8 years after Steve Jobs' death, is Tim Cook a qualified Apple CEO?

October 5, 2019, coincided with the 70th anniversary of the National Day of my country and the 8th anniversary of the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs. On this day, Apple CEO Tim Cook also expressed his nostalgia for Jobs on Twitter, quoting Jobs' words: "The most precious resource we all have is time." - The tweet was accompanied by a black-and-white photo of Jobs staring at the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York.

On the same day, many Apple fans paid tribute to Jobs in various ways. Some netizens also expressed dissatisfaction with Apple after Jobs' death, comparing Jobs and Tim Cook and saying that if Jobs were still alive.

In fact, compared with Jobs, Tim Cook is not without his merits.

Just do the right thing

Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, is undoubtedly a genius who has never been seen before. His dazzling brilliance not only illuminated the world during his lifetime, but was also infinitely magnified after his death. People were generous in praising him, and his every word and deed became a legend. Of course, his brilliance was enough to deserve such praise.

Under such light, as Jobs' successor, Tim Cook's achievements naturally seem a little dim.

There are many criticisms of Tim Cook. For example, Apple under his leadership lacks innovation, the appearance of new iPhones is ugly, new products lack novelty, and they rely on Jobs's old reputation. The press conferences are boring and lack highlights, etc. Indeed, compared with Jobs's talents in products, creativity, speaking ability, and performance, Tim Cook is not good at these aspects.

However, Jobs did not want Tim Cook to become himself. In 2012, Tim Cook was interviewed by Bloomberg and talked about a sentence Jobs said to him before he died:

I want to make this clear. I remember when Walt Disney died, people were looking around and asking the question "What would Walt do if he were still alive?" The company's business was paralyzed, and people sat around in meetings discussing "What would Walt do if he were still alive?" I hope you never ask me the same question, you just need to do the right thing.

Obviously, Jobs knew that Tim Cook was not the same type of person as himself, but he still gave Tim Cook the greatest trust. From what happened later, Tim Cook did not completely follow some dogmas, but insisted on "doing the right thing."

For example, Steve Jobs once said that "3.5 inches is the golden size for mobile phone screens", but later Apple launched iPhones that continued to break through in screen size, and the iPhone 6 series, which fully adopted a large-size screen, became the best-selling iPhone model in history; for another example, Steve Jobs didn't like styluses during his lifetime, but Apple under Tim Cook launched the Apple Pencil to match the iPad Pro, and the Apple Pencil was also well received.

Judging from the Apple press conferences after Jobs, Tim Cook does not have the same expressiveness and desire to perform as Jobs, so he humbly chooses to leave the stage to more suitable people.

For example, Steve Jobs liked to personally launch new products and demo new features, while Tim Cook only played the role of host of the press conference, letting Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi and others give speeches, and letting Chief Design Officer Jony Ive speak in product videos (it is worth mentioning that Leifeng.com found that although Jony Ive has announced his departure, he still appears on the leadership team page of Apple's official website as Chief Design Officer).

Behind the seemingly logical arrangement, it also reflects that Tim Cook has a clear enough self-awareness and did the "right thing" based on such awareness.

An open and pragmatic leader

In fact, even before Jobs's death, Tim Cook was already an outstanding manager.

Before Tim Cook became Apple's CEO, he played the role of Apple's Chief Operating Officer (COO) for a long time. After joining Apple in 1998, Tim Cook's work at Apple involved almost all areas of products, including supply chain, manufacturing, back-end technical support, sales, legal, finance, marketing, etc. He was also responsible for Apple's daily work during Jobs' serious illness. In 2009, Jobs was hospitalized for treatment and Cook took over the management of the company. Before Jobs returned to the company, he made Apple's stock price rise by about 70%, winning the trust of investors in one fell swoop.

After Jobs' death, Tim Cook, as Apple's CEO, did some things that were beyond Jobs' personal wishes but were more beneficial to Apple's development.

For example, although Apple's iPhone, Mac and other products are assembled and produced in China, and the Chinese market is also an important market for Apple; due to various factors, Steve Jobs never visited China during his lifetime. But after Tim Cook became Apple's CEO, he came to China many times - by October 2015 alone, Tim Cook had visited China 7 times. In addition to crisis public relations, brand communication, and policy communication, he also greatly improved Chinese users' brand favorability towards Apple.

