ROSE-SHOW-01
Tim Cook - Part 2>
the consequences of who wins and loses Conversation with Apple CEO Tim Cook
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Politics; Elections; Polls; Policies; Government; Minorities; Super
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I found out that I had one as well. And I assumed that they nudged. And I offered him mine and he was like no. There was just no way that was going to -- that he was going to accept it. He wouldn`t even discuss it.
And I think this says a lot about him. And you know, really makes me wonder, I hope, that if I`m in the similar situation, I can make the same choice. But I think there`s a great lesson there.
CHARLIE ROSE: But he knew he was dying?
TIM COOK: He -- did he know? It`s hard to answer that, is the honest question. I mean, he and I, in some ways, were polar opposite. But we shared a lot as well. We shared a really focus on excellence. We both shared a deep love for Apple. And so, there are lots of things. And we worked together very closely. And I think had -- And I clearly had great respect for him. And I think he felt the same way toward me.
CHARLIE ROSE: It was the important thing he had other than family was the well being of this thing he`d built with his life.
TIM COOK: When he told me, I felt like -- almost an indescribable feeling. It`s like somebody entrusted in you a huge part of themselves. And that`s the way I felt that day. And I remember asking him, are you sure you want to do this? You know, this was six weeks or so before he passed away.
And at that point in time, that was not -- I didn`t see that occurring. And I don`t think he did either at that point in time. Yeah, and I don`t think he did see it. Not at least in that time frame. And he was -- he had decided that he would not be CEO any longer. And that he was going to be chairman.
And he called me and said, "Come over, I want to talk to you about something." It was like on a weekend or something. "So, when do you want me?" And he said, "Now."
And so I drove over to his home and he said, Apple has never had an orderly transition of CEO, never in the company.
And I want that to occur. And I want you to be the CEO. And so, he and I had talked about this very generally several times before that, obviously. But not like I`m ready to give you the torque so to speak, right? And so, it was a -- I wasn`t expecting this at all because I had seen him getting better and better. And so, it was a bit a shock for me.
CHARLIE ROSE: Had he also told you not to think about what he would do?
TIM COOK: He did. He mentioned that he had watched what happened to Disney, when Walt passed away. And he described the company as being paralyzed of sitting in meetings and trying to guess at what Walt would do and that whatever situation it was.
And he did not want that to happen with Apple. And so, he actually covered this twice then and once subsequently that he did not want this to occur with Apple to never think about it. To just do what was right. And I`ve always tried to do that.
CHARLIE ROSE: What was it that you two did together? What was the relationship, the business relationship?
TIM COOK: There was -- you know, with Steve, I wouldn`t call it a business relationship, it was a friendship.
CHARLIE ROSE: A friendship.
TIM COOK: And the -- at Apple -- and I think this is true more broadly about the company is business and personal blend together. And so there was a, you know, a very close bond there. And can I describe? I`m not sure I can describe it, Charlie. It was -- it sort of, you know, think about somebody you see everyday and you do for multiple years. And you sort of feed off each other a bit. That was -- that`s the way I felt about Steve.
And over time he entrusted me in doing more things and I always appreciated that. And I always learned from him. Everyday I learn something. And it was a privilege of a lifetime.
CHARLIE ROSE: You can`t be more different. You come or not. You come .
TIM COOK: You know, one of the beauties in Steve is he didn`t want everybody to be alike. He didn`t see a need for everyone to look alike, talk alike, speak alike, whatever. He didn`t put everybody through a car wash and get a check without the other side. And so, I think you can tell in his selection that that`s not how he thought.
CHARLIE ROSE: He wanted diversity.
TIM COOK: He did.
CHARLIE ROSE: With experience.
TIM COOK: But diversity of experience, diversity of life experience, diversity -- people seeing things through a different lens. And I think he knew -- I know he knew that the most important thing about Apple is getting everyone to work together well. Getting the collaboration of the high level -- because we`re fortunate to have such fantastic people.
If you can get the collaboration, you can get some incredible products out.
CHARLIE ROSE: Let me ask about you, though.
TIM COOK: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: I mean, tell me how to growing up in segregation of the south shaped you. Because you told the story of seeing a cross burning. And who it comes off and you saw and you and your bicycle someone you knew and you said it seared in your brain and it changed your life forever.
TIM COOK: There were so many things, Charlie, with growing up where -- and this was the period of time, keep in mind. I grew up in the 60`s and the 70`s. And through this period of time, the U.S. in general was struggling with segregation, desegregation was struggling with racial tension and actually the country is still struggling about today and -- although in a different manner than back in the 60`s and 70`s.
And so -- but the high order bit for me was, what I saw was that people weren`t able to do their best. That there was some sort of built in head wind for certain people. Maybe it was because they were African-American. Maybe it was because they were gay. Maybe it was because they had -- they believed in a religion that was different than the majority religion.
