Here’s a surprising fact: CEO Tim Cook has now been at Apple longer than his iconic co-founder and former CEO, the late Steve Jobs, meaning it’s now conceivable that the person with the greatest influence on what the Cupertino tech giant has become in 50 years and what it will be in the next 50 is Cook. But that’s probably not how Cook, who has been with the company for 28 years, sees things.
“He’s a person who won thousands of years…and I loved him,” Cook said in a recent interview with CBS News’ David Pogue (author of Apple: The First 50 Years). The company, which is almost allergic to looking back, has been, as Cook said, forced to flex new muscles and find ways to celebrate this milestone, which includes the interview, Pogue’s next book, and potential as-yet-unannounced festivities and content on the official anniversary date, April 1, 2026.
It was dark, to be honest…
Tim Cook on the state of Apple in 1998
Cook covered a range of topics, including the company’s unique people and culture, and acknowledged that his tenure spans more than half of the company’s history. Nonetheless, I took note of his thoughts on how and why he chose to join Apple in 1998, and it mostly came down to Steve Jobs, who died in 2011, and his vision.
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“The company had drifted without Steve,” Cook said. Steve Jobs founded Apple in 1976 with Steve Wozniak, but was forced to leave ten years later. He did not return until 1997 and the company was not in good health.
“It was bleak, to be honest,” Cook told Pogue, recalling his worries about pay and whether or not the company would succeed.
Look on it
Challenging times and an inspiring leader
I remember that time and how Jobs secured $150 million in funding from Microsoft to keep the company afloat. In 2012, when I had the opportunity to interview Cook about his decision to join Apple, he revealed that when he got the call from a headhunter for an interview, he said no because he hadn’t been at Compaq that long. Plus, Compaq was a huge computer maker, and at the time, Apple was struggling.
Cook finally relented and took the red-eye to meet with Jobs on a Saturday.
“The honest-to-God truth is, five minutes into the conversation, I want to join Apple,” Cook told me at the time.
I heard echoes of this comment in the story Cook shared with Pogue about the initial interview process that brought him to Apple,
“I was smitten when we first met him, and I wanted to throw caution to the wind and join him,” he told Pogue.
The honest-to-God truth is, five minutes into the conversation, I want to join Apple,” Cook told me at the time.
Tim Cook in 2012 explaining why he wanted to join Apple
Jobs was always a charismatic showman on stage, but what could he have said during that first meeting that so inspired Cook? This turned out to be a novel and actionable counterintuitive strategy.
At a time when everyone else in the tech industry was targeting the company, “he was bringing Apple deep into the consumer at a time when I knew others were doing the exact opposite,” he told me in 2012, adding that Jobs even revealed a little about the product that would become the iMac.
“I never thought following the herd was a good strategy. You know you’re destined to be average at best in doing that, and so I saw genius in it,” Cook added in that 2012 conversation.
The best possible advice
When Jobs asked him to become CEO, he also gave Cook a nice gift, telling him: “Never ask me what I would do, just do the right thing,” Cook reminded Pogue. This took the burden of “What would Steve do?” off Cook’s shoulders? »
Still, Cook admits he thinks about Steve Jobs every day and clarified that it’s still the company the two Steves built in a garage 50 years ago.
“[Jobs] “These principles are the DNA of this company, 50 years after its founding, and hopefully 100 years and 200 years into the future,” Cook told Pogue.
Maybe that’s why there’s always been something different about Apple and its customers.
What’s next?
“Apple was the only technology company I knew, including the one I worked at,” Cook said in 2012, “and I had worked at a company where if a customer was angry at the company, they would yell and scream loudly, but they would still buy.”
“At Compaq, if people were angry at Compaq, they just bought from Dell. At Dell, if they were angry at Dell, they just bought from IBM, and so people moved freely, but an Apple customer was a unique breed, and there was this emotion that is such – you just don’t see it in technology in general. You could see it and feel it in Apple customers, and so I knew it was different.”
Perhaps Cook is finally in a reflective mood because his long journey may be coming to an end. Rumors continue to swirl about his succession plan, with most experts pointing to Apple Hardware head John Ternus as the likely successor (Apple COO Sabih Khan is a dark horse candidate). Cook previously said he wouldn’t leave “until the voice in my head says, ‘It’s time’.” However, Cook was notably absent during the recent MacBook Neo unveiling, and Ternus was front and center.
Whatever the near future holds, Cook seems ready to look back on Apple’s first half-century: “It’s very valuable to look back and feel grateful for the journey, to feel grateful for all the characters who were part of that journey.”
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