Author of Haunted Empire, Apple After Steve Jobs, Yukari Iwatani Kane discusses what she’s learned about Tim Cook, Apple’s evolving relationship with its suppliers, and whether or not she believes Apple has lost it’s way since Steve Jobs’ death.
“Shortly after Tim Cook succeeded Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple in August 2011, he told a confidant that he got up every morning reminding himself just to do the right thing—and not to think about what Steve would have done,” Yukari Iwatani Kane reports for The Wall Street Journal. “But Jobs’s ghost loomed everywhere after he died from pancreatic cancer two months later. Obituaries of Apple’s visionary founder blanketed the front pages of newspapers and websites. TV stations ran lengthy segments glorifying the changes he brought to the world.”
“Even as he took control of Apple’s empire, Cook couldn’t escape his boss’s shadow. How could anyone compete with a visionary so brilliant that not even death could make him go away?” Kane reports. “The next CEO didn’t have the quasi-religious authority that Jobs had radiated. Cook’s every decision would be examined by current and former employees and executives, investors, the media and Apple’s consumers. He would also have to contend with the sky-high expectations that Jobs had conditioned the public to have for Apple. Cook was a seasoned businessman and arguably a better manager than Jobs. He was organized, prepared and more realistic about the burdens of running a company of Apple’s size. But no one could beat Jobs at being Jobs—especially Cook, his polar opposite.”
“The succession was complicated by the fact that no one knew who Cook really was. The new CEO was a mystery. Some colleagues called him a blank slate. As far as anyone could tell, Cook had no close friends, never socialized and rarely talked about his personal life,” Kane reports. “To some, Cook was a machine; to others, he was riveting. He could strike terror in the hearts of his subordinates, but he could also motivate them to toil from dawn to midnight for just a word of praise. Those who interacted only passingly with Cook saw him as a gentle Southerner with an aura reminiscent of Mister Rogers. But he wasn’t approachable. Over the years, colleagues had tried to engage him in personal conversations, with little success. He worked out at a different gym than the one on Apple’s campus and didn’t fraternize outside of work.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Attribution: AppleInsider.]