What Tim Cook Saw in Steve Jobs That Made Him Join Apple

“Steve Jobs was sort of turning left when everyone was turning right,” said Tim Cook about the former Apple CEO.

Apple CEO Tim Cook.

(Photo: Reuters)

Imagine getting a call one fine day that leads you to the best decision of your life. That’s exactly what happened with Tim Cook when he met the late co-founder of Apple Inc. Steve Jobs.

“There was a sparkle in his eye that I had never seen in a CEO before”, Cook said in The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations. Jobs was doing something “extraordinarily different” much against the conventions, Cook said. “Jobs was sort of turning left when everyone was turning right.”

Many people were abandoning the consumer market because it was a bloodbath. Steve was doing exactly the opposite. He was doubling down on the consumer while everyone else, and the conventional wisdom said put your money in storage and servers.  

Tim Cook, CEO, Apple

Cook said that he was hoping he’d get a job at Apple when he was leaving the meet. “Because I really want to do this. This was the best decision of my life.”

He added, every one in seven person owns an iPhone and this makes it one of the successful products in the history of mankind.

(This story was originally published on BloombergQuint and has been republished with permission.)