Tim Cook reveals his surprise first job – as the Apple CEO says he’s been working since he was just 11

He is best known as CEO of one of the largest companies in the world.

But before Tim Cook took the reins at Apple, he started his career in a very surprising place.

Speaking on the Table Manners podcast, Mr Cook revealed that he started working when he was just 11 years old.

He says: ‘His upbringing was largely focused on work and the belief that hard work was essential for everyone, no matter your age.

“And so I started working when I was probably 11, 12 years old, on the paper route.”

After years of throwing papers, Cook says he “graduated” to his next job at age 14, flipping burgers for a local restaurant.

“I worked at a company called Tastee Freez. It was the only fast food restaurant in town, so everyone congregated there,” he explained to Jessie and Lennie Ware.

“I wore a hat and I wore an apron, and I was making $1.10 an hour at the time, it was subminimum wage, which was legal at the time.”

Tim Cook was born in 1960 to Geraldine and Don Cook in the city of Mobile, Alabama.

However, the family later settled in Robertsdale, which, while technically a town, had a population of just over 2,000 at the time.

Mr Cook says: ‘I came from an extremely humble background in a country town of two to three thousand people, so it was a blink and you’ll miss it a bit.

‘But it was great. The house was filled with love and everyone knew everyone in town and what everyone did. And so it was a very different upbringing.”

It was in Robertsdale that Mr. Cook got his first job delivering papers and flipping burgers while attending the local high school.

Later, according to the Mobile press registrationhe worked with his mother at Robertsdale’s Lee Drug Store.

While the Tastee Freez, where Mr Cook’s first taste of paid work, is no longer open, the Lee Drugstore remains the city’s only independent pharmacy.

In high school, Mr. Cook reportedly played trombone in the band and was a member of the yearbook staff.

In a sign of his future business success, the young Mr. Cook even served as business manager of the yearbook during his senior year and was responsible for selling advertising to local businesses.

It was his years growing up in rural Alabama that Cook says taught him the value of hard work.

“They (his parents) taught him hard work. And that has stayed with me my whole life, the value of it, the fact that work can be part of your purpose,” says Mr Cook.

‘I think I liked working before Apple. I didn’t like the job, and now I love both. And there’s a big difference you feel when you do that.’

After graduating from Auburn University, where he saw his first personal computer, Mr. Cook worked at a number of technology companies, including IBM, before Steve Jobs invited him to join Apple in 1998.

He says: ‘I worked with Steve for thirteen years before he passed away in 2011. That was a very, very sad time. I thought he would always be there, and it didn’t happen that way.”

Now, as CEO of Apple, Cook says he still maintains the hard-working values ​​he learned as a child — including a habit that would have come in handy during his morning paper.

The technology leader says the one thing he has always stuck to is starting the day at 5am.

In previous interviews, he has said he uses the time to answer some of the 500 to 600 emails he receives every day.

This includes emails sent in by the many happy or extremely dissatisfied Apple customers who contact him every day.

He says, “This is the part of the day I have the most control over. As the day begins to unfold, it becomes less predictable, and by the end of the day, all of these things can take up your time, intention, and energy.

“And so I like the part of the day where I can shut off the world a little bit, focus on a few crucial things, and just be quiet for a while.”