I listen to a lot of podcasts, but somehow I had no idea that pop icon Dua Lipa had her own talker at the BBC, let alone the fact that she got hold of Apple CEO Tim Cook for a rare 45-minute conversation. Cook didn’t reveal any major Apple news, but listening to the interview gave me a rare insight into the relatively private CEO, and an important glimpse into how Apple is planning for an uncertain future.
Five years ago, I read that by Leander Kahney Tim Cook: the genius who took Apple to the next level. The biography offered Cook’s life story, but differently Walter Isaacsons Steve Jobs posthumous biography, Kahney apparently never interviewed his subject. Cook remained somewhat of a cipher. Lipa’s casual conversation at her home about a week after the iPhone 15 launch did a better job of bringing out the real Tim Cook, even if he occasionally falls back on what sounds like something written by Apple’s marketing department answers.
Here’s some of what I learned about the captain of one of the richest and most important companies in the world.
Cook looks a bit like me
Cook wakes up early. Because he gets up between four and five in the morning, he is even an hour faster than me.
He checks emails in the morning while I check the news feeds (to-may-to, to-mah-to)
He trains every morning. Bill. I do it every day, even though I don’t have Cook’s trainer pushing me.
Cook is still a modest man
Cook, who was hired in 1998 by Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs and took over as CEO shortly before Jobs’ death in 2011, operates in Jobs’ long shadow. But when Lipa asked Cook if he thinks he’s getting enough credit (all that value built under his tenure, for example), Cook made it clear—and I believe him—that Apple is still Steve Jobs’ company in some sense:
“I think only Steve could have created Apple,” he said. “We owe him a great debt of gratitude. If he were alive today, the company would be doing very well and he would still be CEO.”
Cook will continue to focus on equality long after he leaves Apple
Cook, who publicly came out as gay in 2014 and immediately became the only publicly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company, claimed there is a “glass ceiling” for LGBTQ people and people of color in the industry, and believes it’s ‘bizarre’ that there aren’t more openly gay CEOs. He also emphasized that Apple has broken its own glass ceiling.
If and when Cook ultimately leaves Apple, he told Lipa that since he is giving away most of his personal fortune, working for equality will be one of his main focuses, along with helping the underprivileged get a better education.
Cook has no illusions about AI
As he previously noted, Apple uses AI in all its products. A few years ago the company told me for example, how AI is used for battery managementand Cook told Lipa that it is used in email for autocomplete.
Cook remains a strong supporter of AI regulation, and thinks that while “most governments are behind the curve today,” he believes we will see AI regulation within the next eighteen months.
As for what Apple will and won’t do with AI (generative and otherwise), Cook made it clear what Apple won’t do, saying, “If they can be used for nefarious reasons, we won’t go down those paths.”
I wonder how this stance could limit Siri’s development as a possible LLM platform. Of course, I didn’t expect Lipa to get so deep with Cook.
The Vision Pro is a reflection of our mind
Lipa was clearly fascinated by Apple’s unreleased Vision Pro mixed reality headset. I’ve spent some time with the platform and I find it revolutionary in some ways. Cook noted all the time Apple spent developing Vision Pro, adding, “We spent years researching and developing this product to make it so easy to use that it works the way your mind works.”
Making products that allow you to ‘think and do’ instead of thinking, trying to figure out, searching, trying and guessing again before you get results is truly Apple’s trademark. It’s something I noticed with the very first iPhone, and it’s good to see that Apple, as it moves into new product territory, is sticking to its core product development principles.
Cook’s brings news of sorts
Cook, who is now 63, has been with Apple for 25 years. On the issue of his retirement, he has made it clear to Lipa that he is not going anywhere.
“I love it there,” he told her. “I can’t imagine life without being there. I’ll be there for a while.”
So the salient point here is that Tim Cook will be Apple’s CEO for the foreseeable future. On the issue of succession plans, Cook may have surprised some by saying that Apple has “detailed succession plans” in the unfortunate event that Cook leaves the wrong side.
Cook told Lipa that his job is “to prepare different people with the ability to succeed.”
This makes sense, and it reminds us how good Cook is at every aspect of his job, because the best managers always develop their successors.
Cook, and I’m sure Apple as a whole, wants the next CEO to come from within the company. If I had to take a guess, current Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams would be the most likely candidate.
Williams often appears in Apple’s product announcement videos, but otherwise he is not a progressive Apple presence. Tim Cook’s previous job was, of course, COO of Apple, and he too wasn’t someone people knew much about in 2009, before he first replaced Jobs, during Jobs’ liver transplant and recovery.
Whoever takes on the CEO mantle of Apple would do best to cool their heels. Cook, who was clearly in his element while chatting with Dua Lipa, isn’t going anywhere.
And that’s probably a good thing for Apple, and for fans of Apple products.
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