By now we’ve all know the story behind Apple’s founder Steve Jobs. But upto this day, many question, has Apple lost it’s “touch”? Yukari Kane just wrote a book “Haunted Empire, Apple After Steve Jobs” it focuses on Tim Cook and how Apple has progressed after Steve Jobs out of the picture.
Tim Cook, whom Jobs had personally picked as Apple’s new CEO, was at the service, but attendees gave the former chief operating officer little thought. Even as he took control of Apple’s empire, Cook couldn’t escape his boss’s shadow. How could anyone compete with a visionary so brilliant that not even death could make him go away?
The genius trap had long been set for Jobs’s successor. Apple had been defined by him for more than a decade. Design, product development, marketing strategies and executive appointments—all hinged on his tastes. Apple’s accomplishments weren’t Jobs’s alone, but he had taken credit for most of them, which further fed his legend. One employee even owned a car with the vanity plate “WWSJD”: What Would Steve Jobs Do?
If Jobs was the star, Cook was the stage manager. If Jobs was idealistic, Cook was practical. But without Jobs, Cook had no counterweight to his dogged pragmatism. Who would provide the creative sparks?
The succession was complicated by the fact that no one knew who Cook really was. The new CEO was a mystery. Some colleagues called him a blank slate. As far as anyone could tell, Cook had no close friends, never socialized and rarely talked about his personal life.
Other parts of the excerpt describe Cook as “relentlessly frugal” with “inhuman stamina,” almost making the CEO seem more like a robot than the smiling usher of the next great thing from Apple we’ve come to know in public.
But considering Cook’s strict attention to maintaining his privacy, as well as his habit of crafting his public statements with laser precision, this new book could be one of the best looks into the character of the new head of Apple we’ve had yet. The book is due to hit bookstores on March 18.
source: mashable, wallstreetjournal
