Ondrej Holzman A few hours ago, the whole world flew around official letter from Steve Jobs, in which the founder of the apple company informed his employees and the general public that he was leaving the position of executive director of Apple. As expected, Tim Cook took his place with immediate effect and also took office immediately. He assured that he does not intend to change the company in any way.
Among other things, Tim Cook wrote in the email he sent to employees that it was incredible for him to work alongside Steve Jobs, whom he respects immensely, and he looks forward to the following years in which he will lead Apple. Tim Cook has practically held the leadership position since January, when Steve Jobs went on medical leave, but only now is he officially taking over the reins of the world's most valuable company and becoming the executive director.
the team
I am looking forward to this amazing opportunity to lead the most innovative company in the world in the role of CEO. Starting to work for Apple was the best decision I ever made and it was a lifetime privilege to work for Steve Jobs for 13 years. I share Steve's optimism about Apple's bright future.
Steve has been a great leader and teacher to me, as well as the entire executive team and our amazing staff. We really look forward to Steve's continued supervision and inspiration as Chairman.
I want to assure you that Apple will not change. I share and celebrate Apple's unique principles and values. Steve has built a company and culture like no other in the world and we will stay true to that – it's in our DNA. We will continue to create the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees proud.
I love Apple and look forward to diving into my new role. All the incredible support from the board, the executive team and so many of you is inspiring to me. I'm sure our best years are yet to come, and together we'll continue to make Apple as magical as it is.
Tim
Previously relatively unknown, Cook has vast experience. Steve Jobs did not choose him as his successor by chance. In his role as COO, who is responsible for day-to-day operations in the company, Cook tried, for example, to reduce the prices of hardware as much as possible, and negotiated the supply of important components with manufacturers from all over the world. As for the personality itself, Tim Cook is assertive, but rather taciturn, and perhaps that is also why Apple has started to use him more and more in recent years at so-called keynotes where he presents new products. Precisely so that the public gets used to it as much as possible. But we certainly don't have to worry about Apple not being in the right hands now.
Source: ArsTechnica.com
I'll admit that I can't accept the personality of Tim Cook :) A very bland person who was practically never seen at WWDC, but I'll be happy if I'm wrong. On the contrary, who stuck in my memory from the last Keynote - Scott Forstall, Jonathan Ive, Phil Schiller.
Unfortunately, good speaking skills do not necessarily mean good leadership. As for Steve Jobs, he is truly exceptional in this regard. He was able to impress with his speech and at the same time has leadership skills. It also has a lot of negatives, but they are not essential for business.
The problem is that in the eyes of many customers, Apple = Steve Jobs, and it will be "bitten" for a long time. Tim Cook is going to be under a lot of pressure, and I'm pretty curious how he's going to deal with it.
Like all of us, I'm not sure about Apple's new leadership. Steve Jobs knows what he's doing. Tim Cook seemed to him to be the best possible replacement for himself, but he is not Steve Jobs.
Jobs still has a lot of influence at Apple, but when he dies, the new management will have a lot to do as they like, and Apple can quickly change for the worse - it may not be on the right track.
Apple isn't going to change much in the next few years. I hope so.
Disclaimer: These are my opinions and reflections only.
In my opinion, there is no real leading innovator and visionary at Apple. He simply wouldn't get along with Jobs as such. It is a characteristic of truly creative people in alpha positions to be conflicted and stubborn - and if there was an alpha innovator at Apple, he left or was fired.
So the people at Apple, including Tim Cook, were chosen by natural selection to suit Jobs and get along with him - so they couldn't be outspoken or have too different ideas. So conformity with Jobs was important.
However, for the management of the company, a person who is not primarily conformist is needed, i.e. as a beta position. And I'm afraid by the look on his face that Tim Cook doesn't have the alpha position. If he had, he wouldn't have been at Apple a long time ago. Two roosters in one dump would not get along. Compressing supply prices is not an innovation, although a very important and difficult thing.
Apple will definitely go down the drain, it has a decent foothold. But one day he will need to decide on the next vision and direction. And here there will be the innovative alpha that Jobs was, but no one else at Apple is (I don't know about it there, but he just wouldn't get along with anyone else).
What do you think, I need Tim Cook in a leadership position. There are people who, even if they are dominant and like everything, will try to suppress these qualities to the detriment of their superiors. The moment they have the opportunity to get into a leadership position and gain it, they turn around and go their own way. The fact that I trumpet to the media that nothing changes can only be a lullaby for investors and the public :-)
Tom: A true leader and a true innovator cannot suppress the dominance traits at the expense of a supervisor for so many years.
While I don't have anything from Apple and I'm not its target audience, I have two things to say. Steve Jobs really left with grace and Tim Cook is a douchebag too. I even believe that he will lead the company well for years - until the current direction of the company wears out.
It is difficult, very difficult to find someone to replace him in a company with an alpha leader and innovator. If I look at the history of companies, this has never happened before. The more successful strategy was to find someone from the outside. An alpha leader simply pushes out all his successors - he simply doesn't give them a chance.
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If I look at Tim Cook's photo, I would probably say this: He is a very, very non-confrontational person, with very little internal aggression. This allowed him to stand around people who are difficult to work with and most importantly, it allowed him to handle high stress. This guy has a high frustration tolerance, is very matter-of-fact, and has very little understanding of emotions at all.
The collaboration between the emotional Steve Jobs and the very matter-of-fact Tim Cook could have worked perfectly. But Apple is based above all on exceptionality, luxury, emotional honor - and Tim Cook doesn't really understand that - so the question is whether he can hit on Apple's values when he makes decisions.
Tim Cook must have liked his job at Apple a lot because it balanced his matter-of-factness. Apple was all about experiences and that was very rewarding. That's why he was able to identify with her a lot.
It's only when I see his face - it's a guess what I read from it. I don't know anything about him otherwise.
For now, there is no point in speculating about what will happen next with Apple. It's likely that the next 10 years are already firmly lined up and planned (remember, the iPad started before the iPhone).
Tim Cook is definitely not a bland and unassertive personality. Just listen to one of the quarterly conference calls with shareholders. On the contrary, it seems to me that he is somewhat similar to Jobs, he tries to answer every question as best he can and is not afraid to stop and think for a moment.
A great article about his personality is here: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/08/25/tim-cook-my-first-person-impression-of-apples-new-ceo/
He may not be such a visionary as Jobs, but he proved himself when negotiating with suppliers and component manufacturers, and I dare say that we owe it to him for a partial price comparison in the Czech Republic with the rest of the world. At the same time, it manages to keep the competition in check, which then cannot get to some parts, as (iirc) it became clear about six months ago. In any case, the businessman is first class and that is one of the most important aspects for a CEO.
The last thing I want to mention is all the pessimistic views. First of all, it should be noted that Cook was already performing the role of CEO at least at the time when Jobs left for health reasons, and I dare say that he has been the CEO informally since then until now. As chairman, Steve can do practically the same thing he's been doing until now, so I wouldn't be afraid that Apple will suddenly start coughing up details and start making printers and overpriced toners.
Another thing is that a lot of people underestimate Apple as a whole. It is Jobs's life's work, and even he himself, while building it, was aware that one day he would not be able to lead it. I honestly don't know of any company that can function as a startup at a similar size. All this, the whole basically fractal structure of employees, throwing away half-functional solutions, etc. is part of Jobs' work.
When someone claims that there would be no Apple without Jobs, they are essentially saying that Jobs did a lousy job building Apple and indirectly insulting him.
But this is all just my opinion.