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“You can be assured we are working as hard as ever this year to deliver an incredible year and some products that will blow your mind.”
Tim Cook talking today at Apple’s shareholders meeting.
“We’re working on things that will blow your mind” is a pretty constant theme amongst those I talk to from time to time at Apple. While the competition is all aimed squarely at them, they’re not worried in the least bit because they’re aimed squarely at the future.
Skate to where the puck will be…
Source forbes.com
“I don’t really think anything Microsoft does puts pressure on Apple.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook talking to Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Vascellaro about the new OS X Mountain Lion.
Times change.
“We will continue to dig deeper, and we will undoubtedly find more issues. What we will not do — and never have done — is stand still or turn a blind eye to problems in our supply chain. On this you have my word.”
Tim Cook responding to the NYT piece about awful working conditions in Chinese factories where many Apple products are assembled.
It’s not a response to the press, it’s a response to the Apple team, which Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac was able to get ahold of.
It’s a good response, and the right one. I’m still just ultimately not sure how much it matters in the grand scheme of things. The real problems go far beyond Apple.
Tags tech apple china tim cook
Source 9to5mac.com
Tim Cook's Total 2011 Compensation: $378 Million
That’s primarily on paper, of course, thanks to his huge stock award for taking over as CEO. His base salary was $900K.
It’s good to be the king.
What's your opinion on Robert X. Cringely's recent post on his blog predicting that there will soon be an "insurrection" at Apple and Tim Cook won't be the CEO for much longer?
Asked by Anonymous
My professional opinion is that it’s preposterous.
My unprofessional opinion is that it’s fucking preposterous.
Is there going to be turnover at Apple in 2012? Of course. Guess what? There was turnover under Steve Jobs every year as well. Is Tim Cook — who has been acting CEO for extended periods of time twice before, remember — going to be stabbed in the back and forced out in 2012? Ha.
The sad thing is that the prediction isn’t even the most batshit crazy one that Cringely has this year. I guess when you’re about to retire you can just say whatever the hell you want and not worry about it. Good for him.
iBonus
Alongside Tim Cook’s appointment as CEO of Apple, the company is granting him one million RSUs. Half will vest in exactly five years from his appointment, the other half in ten years.
At Apple’s current stock price, these shares would be worth a cool $383.5 million.
For you non-math majors, this works out to roughly $38 million a year to be CEO of Apple.
As a result, I fully expect Cook to take the symbolic $1 a year in salary that Jobs himself used to take (though perhaps a nice yearly bonus too so he can live before the vesting — though he did make $59 million after his bonuses last year).
What’s nice about the RSUs is that they directly incentivize Cook to keep the stock up, which more or less means keeping performance up. Not that he’d slack off otherwise…
Why Did Steve Jobs Resign Yesterday?
The one lingering question I had following Jobs’ resignation was about the timing. Normally, Apple is pretty calculated about the timing of such things (see: the news about Jobs’ liver transplant in 2009 — which had happened months prior — breaking after market close on a Friday afternoon… …a day in which Apple also released the iPhone 3GS).
A seemingly random Wednesday afternoon in August appears at first glance to be weird. Yes, it was also after market close, but the market would open the very next day. And yes, Apple is due to unveil the iPhone 5 soon — but it’s still likely weeks away. So why this Wednesday?
Peter Burrows and Josh Tyrangiel for Bloomberg Businessweek appear to answer that:
On the day of the announcement, a person close to Jobs who was not authorized to speak about his health said the outgoing CEO was in Apple’s Cupertino (Calif.) office for the entire workday and attended a regularly scheduled board meeting.
The last part is key. There was a scheduled board meeting. Jobs had to give his resignation letter to the board. He clearly wanted to do that in person. And the board also had to vote on Tim Cook as CEO and Jobs becoming Chairman.
While the initial thoughts on the weird timing may have been about Jobs’ health, various accounts have him no better or worse than in recent months (he was still on medical leave, remember).
It would seem that Jobs just figured now was the right time to formally hand the reins over to Cook — who again, has been leading Apple for months. And there just happened to be a board meeting on August 24, 2011.
Tags tech apple steve jobs tim cook
AAPL
Ahhhh!!! Apple’s stock!!! Ahhhh!!!!
(It’s down 0.24% today — the Nasdaq as a whole is down 1.29%.)
While many were predicting chaos on the day after Steve Jobs resigned, and there was a massive initial plunge in after-hours trading last night, the market just voted in a big way for Tim Cook today. And rightfully so.
Keep calm and carry on, people.
Tags tech apple steve jobs tim cook stock
Steve Jobs Resigns As CEO Of Apple
Headline says it all. Sad day, but it was always going to happen sometime. The fact that Jobs is staying on as Chairman of the Board seems like a good sign.
And yes, it was always going to be Tim Cook as the next CEO. There will be a lot of volatility surrounding Apple news over the next few days and weeks. But it’s hard to imagine a better successor.
Tags tech apple steve jobs tim cook
“There is a better chance of Apple choosing its next CEO through a raffle of ten golden tickets hidden inside iPad boxes distributed around the globe than that they’d give the job to Eric Schmidt.”
John Gruber, talking about possible Steve Jobs “replacements” as CEO of Apple
Completely agree with his breakdown here. Everyone wants this to be an interesting story, but it’s not. If and when the time comes, the next CEO of Apple will be Tim Cook.
At the same time, Cook will not be CEO in the same way that Jobs is CEO. Cook is not a product or design guy the way that Jobs is. He’s an operations guy. Probably the best in the world.
Back in January, when remarking on BusinessInsider’s remarkably ridiculous assertion that Tim Cook is Apple’s Steve Ballmer, I laid out what I thought the next phase of Apple looks like:
Further, while I have no more knowledge about Cook than what I’ve read, I would be surprised if he thought of himself as a product visionary who would even try to fill Jobs’ shoes in that capacity. He really does seem to be all about operations. And that’s why he’s the best in the business at it.
I suspect that if Jobs did leave Apple permanently, Cook would pass off those duties to another executive — perhaps Jonathan Ive, Scott Forstall, or someone new brought in.
Gruber today takes that a step further:
The obvious structure for a post-Jobs Apple has Cook as CEO, doing mostly what he’s already been doing as COO. What he already does at Apple is what most CEOs do at other companies. Final word on product design goes to the senior vice presidents: Scott Forstall (iOS), Jonathan Ive (hardware design), and Phil Schiller (marketing and, perhaps, Mac).
So that would be Cook in the formal lead plus a triumvirate of Forstall, Ive, and Schiller, with nearly as much power. That kind of structure would be fascinating. It would be like ancient Rome post-Caesar — with a Caesar-like figure still having the final say.
Maybe that works. The Roman triumvirates sure didn’t — because they eventually all wanted ultimate power. Cook would retain ultimate power. The buck would stop with him.
Tags tech apple tim cook steve jobs
Source daringfireball.net
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