Feed - Quora: Tim Cook is intensely, intensely private.
When Steve Jobs made iMovie a flagship product, he instructed his top executives to each make a short film with the software and present. The idea of iMovie was to make computers useful and accessible to families. Other employees documented their vacations, their children's birthdays, and so on. Not Tim, his video was on the fluctuations of Palo Alto real estate prices.
Although he came out publicly as gay after taking the helm of Apple, it seems as though (at least his public persona) is effectively asexual, with no romantic partners of any kind to be found in any interview or profile of him.
When he was in charge of negotiating with suppliers, Cook was ruthless, both with his employees, who reported feeling used and disposable, and with Apple's manufacturing partners. One common strategy was to make a factory completely dependent on Apple's business (making them retool and train staff for Apple specific components) then immediately shop around the contract to other vendors. The factory would have to accept razor thin margins or go out of business, which many did. This hurt Apple's reputation in the eyes of international suppliers.
Tim Cook is known to work 14 hour days, year round. I have read anecdotes on Quora of people meeting him at a grocery store and seeing him work out. To my knowledge that is basically his life: wake up, work out, go to Apple, buy groceries, go to sleep, repeat.
Steve Jobs would occasionally speak to interviewers and friends about his other passions; music, philosophy, art, everything! I have yet to hear Tim Cook talk about anything at all that was not directly related to Apple.
With one exception: the only quirk Tim Cook displays publicly is a bizarre obsession with his University, Auburn. His home and office have all sorts of Auburn themed nicknacks. He even occasionally cracks a joke about his affiliation with the school.
Tim Cook lives in a relatively modest home valued at perhaps less than a single percent of his total wealth. By all accounts, he is about as far from hedonistic as any S&P CEO can be. Not once has he (publicly) demonstrated any arrogance or imperiousness that might be expected from someone of his status.
Edit Edit:
He is fundamentally a nice guy and in interviews comes across as candid, if reserved. In fact, if you did not know him, I bet you could meet him on the streets of Palo Alto and think he was about par for the course in terms of affability in that region. But he is pragmatic in the way that many intelligent, self made, low key businessman are. In other words, do not comment that I have an agenda and I'm demonizing Tim Cook. I think he is a great choice for Apple, and I think corporate America would be far better served by CEOs like him, rather than the self important jibber jabberers who so often use their positions as personal and political megaphones.
Edit:
One thing that I wanted to add, since I think it is also very telling.
Tim Cook regularly talks about privacy in the context of civil rights. The government is attempting to force Apple to make all of its devices completely transparent to domestic surveillance. Tim Cook has taken a very strong stand against that. In doing so, he has put himself at risk of antagonizing Washington and various constituencies of militant nationalists.
Of course in part he does this because he wants to make Apple products as good as they can be, but he has spoken much louder on this issue than I think his title demanded. He has even alluded to the romantic legalese that the Supreme Court used when they built privacy into the constitution.
I think that this points to a facet of Tim Cook which is deeply principled, ideological, and political in a way which he would prefer was not part of his public persona, although he mentioned that he keeps framed photos of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy on his desk in his coming out essay on Bloomberg, which maybe gives us a sense of direction in terms of his political persuasion.
When Steve Jobs made iMovie a flagship product, he instructed his top executives to each make a short film with the software and present. The idea of iMovie was to make computers useful and accessible to families. Other employees documented their vacations, their children's birthdays, and so on. Not Tim, his video was on the fluctuations of Palo Alto real estate prices.
Although he came out publicly as gay after taking the helm of Apple, it seems as though (at least his public persona) is effectively asexual, with no romantic partners of any kind to be found in any interview or profile of him.
When he was in charge of negotiating with suppliers, Cook was ruthless, both with his employees, who reported feeling used and disposable, and with Apple's manufacturing partners. One common strategy was to make a factory completely dependent on Apple's business (making them retool and train staff for Apple specific components) then immediately shop around the contract to other vendors. The factory would have to accept razor thin margins or go out of business, which many did. This hurt Apple's reputation in the eyes of international suppliers.
Tim Cook is known to work 14 hour days, year round. I have read anecdotes on Quora of people meeting him at a grocery store and seeing him work out. To my knowledge that is basically his life: wake up, work out, go to Apple, buy groceries, go to sleep, repeat.
Steve Jobs would occasionally speak to interviewers and friends about his other passions; music, philosophy, art, everything! I have yet to hear Tim Cook talk about anything at all that was not directly related to Apple.
With one exception: the only quirk Tim Cook displays publicly is a bizarre obsession with his University, Auburn. His home and office have all sorts of Auburn themed nicknacks. He even occasionally cracks a joke about his affiliation with the school.
Tim Cook lives in a relatively modest home valued at perhaps less than a single percent of his total wealth. By all accounts, he is about as far from hedonistic as any S&P CEO can be. Not once has he (publicly) demonstrated any arrogance or imperiousness that might be expected from someone of his status.
Edit Edit:
He is fundamentally a nice guy and in interviews comes across as candid, if reserved. In fact, if you did not know him, I bet you could meet him on the streets of Palo Alto and think he was about par for the course in terms of affability in that region. But he is pragmatic in the way that many intelligent, self made, low key businessman are. In other words, do not comment that I have an agenda and I'm demonizing Tim Cook. I think he is a great choice for Apple, and I think corporate America would be far better served by CEOs like him, rather than the self important jibber jabberers who so often use their positions as personal and political megaphones.
Edit:
One thing that I wanted to add, since I think it is also very telling.
Tim Cook regularly talks about privacy in the context of civil rights. The government is attempting to force Apple to make all of its devices completely transparent to domestic surveillance. Tim Cook has taken a very strong stand against that. In doing so, he has put himself at risk of antagonizing Washington and various constituencies of militant nationalists.
Of course in part he does this because he wants to make Apple products as good as they can be, but he has spoken much louder on this issue than I think his title demanded. He has even alluded to the romantic legalese that the Supreme Court used when they built privacy into the constitution.
I think that this points to a facet of Tim Cook which is deeply principled, ideological, and political in a way which he would prefer was not part of his public persona, although he mentioned that he keeps framed photos of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy on his desk in his coming out essay on Bloomberg, which maybe gives us a sense of direction in terms of his political persuasion.