Apple COO Tim Cook as Possible Steve Jobs Replacement?

[MacRumors]

Fortune provides a detailed profile of Apple's COO Tim Cook and asks an ongoing question: Could this be Steve Jobs' eventual successor? Speculation about who might replace Steve Jobs has remained a hot topic ever since his scare with pancreatic cancer four years ago. Cook is certainly high on the list as he was chosen by Jobs to take over day to day operations at Apple while Jobs was out for surgery in 2004. Steve Jobs has since made a made a full recovery with recent reports indicating that there has been no recurrence.

Fortune describes Cook as a workaholic who has been essentially running Apple for years. Meanwhile, Cook's demeanor is described as demanding and unemotional. He is credited for helping Apple become the "cash-generating machine" that it is today:

There are two basic ways to get great profit margins: Charge high prices or reduce costs. Apple does both. The marketing and design drive consumers wild with desire and make them willing to pay a premium; Cook's operational savvy keeps costs under control.

Cook is one of the highest paid executives at Apple and is said to be involved in more aspects of Apple's operation than any other executive.

Critics of the possibility, however, point out that Cook does not share Jobs' vision:

"They need a brilliant product guy, and Tim is not that guy. He is an ops guy - at a company where ops is outsourced."

But others suggests that Cook might simply need to surround himself with those to complement his weaknesses "just as Steve has Tim around to make up for his".

Article Link: Apple COO Tim Cook as Possible Steve Jobs Replacement?

[amusiccale]

It seems as if a tension between a 'cash-generating machine' and 'vision' has been a long-term Apple problem/strategy. Let's hope whoever follows Jobs can keep people around to maintain both.

[montypython]

Sure Tim Cook would be a great leader of Apple, but to call him a Steve Jobs replacement is impossible. Apple will continue to move forward after Steve as stepped down, but we all know that things will never be the same.

As a shareholder I am glad to see that Apple is moving on and looking down the road to replace the one thing that has made Apple, Apple for the last two decades. However, as a 'mac addict' I dread the day when Steve steps down.

Basicly this move is good for business but will deffinetly hurt Apple's popular image.

Long live Apple and Steve Jobs.

[840quadra]

Could be good for Apple, however he lacks the charismatic draw that Jobs, and even Schiller provide during his keynote addresses. If he does take over Apple eventually, I doubt that people will swarm to see presentations / addresses like they do now.

[MasterNile]

Is it possible that Tim Cook is the reason that long time Mac users are considering Apple to be declining in catering to their oldest customer base?

[DaBrain]

Oh Great a Bean counter in charge! If this happens the only motto will be profit, profit, profit!

Nothing against a company making a decent profit. Good for them. BUT, if that's their only concern and not making products that satisfy consumer demand, then this will not bode well over the course of time.

You know, things like no matte display, removal of fire wire, no update for the mini in a longgggg time, cheap displays like in the mac book (viewing angle), etc..... etc....

Time will tell.

[mudaudio]

I thought it was interesting to see Ive take centre stage at the beginning of the Macbook video. I know video was about design and that's probably why, but then again maybe they are gradually putting Ive into the limelight.

Ive was very passionate and definitely has the "vision". Him and Tim Cook might be a good duo.

[DipDog3]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

Apple needs someone with a vision more than an Ops guy!

[Small White Car]

Originally Posted by DaBrain

Oh Great a Bean counter in charge! If this happens the only motto will be profit, profit, profit!

- - -

You know, things like no matte display, removal of fire wire, no update for the mini in a longgggg time, cheap displays like in the mac book (viewing angle), etc..... etc....

So a "bean counter" would be a bad CEO...and as examples you list a bunch of things that have occured while Jobs is in charge.

So your point is that things have already gone to heck? Well, if that's the case then why are we worried about who the next guy will be?

[swingerofbirch]

I don't like that anyone loves number guys as they're viewed as the kill-joys, and probably aren't the best person to be the face of a company that is very popular because of its image.

