He is almost the opposite of Apple founder Steve Jobs. While he let himself be celebrated as a visionary, enjoyed the limelight and sometimes offended his ego, his successor Tim Cook likes to be reserved. An impression that you also have in a personal conversation with him (you can find out more here). In a large portrait, Cook allowed himself to look deeper into the cards for the first time – from his private life to tips on using the iPhone and future products.
The lengthy piece, published by GQ, shows a man who really doesn’t care what other people think of him. “Nobody has ever called me normal,” Cook admits frankly. Growing up as a homosexual man in the southern United States, he is used to headwinds. “I don’t mind being in a room with people who don’t agree with me. It’s nothing new to me,” he says.
And so it’s not surprising that Cook also expresses opinions that you might not expect from the head of the most valuable company in the world. For example, that the company’s products should not be used too much. When his interlocutor Zach Baron admits that he has his iPhone in his hand too often, the CEO surprisingly agrees. “My philosophy is that if you look at your phone more than you look other people in the eyes, then you’re doing something wrong,” he explains.
“We want to help people put their phones down,” Cook said. That’s why the group introduced its “Screen Time” function. This not only makes it possible to specifically limit the use of individual apps or the entire smartphone. But it also allows the iPhone’s biggest time wasters to be displayed in a report. “I don’t know about you, but I’m looking at this report very closely,” Cook admits.
Cook sees an acute danger in screen time, especially among the younger generations. “Kids are born digital, they grow up digital, and I think it’s really important to set hard boundaries,” he explains. He sees his own products primarily as an opportunity to express himself through technology and to create things. Dealing with it too much is not her purpose. “We don’t incentivize it. We don’t want it. And we’re providing ways that people can opt out.”
Although the conversation also deals a lot with Apple’s strategy, the challenges, the orientation towards services and future products, Cook as a person always comes through. And that more than you are used to from other interviews. Cook reports on his aversion to the daily morning exercise and his decision to make his homosexuality public because he wanted to set an example. And he speaks for the first time about the great challenge of inheriting Steve Jobs, one of the most celebrated visionaries in the tech world.
“I felt completely empty. I knew I couldn’t be Steve, I don’t think anyone could,” Cook recalled. “So what I had to do was be the best version of myself.” He did not take it for granted that Apple would receive the same level of attention as before. “I thought, ‘This public interest in Apple came through Steve. And that shaped my attitude when I took on the CEO role, especially without him, after his death. I expected attention to dip. But it wasn’t so.”
Source: GQ
