CUPERTINO -- It was a heck of a way to celebrate his first year on the job. Earlier this week, just four days before his anniversary as Apple's (AAPL) top executive, Tim Cook learned he was now CEO of the most valuable company on the face of the planet -- ever.
Despite that $621 billion market cap, there likely was little crowing in Cupertino. After 12 months at the helm, the mild-mannered son of an Alabama shipyard worker has racked up record earnings and mounting piles of cash for Apple by supplying the world with game-changing technologies that continue to surprise and delight. But he's done it with a management style that practically whispers in comparison to the feared genius who preceded him."Tim knows he's not Steve Jobs and doesn't try to be,'' says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management. "He's comfortable in his own skin, and he's done a remarkable job of under-promising and over-delivering. When Jobs walked out the door last year, a lot of people figured much of Apple's magic would disappear. It hasn't.''
Cook, whom Apple did not make available for this story, inherited much of that Jobs-induced magic, from Apple's wildly successful iPhone and iPad to its burgeoning network
Advertisement
While Jobs may have created the iPhone, it is Tim Cook who must figure out how to manufacture and move more and more Apple products to an exploding number of customers around the world.
To be sure, thanks to the company's vaunted product pipeline, which should ensure a bounty of cool gadgets for at least the next several years, it may be five years or so before it becomes clear whether Apple can continue to innovate under Cook's leadership. Still, next month's expected launch of the iPhone 5, says ISI Group analyst Brian Marshall, could be Cook's next big at-bat.
"This is the first mega-launch under his watch, and with the iPhone generating 65 percent of Apple's gross profits, there's a lot riding on it,'' Marshall says, underscoring the importance of the supply chain in moving those phones. "But Tim's been responsible in the past for operations, and if anyone can do it, he can.''
Silicon Valley veteran Regis McKenna, a longtime friend and go-to marketing guy for Jobs, says Cook "has been able to set up an efficient global operation by keeping his head down and concentrating on what's important. He's not distracted by expectations placed on a public persona and that's what Apple needs right now. Tim doesn't seek the limelight.''
For Cook, who became the highest-paid CEO in Silicon Valley last year when he earned $378 million -- most of it in Apple stock -- his inaugural year on top has been chock-full of news. And while most of it has been good for investors -- spectacular earnings, a dividend and stock-buyback program, a third-generation iPad -- the CEO has had to navigate a few sticky wickets.
There was Apple's embarrassing about-face on its decision to withdraw its products from a respected environmental certification program. And Apple's stock price temporarily swooned this past spring after a disappointing earnings announcement.
In perhaps his most public show of leadership yet, Cook personally traveled to China after Apple was widely criticized for working conditions at the factories of its main supplier, Foxconn. The high-profile goodwill trip revealed a sharp difference in management style from Jobs', who famously dismissed criticisms of Foxconn, telling an interviewer in 2010 that "Foxconn is not a sweatshop'' and that "for a factory, it's a pretty nice factory."
Yet Cook's Foxconn photo-op and Apple's decision to join the Fair Labor Association and allow third-party inspectors into the factories doesn't let its CEO completely off the hook.
"I'm not sure that the whole FLA thing isn't more about public relations than really changing anything,'' says Ross Eisenbrey, a labor-policy expert with the nonprofit think tank Economic Policy Institute. "Yes, there have been changes, but the pay increases workers received aren't enough to make up for the lost overtime, so workers still feel they're not paid enough to meet their basic needs.''
Others, though, say they've seen real change since Cook took over. Patricia Jurewicz is with Oakland-based As You Sow, a nonprofit promoting corporate responsibility. She has seen signs of glasnost at One Infinite Loop in Cupertino, where she met recently with Apple about efforts to keep "conflict" materials from Africa out of its products.
"In the past, we got a very different response to our calls than we do now,'' she says. "Steve Jobs wanted very much to stay under the radar and not share information. With Tim Cook, they seem more responsive.''
Jobs' spirit, of course, still looms large. His outsize personality and the company he started were seemingly intertwined, so there's a strong temptation to measure Cook against the man who hired him and then handed him the corporate keys. At times, Cook seems to be channeling his former boss. On stage to launch the third-generation iPad in March, Cook came out dressed in black, pacing the stage and pitching products with more than a hint of Jobsian flair.
But now, after a full year in charge, Cook clearly has come into his own and the spotlight is on him. Still, Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Jeffrey Pfeffer says Apple's CEO is where he is because of the guy who believed in him back in 1998, the same guy now standing forever offstage in the shadows.
"I always felt Steve Jobs' most underappreciated skill late in life was to build an organization that would sustain itself even after he was gone,'' Pfeffer says. "He's picked a good guy to run things, and I think Apple has been very well built to last.''
Contact Patrick May at 408-920-5689 or follow him at Twitter.com/patmaymerc
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét