Gigaom has reported that at the Goldman Sachs’ investor conference that took place on Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook shed some light on how he views himself as the iconic Steve Jobs’s successor as well as his views on the company’s $98 billion cash pile. Although Cook did not provide investors with a dividend, he did reveal some insight into his leadership style and priorities.
Cook spoke extensively about his views on the potential growth and future opportunities for the iPhone, iPad and Mac. Just as important for investors, who want to know the direction in which the company plans to go since the loss of Steve Jobs, Cook put them at ease by opening up on how he plans to make his own mark on Apple. While Jobs can in no way be replaced, especially by Cook who is reminded of this by the media and Wall Street on a daily basis, he certainly displays the same passion for Apple and is committed to its continuing innovation and ground breaking success as a leading technology company. Throwing in an “incredible” and an “amazing” here and there as Steve Jobs did, is further evidence of his shared enthusiasm.
Cook was very clear about how serious he is about taking care of Apple’s wellbeing and continuing Jobs’s vision. Cook said, “Apple is this unique company, unique culture that you can‘t replicate. And I‘m not going to witness or prevent the slow undoing of it “” because I believe in it so deeply. Steve drilled in all of us over many years that the company should revolve around great products and we should stay extremely focused on a few things rather than so many that we did nothing well. And we should only go into markets where we can make a sigificant contribution to society, not just sell a lot of products. Along with keeping excellent as an expectation of everything at Apple, these are the things I focus on.”
While Cook is primarily thought of as a numbers man, he is becoming somewhat of a salesman too, mentioning at least three times that listeners should go buy themselves an Apple TV. Cook also revealed that rather than inventing new ideas, the ultimate reward for him is winning customers and putting products in their hands. Maybe it’s this developing selling talent that will contribute to doing just that.
Cook also exposed another way his leadership style is different to that of Jobs by the way that the company’s cash and liquid assets are handled by signalling that he does not take as an extreme view as Jobs did. While Jobs was adamant that no dividend or share buybacks or large acquisitions be made to keep Apple out of debt and independent should the company hit financial problems, Cook mentioned that he‘s “œnot religious“ about keeping cash or not.
It is clear at this time, that Cook is a product of the Apple/Jobs way but leads with his own unique style by looking ahead and is open to deviating from the way things were always done in the past.