Whatever it was. Maybe it was because they were female. Maybe -- whatever the situation was, but I saw so many people that had this head wind. And I don`t -- my own community was very great community. But -- I mean, looking at the broader community. You saw this and you saw it, it was sort of hit you in the face as you traveled about.
George Wallace was the governor of Alabama during part of this. And you know the history there. And so, you get reminded about how much better life could be for everyone if there was no discrimination. Wouldn`t it be incredible if there was none, and it`s free?
You know, this isn`t something where you have to said, oh my god we`ve got a trillion dollar deficit or whatever the situation is. You know, let`s decide about entitlements. It`s nothing to do with all of this. It`s just treating people with basic respect and human dignity.
And from an early age, you know, my heroes in life were Dr. King and Robert Kennedy. And they still are. Because you look at these guys and you focus on what they stood for and their vision of the world and -- not if we could achieve it but when we achieve it. You think about how great it would truly be.
I mean, even if you think about it in a cold way of economics, it will be so great. But it`s not the reason to do it in my view, the reason to do it because it`s just and right.
CHARLIE ROSE: And that`s the reason the pictures are in Europe.
TIM COOK: That`s the reason there they are.
CHARLIE ROSE: To remind you.
TIM COOK: They remind me of what is most important. And, you know, I showed you the photo of Jackie Robinson as well in there. And you think about what he went through in life and how great he was. And how he was sort of a pioneer in.
CHARLIE ROSE: And how he knew he had to hold his own (inaudible).
TIM COOK: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: . in order to.
TIM COOK: For the greater good.
CHARLIE ROSE: To win the game.
TIM COOK: Exactly.
CHARLIE ROSE: The larger game.
TIM COOK: Exactly. Exactly. And so -- I mean, these folks really inspire me.
CHARLIE ROSE: You also say human right is a big issue for you.
TIM COOK: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: You also say that coming out, announcing, even though your friends knew that you were gay, no other CEO of a fortune 500 company might be gay has come out. You said it was God`s greatest gift to you.
TIM COOK: Yes. For me, when I look back and I think why did I have the insight that discrimination was such a massive issue and what would happen in the absence of it about how great things would be. It`s fundamentally because of this.
It`s not because -- it doesn`t -- I`m not saying that I know what it`s like to be African-American, I can`t say that. But when you`re in a minority group, it gives you a sense of empathy of what it`s like to be in the minority. And you begin to look at things from different point of views. And I think -- I`m not saying no one can do that without being a minority. There are some people incredibly good at looking at it but for me, I think it was a gift for me.
CHARLIE ROSE: Explain this to me too. So, the founder suffers (ph) -- leaves a proud legacy of a great company and great people. I met a number of them.
TIM COOK: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: . who were there.
TIM COOK: Yeah. They`re incredibly -- incredible.
CHARLIE ROSE: Incredible group of people.
TIM COOK: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: . who come to this extraordinary meeting on a Monday morning, every Monday morning.
TIM COOK: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: They all show up. They want to be there and they`re required to be there to a degree if they want to be part of the management.
TIM COOK: Yes. Sure.
CHARLIE ROSE: If you didn`t show up for a couple of meetings, you would begin to wonder.
TIM COOK: Yeah, absolutely.
CHARLIE ROSE: . wouldn`t you?
TIM COOK: Yes, they want to show up.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TIM COOK: Yeah. They really want to because they want to participate in.
CHARLIE ROSE: They want to participate because they might miss something.
TIM COOK: Absolutely.
CHARLIE ROSE: Exactly.
TIM COOK: Things move fast, so you don`t want to be absent.
CHARLIE ROSE: Jony Ive, Eddy Cue, Craig Federighi, Jeff Williams, Phil Schiller.
TIM COOK: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: These were people who made Apple great.
TIM COOK: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: These were people who made Steve Jobs great.
TIM COOK: Yup.
CHARLIE ROSE: Not one of them has left.
TIM COOK: Yeah. Yeah. People love Apple deeply. The people.
CHARLIE ROSE: But they have plenty of money.
TIM COOK: Yes, but people aren`t in it for money. Yes, they get paid and people need to get paid.
CHARLIE ROSE: And they got a beautiful resume.
TIM COOK: They got a beautiful resume but they know that there`s a difference between really loving the work and doing your best work. And I feel like they can do that here and change the world. And you look at these other thing, yes, you can make more money somewhere else maybe and all this kind of stuff but life`s more than that. Life`s so much more than that. And I think they all know that.
CHARLIE ROSE: And do you worry though at some point that may change not because they`re tired of Apple or anything else but then they say .
TIM COOK: yes, people -- you know, people will retire after a while. We`re not -- we`re .
CHARLIE ROSE: You`re not immune from retirement.
TIM COOK: We`re not immune from retirement. But fortunately, if you look at their organizations there are the unbelievable people that will be the next generation of leadership of this company.
