“In the three years after the death of Steve Jobs, Mr Cook, 54, has held his nerve through attacks from activist investors and a loss of faith among some that Apple could succeed without its late founder,” Tim Bradshaw and Richard Waters write for The Financial Times. “This year has seen Apple’s chief step out of the shadows of his predecessor and imprint the company with his own set of values and priorities: bringing in fresh blood, changing how it manages its cash pile, opening Apple up to greater collaboration and focusing more on social issues.”
“As the new iPhone continues to smash its own launch records, Mr Cook has unveiled products such as Apple Watch and Apple Pay that take the iPhone maker into the realms of fashion and finance, recapturing a spirit of innovation that many feared had died with Jobs,” Bradshaw and Waters write. “In the process, Apple’s valuation this year has grown by almost as much as Google’s entire market capitalisation.”
“Financial success and dazzling new technology alone might have been enough to earn Apple’s steely chief executive the FT’s vote as the 2014 Person of the Year, but Mr Cook’s brave exposition of his values also sets him apart,” Bradshaw and Waters write. “This was never more powerful than when he talked publicly for the first time about his sexuality. ‘If hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy,’ he wrote in Bloomberg Businessweek in October… As well as diversity, Mr Cook has championed sustainability and supply-chain transparency, including a commitment to reducing Apple’s use of conflict minerals.”
Much more in the full article, “Person of the Year: Tim Cook of Apple,” here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]