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Journalism of Courage
On an 18-hour flight from California to Singapore a few years ago,Timothy D Cook,Apples chief operating officer,had little time for small talk with a colleague. Glued to his business class seat,Cook had his nose in spreadsheets,preparing for a thorough review of Apples Asian operations.
The two landed at 6 am,took time to shower and headed into a meeting with Apples local executives. Twelve hours later,and well past dinnertime,the local executives were ready to call it quits.
They were absolutely exhausted, said Michael Janes,the Apple executive who accompanied Cook. Tim was not. He was ready to jump to the next slide and the next slide after that. He is absolutely relentless.
That relentlessness could be indispensable in the months ahead,because Cook may be tested as never before. He has been charged with running Apples day-to-day operations while his boss,Steven P Jobs,the companys chief executive,is on medical leave.
Cook has done that twice before,briefly and successfully. Yet if Jobss health does not improve,Cook could be on the job for a long time. And while Apples succession plans are closely guarded,Cook is widely believed to be the most likely candidate to permanently replace Jobs.
In Silicon Valley,Jobs is also known for relentlessness. Yet on many levels,he and Cook are opposites. While Jobs is mercurial and prone to outbursts,Cook,who was raised in a small town in Alabama,is polite and soft-spoken. He is often described as a Southern gentleman. Their complementary skills have helped Apple pull off the most remarkable turnaround in American business,and made it the worlds most valuable technology company. When Cook is on his own,he will have to compensate for the absence of Jobs and his inventiveness,charisma and uncanny ability to predict the future of technology.
From his first days at Apple in 1998,Cook worked in the shadow of Jobs and other prominent leaders. Although his job making sure Apple could produce,assemble and ship its breakthrough products around the world,and do so profitably was not considered sexy,he quickly removed inefficiencies from Apples supply chain.MIGUEL HELFT
