Since becoming CEO of Apple, Tim Cook has worked to cement his own legacy — but he still admires his predecessor Steve Jobs’ leadership style.
“I knew I couldn’t be Steve [when I became CEO]Cook, 62, GQ said on monday. “I don’t think anybody could be Steve. I think he was a one in a hundred year individual, original by any stretch of the imagination. And so what I had to do was be the best version of myself.”
But that doesn’t mean Cook couldn’t take a leadership trick or two from Jobs’ book. In particular, Cook said he admired how Jobs made everyone at Apple the same level of creativity and pushing boundaries — regardless of whether they worked in engineering, marketing, or some other department.
“One of the things I loved about him was that he didn’t expect innovation from just one group in the company or creativity from one group,” Cook said. “He expected it everywhere in the company.”
Cook experienced it firsthand. Before Apple took over as CEO in 2011, he was the company Chief Operating Officer, and oversee the company’s worldwide sales and operations. And in this role, he was expected to be creative.
“When we were running operations, we tried to be innovative in operations and innovative in operations, just as we’ve been innovative in other places,” Cook said. “We basically had to build the products we were designing.”
This concept helped Cook win over the naysayers after he became CEO, some of whom said he wasn’t enough of a “productive man” to fill Jobs’ shoes.
Under his leadership, Apple has grown into a multi-billion dollar company. Cook oversaw the launch of the Airpods, Apple Watch, and Apple Watch M1 processora next-generation chip now found in most of the company’s newer products.
Apple has also expanded its service-based offerings — including prominently Apple TV+, its subscription media streaming platform.
He said on Vox Media’s Cook could not have spearheaded any of these initiatives without learning from Jobs first Code Conference 2024 In Los Angeles: “He was the best teacher I had, by far. These teachings live on, not just in me, in a whole group of people.” [at Apple]. “
Today, the Apple CEO still uses some of Jobs’ old traditions, like the 9 a.m. meetings every Monday, he told GQ. But, he added, this is not out of nostalgia.
“We don’t look back much at all,” Cook said. “We’re always focused on the future and trying to feel like we’re kind of on that starting line where you can really dream and have big ideas that aren’t constrained by the past in some way.”
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