grubbing, by-the-numbers sort of company. Hell, even with that, Cook on his own couldn’t get the stock price to budge from the lows it attained on his watch – he had to suck the toes of the jackal Carl Icahn.
Apple’s still making money because of what Steve left behind. Apple’s not making as much money, or as many great products as it could, because of Cook.
This is just one in the latest batch of warmed-over scare stories trotted out in advance of a product announcement, predictably accompanied by a dusting of comments by trolls and contrarians, and a few by folks made jittery by the growling.
All of this has become routine, a part of the business model of certain companies who unashamedly employ defamation to undermine competitors.
Either that or Apple is doomed because Steve Jobs is dead, his company now rudderless, Cook asleep at the wheel, idea box empty, mutiny spreading, etc., etc.
Those who overestimate him do so at their own peril also. Company needs an inspirer, not a stoic introvert.
“Apple has yet to launch a major new product under Cook; talk of watches and televisions remains just that.”
One of the most important changes Steve Jobs made at Apple, (that no one else was doing) never release a product before it is ready. Screw what others think the deadline should be.
IIRC the iPad was developed prior to the iPhone. It was purposely withheld because Steve didn’t believe the time was right and that the phone should be released first. All this talk of lost innovation or taking too long is FUD. In the years after Steve’s return the company was not turning out amazing revolutionary products every 6 months or even every year. To expect this is to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding what innovation is and how insanely great products are manifested.
Not sure what they reasonably expect the guy to do short of getting an Ouija Board out and start channeling Steve…
“Spread-sheet-loving”
Fuck off, you hacks.
The dumb becomes coo, it’s a rule
Hah, crawl into into a hole and die :p