CHARLIE ROSE: You didn`t have to do anything to win the (inaudible) because you were already part of who they were.
TIM COOK: I was a known. I was known and I think, you know, they knew my strengths, they knew my weaknesses, they knew I loved Apple deeply. I think Apple is a company that you want someone sitting in the CEO chair that understands deeply the company and loves it.
Our requirements so to speak, the requirement to do what we do is to love this company. People would not do well here if they don`t love the company. I know that sounds really soft and all that and speak. Some people will hear that and say, oh who cares about that. But we need.
CHARLIE ROSE: You care about it.
TIM COOK: I care about it deeply. And to have the level of care that we want in our products, it takes that feeling. It`s you -- if you view this as a job or you`re working for a paycheck, if that`s your purpose, Apple is not the company you have, because it requires a higher level of energy and passion than you get out of working for a paycheck.
CHARLIE ROSE: They don`t think they can`t find people who feel the same thing at Google or Amazon or Facebook?
TIM COOK: I suspect that some of those companies you might. I don`t know. But I think -- I don`t think you would find people that have done it for as long and as consistently as Apple.
CHARLIE ROSE: Did you feel like you have anything to prove? Because as you know people said that it`s very hard to follow a legend. It`s very hard to follow essentially a founder.
TIM COOK: Yeah, I never viewed I was competing with Steve. I loved Steve. Steve is not my competition. My competition are working out in companies that are competing against Apple. And so, I never viewed that it was like that.
I know that there was a common media view of you can`t follow somebody that`s successful and do well but, you know, from my point of view, I look at this and said he selected me. I want to do every single thing I can do and use every ounce of energy I`ve got to do as well as I can because I want to do it because he selected me to do it. And I deeply love this company. I mean -- and I`ve never felt that way before entering the -- those doors.
CHARLIE ROSE: Let me talk about what`s here. I mean there`s this recipe for innovation. It is the notion that you`re creating products. You don`t focus groups to this box?
TIM COOK: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: You`re creating products people don`t know they need until they need them.
TIM COOK: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Because they love them.
TIM COOK: Yes. I think if you go out for focus groups, focus groups generally will find evolutionary kind of things. They`ll say, you know, I want something to be a bit faster or whatever. You`re not going to find things that are around the corner from a focus group. And so you can -- what we do is we make things that we want and we think we`re reasonable proxies for a greater number of people. So if we can design something that passes our test and our expectations, then we feel like it could be pretty successful in the market.
CHARLIE ROSE: And you measure that because somewhere at some point one of you had thought wouldn`t it be nice to, and because you were here you know what has to meet certain standards.
TIM COOK: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Not only performing well, it has to look well and feel well and be unique and somehow be of a quality that people feel like they have to have it.
TIM COOK: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: And what`s in it is enough.
TIM COOK: It has to be better. Not just different but better. And so, if it doesn`t pass that test, we don`t do it.
CHARLIE ROSE: Eddie Cue has said Apple improved on price created by other companies for example, the mouse, with your music and smartphone rather than coming up with some brand new idea. It takes something that somebody`s tried and makes it as close to perfection as you can.
TIM COOK: You know, sometimes other.
CHARLIE ROSE: Go ahead.
TIM COOK: Yeah, sometimes people have tried it, absolutely. And I think you would find that in the phone case, there were smartphones on the market.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
TIM COOK: You find it with mp3`s.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right, right. iPod.
TIM COOK: An mp3`s before iPod. There were tablets on the market well before iPad. But also I would point out that the first modern one were those items. Where the - was the iPad for tablets and iPhone for smartphones and iPod. And once that benchmark was set, the industry began to run toward that new objective.
CHARLIE ROSE: So you set a new paradigm for it.
TIM COOK: You do. And it takes as it turns out, it takes longer to do that than it does to be first. We don`t have an objective of being first, if we are, it`s great. But if we`re not we`re not losing any sleep over that because we want to be the best. Not the first and not produce the most. Our overriding objective is to be the best.
CHARLIE ROSE: And you are prepared to wait until you feel like you`re there.
TIM COOK: Absolutely.
CHARLIE ROSE: You`re not going to put a time line.
TIM COOK: We`re not going to put the time line on it.
CHARLIE ROSE: We have to have this buy.
TIM COOK: No. No we`re opposed to doing that because that you begin to drive decisions that are not great for great products down.
CHARLIE ROSE: Who decides when to pull the trigger? You do?
TIM COOK: At the end of the day it`s my responsibility, yes. Do I depend on some great people, of course I do, you know.
CHARLIE ROSE: But in the end of the day, the definition of the CEO`s role is you decide.
TIM COOK: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: . when we are make a major move.
TIM COOK: Yeah. Although the most important thing I do is decide people. That`s the most important.
