
Tim Cook Is Running Apple, but Not Imitating Steve Jobs - ssclafani
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/technology/24cook.html?_r=1
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SoftwareMaven
This quote, IMO, is telling:

"While Mr. Jobs obsesses over every last detail of Apple’s products, Mr. Cook
obsesses over the less glamorous minutiae of Apple’s operations."

That is why I agree with Bob Cringley that Cook won't be Apple's next CEO. I
think having somebody who doesn't obsess about the products is the wrong thing
at Apple. You can have a COO obsess about running the details.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
CEOs of large corporations rarely have anything to do with the details of
product development. Steve Jobs may have the title of CEO at Apple, but that's
not really what he does. In reality, Tim Cook has already been performing most
of the typical tasks of a CEO.

I doubt Apple is looking for the next Steve Jobs. They already have a winning
team. Tim Cook (COO) and Peter Oppenheimer (CFO) are great at talking with
investors and analysts. Phil Schiller (VP Product Marketing) is great at
introducing new products to the public. These are people we know, they were
put in those positions by Jobs himself. They've all held those jobs since
Apple's Dark Ages (the late 90s), and they were just as responsible for
Apple's recovery as Steve Jobs was.

~~~
PakG1
Doesn't Jobs often have his name included on patent filings by Apple? That
would indicate to me that he's pretty involved in product development.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Right, that's why I said he's mostly a CEO in title. Inventing new technology
isn't typically part of the job description of a CEO at a major corporation.

~~~
DannoHung
Sounds more like that's a problem with the typical behaviors of CEO's.

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staunch
Most people seem to be in complete denial.

No one else could have done what Jobs did with Apple in the past 10 years. No
one else will be able to do it in the next 10 years.

Replacing one multi-talented genius with five talented geniuses does not
produce the same result.

~~~
zatara
I mostly agree with you, though you should be also opened to the possibility
that not even Jobs would be able to do with Apple in the next 10 years what He
did in the past 10 years.

~~~
pgebhard
And not only that, I feel like it should be accepted that Jobs was able to
really accomplish things at the level at which he did _because_ of the others
helping behind the scenes.

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iamclovin
I have to say I'm kinda surprised that no one has mentioned Jony Ive as a
potential successor. Successive keynotes have given me the impression that
Jobs trusts Ive and Ive seems to have a similar obsession for making beautiful
things. I even remember Jobs referring to Ive as one his best friends.

Jony Ive and Tim Cook in my mind will form a very potent team.

~~~
zatara
I think you're right on. Ive and Jobs share a similar background (in design,
if you consider the calligraphy story) and Ive's personality has been really
ingrained in the latest Apple creations. Besides, Apple has already all the
structure in place to handle a CEO with less business/operations experience
and more focused on products. If Eric isn't coming to Apple (and to me, he is
more needed at Microsoft anyway), Ive would make a great CEO.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
It's a real disservice to Ive's career to equate it with someone sitting in on
a calligraphy class.

~~~
zatara
Steve did much more than just sitting on a calligraphy class, from the moulded
plastic design used in the Apple II through to significant inputs in the
original Macintosh. All that happened much before Ive was at Apple, though I
agree that Steve does not have the same formal background in design as Ive.

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dr_
When Thomas Edison passed, innovation did not come to a halt. Steve Jobs may
well recover from his illness, I certainly hope he does, but nevertheless like
the rest of us he is not immortal. At some point in the future, and maybe it's
even happening now but we don't realize it yet, another innovative genius will
come along and change the world. Maybe not at Apple, but somewhere. This is
pretty much a guarantee.

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mcritz
Apple will be fine. My heart goes out to Steve & his family.

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fnazeeri
Given Jobs' medical history and the high profile of AAPL, I'm really, really
surprised that the company has not telegraphed a management succession plan.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
I think this was the smartest way possible to phase out Steve Jobs without it
impacting the AAPL stock too much. Last time he took a leave of absence, he
announced that he'd be back in six months -- this time, he didn't mention a
date at all. That seems like a clear sign to me.

I predict that Jobs won't come back to work but he will continue to offer
advice and perhaps aide in negotiations with operators, media companies and
the like. Then, after about a year or so, people having realized that the
company does fine without Jobs, it'd be safe for Jobs to relinquish his
position as CEO to Tim Cook. Jobs can then simply stay on as advisor.

~~~
j_baker
Either that or it might simply be that Steve knew when he would return last
time and doesn't this time. Besides that, I doubt that Jobs will completely
step down from the helm of Apple until he absolutely _has_ to. I'd imagine he
will stay on as Chairman and CEO, but make Cook president and COO so he can
take on more of the day-to-day responsibility.

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dcheong
For non-subscribers:

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andrest
The way a product cycle works at Apple is that first Jobs comes up with an
idea (or approves a one, doesn't matter), designers draw it, engineers build
it and Cook is responsible for the supply-side (he optimizes the production to
keep the costs minimal and supply stable).

Now if we were to take Jobs out of the cycle, the designers would still have
the ideas and engineers could build them. This is great and I'm sure they
could still come up with excellent products like a new macbook pro with
improved battery life. Jobs is responsible for the vision (direction of the
company), if it weren't for him nobody would have dared to invest such vast
amounts of resources and time into building something like an iPad.

It's in my opinion that Cook can do excellent work in the short-term making
the company grow on paper by optimizing the supply side, but in the long-term
he lacks the vision to conquer new fronts.

~~~
chc
Do you work at Apple? I'm curious how you have this intimate knowledge of the
dynamic there.

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taitems
Man those Samsung ads were obnoxious, any time I got remotely close to them
they kept triggering. And clicking the close "x" took me to their desired
website. Frustrating.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Try uninstalling Adobe Flash. Works great here.

~~~
Qz
Or you could just use AdBlock.

~~~
covercash
Or ClickToFlash.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
When you use ClickToFlash, it still loads the Flash objects, it simply doesn't
show them until you tell it to. To the websites you visit, you're still a
visitor who has Flash installed.

I want websites to know that I don't want to view Flash content, that's why I
go without the Flash plugin altogether.

~~~
X-Istence
It still says you have Flash installed to JavaScript and the like. It doesn't
load the flash objects.

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ashearer
Interesting tidbit on the politics of succession: "As Mr. Cook delivered
results, he earned more respect from Mr. Jobs. More important, because he was
focused on areas that Mr. Jobs knew little about, he rarely butted heads with
him, former Apple executives said."

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colinprince
Try:

[http://news.google.ca/news/search?as_q=Tim+Cook&as_nsrc=...](http://news.google.ca/news/search?as_q=Tim+Cook&as_nsrc=New+York+Times)

for the link "The Understudy..."

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kevinchen
From the 90’s, Steve Jobs has done a lot of good things for Apple. He plans
and thinks through everything he does. I don’t think it’s likely that he
hasn’t thought of a plan for Apple for when he’s gone.

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g0atbutt
For those that hit the NYtimes ridiculous pay-wall, this login is available:

username: jack@splat.com password: fthis

I got it from bugmenot.

~~~
jonknee
It's not a pay wall if the registration is free...

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epynonymous
an aside firstly, new york times is horrible for forcing you to register to
read articles!

though jobs is great at delivering marketing launches and making sure things
get done the right way, jonathan ives was strongly behind the soft and hard
interface designs of most of the past few years' apple gear, this will not
change anytime soon.

what probably changes are the wwdc's and product launches, they won't be as
cool, but who cares, you'll still buy product.