[stuarthatto]

Someone has to count the beans.

Without a steady hand on the finances, there will be no innovation, no vision and, shock... no Apple.

In the current climate the last thing you want to do is be profligate. Apple like all companies will be belt-tightening right now, and who better to tighten everyones belts than an accountant.

Stu

[SpinThis!]

The CEO doesn't necessarily need to be the "face" of the company—just because Jobs was doesn't mean his "successor" will be front and center all the time. Cook is definitely the likeliest choice here. He's already stepped in for Jobs before.

As for keynotes, he'll probably let others do the presentations. Schiller is definitely a candidate for hosting keynotes and will probably have other people at Apple take a crack at them.

There's definitely other talented people at Apple who can fill Jobs' roles but the creative side will definitely be missed. Ive is certainly not a spokesperson for company, nor do I think he wants to be but his creative genius will still be at Apple and in its future products.

Will Apple be the same? Of course not. But will it be worse? With the right leadership, it'll probably just be "different." Again, the face of Apple doesn't necessarily need to be its head-honcho and without Jobs, Apple might flirt with a few new directions that Jobs never considered or would immediately turn down.

[technocoy]

no biggie... steve is a prodigy... you just replace him with all three.... schiller, Ives, and Cook. Nothing gets done until all three agree... thats the only way to go..

[DUCKofD3ATH]

Steve Jobs is unique.

When he's gone Apple will be just like all the other computer makers out there, run by MBAs looking to shave corners on quality to save a penny. Don't forget that even Jobs was forced out of Apple before they realized what a huge mistake they'd made and brought him back to save the day. Without Jobs it'll be John Sculley and "that vision thing", version 2.0.

You can't just drop someone like Ive in to replace Jobs unless he actually has all of Jobs' power, which I don't see happening. Jobs earned his position, Ive doesn't seem to have the ambitious drive needed to run a huge company like Apple.

Good design doesn't come easily, else Dell and others wouldn't have so much trouble achieving it. It's costly and requires someone with ruthless self-confidence, who's tapped into the zeitgeist so he can override the penny pinchers when they balk at spending on design, and realistic enough to realize when they're correct to balk.

This is Apple's Golden Age, so enjoy it. When Jobs is gone, we'll all be talking 'bout the good olde days.

[kas23]

I won't be that concerned at all when Jobs has to step down. Sure, he's the driving force of many great products. But, he is also the driving force behind many decisions that leave us scratching our heads.

Apple is by far a better run corporation than Microsoft, they update their products at a faster frequency and their products generally are of great quality. But, there are just some poor decisions (from my point-of-view) that leave me wondering if Microsoft would have done the same. In all, I would like to see more of a democratic approach at Apple where they are connecting to their customers again.

[IJ Reilly]

Excellent article -- the best "inside Apple" report I've seen in years. Long but absolutely worth reading in full.

One thing is clear: if Cook does become CEO some day, he won't take Steve's place as company spokesman.

The scenario of Jobs transitioning to board chair while Cook or someone else takes over as CEO sounds the most probable. That's what Microsoft did.

[137489]

Interesting...

Yes we need someone who will keep Apple in the profit (too many tech companies have gone down hill or closed). However, we do need someoene with vision to create the products we drool for - so that we buy and they can get their high-profits and charge us outrageous prices....

I mean look at MS (maybe wrong board to metion MS on ), but seriously - Gates started his withdrawal and turning the business over to Ballmer a few years before Gates departure and looked what happened....

Vista fell behind and then was rushed out.

MS Office - rumblings about new GUI and functionality on both the WIN/Mac sides

VPC - its free, but the 2007 has issues and does not always allow proper connections to other machines when connecing from the VPC. Thus my company still is running 2004.

MS-SQL server - couple of service packs/KB's for 2005 within the last 2-month's messed up reporting services, MS is still yet to address all issues. 2008 was released with parts missing for people who use reporting services.