It is worth mentioning that Tim Cook also opened his own personal account on Weibo to maintain communication with Chinese netizens; even when expressing his nostalgia for Steve Jobs this time, Tim Cook also posted it on Weibo - in addition, Apple has also opened a WeChat public account for the Chinese market, appearing to be more open.

However, Tim Cook's openness and pragmatism are more evident in his attitude towards US President Trump.

In December 2016, Donald Trump, who had just been elected as the President of the United States, met with a group of elite entrepreneurs in the US technology industry in New York, and Tim Cook was also invited to attend the meeting. At that time, due to the opposition to Trump's election within Apple, some employees doubted the importance of Tim Cook's attendance at the meeting. In response, Tim Cook said:

Governments can influence our ability to do things; both positively and negatively. What we can do is focus on the policy itself. In some core areas, we are focusing on privacy, security and education... The only way you can advance them is to participate. Personally, I don't think it's a big deal to participate in meetings, but if you want to have an impact on these things, then you have to show up and participate... Whether we agree or not, we have to participate.

In fact, Tim Cook and Trump have differences on many issues. For example, Tim Cook firmly opposes Trump's termination of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). However, he still met with Trump many times to discuss many issues such as trade and tariffs, and even cooperated with Trump's "Tim Apple" slip of the tongue to make fun of himself.

However, although he was called a "friend" by Trump, in June 2019, in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor and executive editor Norah O'Donnell (see Leifeng.com's previous report), Tim Cook still frankly described his views on Trump:

I think we had some pretty direct discussions. I appreciated that he listened to ideas. Sometimes he disagreed with them. But my philosophy is that even if you know you're going to end up on the opposite side, you still have to engage. Because the only way to change someone's mind is to talk.

Tim Cook said: I don’t believe in “I don’t agree with you, so I don’t want anything to do with you.”

The most precious resource is time

As the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook's biggest responsibility is to guide this huge ship of Apple in the right direction. One important external measurement standard is the change in Apple's market value. In early August 2018, after the release of the third quarter financial report for fiscal year 2018, Apple's market value exceeded 1 trillion US dollars amid the continued rise in its stock price, making Apple the first company in history to reach a trillion-dollar market value.

Apple's trillion-dollar market value is a moment of pride for Tim Cook. Since he succeeded Steve Jobs as Apple's CEO on August 25, 2011, Tim Cook has faced repeated questions about his leadership; the strong growth of Apple's market value over time can be said to be the most favorable response to such questions.

It is worth mentioning that when Tim Cook took over as Apple CEO in 2011, Apple's stock price was just over US$50. In seven years, Tim Cook led Apple's stock price to almost quadruple and successfully exceeded US$1 trillion, which is enough to prove Tim Cook's leadership.

At that time, facing this highlight moment, Tim Cook said in an internal letter from Apple that a trillion-dollar market value is not the most important factor in measuring Apple's success, because financial returns are a natural result of Apple's continuous innovation, its product and customer-first attitude, and its consistent adherence to values. In the letter, he mentioned Jobs again:

When Steve Jobs founded Apple, he firmly believed in the power of human creativity to solve the greatest challenges, and that only those who were crazy enough to believe they could change the world would actually do so... Just as Steve Jobs did at similar moments, we should also look toward Apple's bright future and continue to do great things together.

Over the next year or so, Apple's market value has fluctuated with stock price changes, but it often returns to over $1 trillion after a drop - as of press time (Apple's stock price currently remains at the close of U.S. stocks on Friday, October 4, 2019), Apple, led by Tim Cook, still has a market value above $1 trillion.

So, how do we evaluate Tim Cook's significance to Apple?

In December 2012, one of the issues of Time magazine in the United States featured Tim Cook, who had been in charge of Apple for more than a year, as the cover character. In the report, Time magazine commented on the Apple CEO as follows:

• Tim Cook looks less like Apple's CEO and more like an Apple product. He is quiet and neat, like a product that Jobs carefully designed and polished, and exudes a strange warmth and charm. Cook's silver-white hair must have been designed by Jony Ive and made of brushed aluminum alloy in a Chinese factory. He also runs smoothly and quickly, just like Apple products.

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