Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook took the stage on Monday at what will be his final Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote speech as chief executive; Cook will be stepping down this September to take on a new role as executive chairman.
Geoffrey Cain — the author of "Steve Jobs in Exile" — sits down with Josh Lipton to compare the leadership and achievements of Jobs and Cook.
Steve Jobs was the builder of Apple. He's the one who made the Apple that we all know, the culture that we know, which is really special. And Tim Cook when he took over Apple, his goal was to fortify that culture. So he he expanded Apple. That's when Apple grew into the $4 trillion company, $4 trillion dollar company that we all know. But uh Tim is a guy who is not, you know, he doesn't release the next big device. He's the guy who expanded the supply chain, for example. He can get all these complicated parts from around the world. He was a supply chain expert, and he can build on the complexity of Apple products.
As a guy who just spent a lot of time thinking about Steve Jobs, I'm just curious. Let's say Steve Jobs was in that audience today in Cupertino. He's listening to this, Jeff, right? What do you think if Steve looks at Apple today? What, Jeff, what would impress him and maybe what you think might underwhelm him?
He'd be certainly over underwhelmed by the Vision Pro, by those giant goggles that were released by Apple and that did not sell well. He would say, no way, nobody's going to wear that thing. Uh that's what he was all about. But uh he would be impressed with certain things. I think he would be impressed with how the culture has been preserved. He he would see it overall as his Apple, even if it's lost some of the creative edge that it used to have. Um but overall, I think that Steve Jobs would probably, and you know, this is a big if because he hasn't been with us for 15 years, but I think he would look at AI and he would be very interested in finding ways to integrate AI in ways that are more human and helpful and simpler than what's already being done. He would want the AI to be totally invisible on the iPhone so you don't even realize you're using AI.
How do you sort of compare and contrast Jobs and Cook? like as executives, as leaders, what do you make of it?
Jobs was the visionary. He was the one who could shout his vision out there and convince anybody that that vision was going to be the future. So, what was brilliant about Jobs is that he could hold up a this beautiful black rectangle and convince you, this is going to change the world. and it actually did. Not many executives can do that. Uh Steve only got there through many, many years of failure.