14 DAY TRIAL // Born November 1, 1960, Timothy D. Cook is turning 52 today. After one year as fully-instated CEO, the Apple boss has had a profound impact on Apple Inc., and appears to be at it still, going by his latest actions.
As Apple’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) under Steve Jobs’ lead, Cook established most of Apple’s highly-lucrative relations with overseas suppliers, putting the company on a profit spree.
In 2010, Apple was on its way to becoming the most profitable name in tech. Soon thereafter, Apple had become the most valuable company in the world.
An operational whiz at heart, Cook took over the reins from Steve Jobs when the latter was no longer (physically) fit to carry out his duties.
Although he admittedly lacks Jobs’ vision, Cook seems equally driven to get things done.
He proved it this year by juggling several approaches to streamline Apple’s operations, both externally, and internally. Some of them panned out, others didn’t – as was the case with John Browett, which marked one of Cook’s worst hires.
Most recently, however, he shook up the entire executive branch at Apple, ousting two SVP’s. Of those two executives, one was Scott Forstall, chief of iOS.
Cook decided to take a huge risk and split Forstall’s duties across other high-profile executives at Apple, including Jonathan Ive, the company’s design guru.
In regards to these changes, Matt Drance, a former Apple employee, said, “We learned a lot about Tim Cook yesterday,” referring to Apple’s October 29 announcement.
“Tim Cook has pulled the reins in. Federighi owns software. Ive owns design. Cue owns services. Period,” Matt Drance wrote on his outsider blog.
This remark could well act as a good summary of Apple’s 500-word press release, but also of Tim Cook’s methodology. We sincerely hope it works for the company, and for himself.
Even if things take a turn for the worse, we can’t say we’re not impressed.
Until then, happy birthday Tim! And many more at Apple.