Any Server operating system over 2003 does not have support for Visual Studio 6 (ok, we say this coming - but MS just did a final put to bed this year, so many companies still have VS6 apps that have not been converted to .NET yet). why do you think sites are still installing Win 2003 server and Win Xp?

================

Although one thing good about an ops guy - ops people are NOT what they used to be (ie running backups and doing reboots). Ops people are just one rung below system/network administrators in terms of salary - but usually preforms the same functions; so they have to be network, application, hardware, etc savvy - as the ops person is the first one who is called when it all goes down, they are the ones who look at the new technology first, and they are the ones to make it all work with a system engineer looking over his/her shoulder.

So - this may mean that while little to no knew/visionary products comes out; what does come out may have less issues and integrate more with mainstream business as long as the consumer. He may be the one to get quality control back on track (not that I ever experienced problems with apple products - but some people have).

So maybe he will be the guy who says - "ya know it is stupid that I do not have a dock for my laptop, yet my competitors do"; "Dang, I need a tablet - I am stick of carrying around a lap top and a pen/piece of paper to the meeting"

Some of the best ideas for the companies I worked for came out of ops, due to listening to the griping of people every day. they are the ones with pet projects that usually goes to the engineers and apps programmers who say, look - this solves our needs and can we just implement this type of solution?

Time will tell

[Saladinos]

But others suggests that Cook might simply need to surround himself with those to complement his weaknesses "just as Steve has Tim around to make up for his".

I take that as meaning he's the anti-Jobs. He has the qualities Steve doesn't, but Steve has the qualities he doesn't. If he'll need to find somebody with the qualities he doesn't have, he'll basically be finding another Steve.

If that's the case, why don't they just put that guy in charge?

[doctoree]

I he really is "unemotional" than he is unsuitable. We need someone as emotional as Steve Jobs. Let's hope the qustion of Steves succesor stays irrelevant for some as long as possible.

"design drive consumers wild with desire" I might be odd but what's driving me wild is Apples os

[Crtaylor]

I know that there are just points in life where a person has to retire, and I wish Steve Jobs could stay at Apple. All companies have to do this at one time or another, and I am glad Steve did was not one of these CEOs that got paid to fail.

However, I honestly think that there are better candidates than Cook to run the company. Why not bring back Steve Wozniak? I may not know what his stance on Apple is right now or what he wants to do, but I do know Apple would not exist without him or Jobs.

[Luap]

Ahh, MacRumors spawns yet another potential multipage thread, based on speculative bollocks.

[enumerated]

Honestly, Steve Jobs importance is very overrated. He is a good presenter but that is about it. Woz did the Apple, Raskin did the Mac, Fadell did the iPod, Susan Kare did the original os icons and the metaphor of the desktop, Ive does the ID.

There are so many brilliant people at Apple and to say the company NEEDS Jobs is insulting.

Jobs....presents.

[nick9191]

I would be absolutely ecstatic with Apple if:
the White Macbook disappeared, a $1099 alu book replaced it.
Apple realise their mistake an add back some form of Firewire to it
They update the Mini with the 2ghz Core 2 in the Macbook, and add the 9400M, and keep Firewire.
They don't rush Snow Leopard like they did Leopard and Mobile Me.
They increase their screen quality on the Macbook.
They don't go down-market.

In fact basically make it so I don't need to spend £1399 to get a decent notebook.

Tim Cook sounds like a make it cheap and sell it high kinda guy, and I hope this is not true.

[lazyrighteye]

Both Steve Jobs & Tim Cook have 2-syllable names.

No, really...

[Blue Velvet]

Originally Posted by enumerated

Honestly, Steve Jobs importance is very overrated.

I think you underrate some of the most important functions of any leadership role: motivation, direction, coordination and vision.

Nuts and bolts are usually delegated.