CHARLIE ROSE: So you do?
TIM COOK: Yes, because they`re making the thousand things that thousand decisions that don`t necessarily come to the top of the company.
CHARLIE ROSE: How do you know those people?
TIM COOK: First of all you don`t bat a thousand and you got to admit to yourself you`re not going to bat a thousand because when you do make a bad selection you want to change it hurry.
But fortunately after you`ve been doing it for a while, you develop a feel for what kind of person does, you know, does their best work here. And for Apple, that means a high level of curiosity. The best people here are intellectually very curious. They`re always asking why. They`re wicked smart. They`re collaborators. They are willing to sort of be in the background. They don`t really care about their own brand so to speak. They care much more about Apple.
CHARLIE ROSE: And you`re prepared to go outside to find the best.
TIM COOK: We are, sure.
CHARLIE ROSE: You went to.
TIM COOK: Burberry to find Angela. It`s a great example.
CHARLIE ROSE: So to find, you went down to get Dr. Dre and Jimmy.
TIM COOK: Absolutely of this.
CHARLIE ROSE: Some say that you weren`t that interested in headphones but you were more interested in talent which proves your point.
TIM COOK: Absolutely.
CHARLIE ROSE: It`s the people will make the difference.
TIM COOK: It`s people, absolutely. Apple is about people.
CHARLIE ROSE: So you -- and to get to people, you will steal them?
TIM COOK: Well I don`t think of it as stealing.
CHARLIE ROSE: Why did Steve steal you from Compaq?
TIM COOK: The Compaq didn`t own me. He convinced me to join.
CHARLIE ROSE: OK, that`s weird. It is said that you`re hiring some of the smartest people who understand cars now.
TIM COOK: I`ve read that.
CHARLIE ROSE: But that would be, if you are doing that, and there`s every reason to believe you are. It would fit the pattern at Apple. If you`re planning to go there, get the best people to take you there, and so we read that you are hiring these people, we have to believe you want to go there.
TIM COOK: We, you know, what we do Charlie is we will look and explore a number of things. And then a very small fraction of those we advance. And so, I`m not going to comment about cars, and our interest there but I would just say that if you just monitor where we hire, what the skills we hire, do not necessarily connected the dots because there`s such a great, there`s curiosity creates an exploration here. That -- and we have to go far enough to get down the road to see what the end looks like. And sometimes that takes a while. I can see you`re not buying it.
CHARLIE ROSE: I`m not buying it at all. No.
TIM COOK: But it is true. This is true.
CHARLIE ROSE: Let me talk about products now.
TIM COOK: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: And we`ll get to cars in a moment. Smartphone. iPhone. I watched recently the video Steve, a video of Steve at that famous presentation. It looks like he had discovered the secret to life. He loved technology. He loved design. He loved performance. He whatever it was that may be in love Dylan, and Japan`s mystic.
TIM COOK: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: All the bad news. All of things that had galvanize his life. He felt he was totally in a hell (ph), right?
TIM COOK: Yes. We were all incredibly excited. You know, this was years in the making.
CHARLIE ROSE: Like how many?
TIM COOK: What the underlining technology is double-digit years but sort of the project itself took three to four years by the time it came to market.
CHARLIE ROSE: It`s interesting when you say that because I want to nail this down.
TIM COOK: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: . at Apple.
TIM COOK: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: The underlying technology took years.
TIM COOK: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: That doesn`t come over night?
TIM COOK: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: And until -- I mean you can do the iPad in two thumbs in operating system, it was tiny enough.
TIM COOK: Yes. Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: And you found it at Toshiba as I remember.
TIM COOK: You`re thinking about the hard drive?
CHARLIE ROSE: No, the hard drive.
TIM COOK: The hard drive, absolutely. The 1.8 inch drive.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right, right, right. But that was the hard drive.
TIM COOK: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: But it is a notion of waiting for somebody to have a technology that you can use that would deliver what`s in your brain about what might be possible.
TIM COOK: Yes. You have to have the enablers. And when you have the idea, the enablers may not be there yet. You may be able to create them. Other people may be working on them.
And when it`s not until all those things line up that you can formulate the really greatest qualities.
CHARLIE ROSE: What has to line up?
TIM COOK: The underlying technologies.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TIM COOK: And your vision of what the product can do. And usually for us, the ecosystem is also important. Because you have to recognize that, I mean something like an iPhone or an iPad, the ecosystem there is incredibly important for the customer experience. The platform is very important because you want developers. You want to unleash millions of people developing for the platform.
And so it was -- if you think about the iPhone it wasn`t the first iPhone that did that, it was the second iPhone.
Rose: Meaning -- but then you went to market and then you made it better later.
TIM COOK: Correct, correct.
CHARLIE ROSE: So why didn`t you wait for it to be better before you went to market.
TIM COOK: There`s always a decision of do you wait until everything you can think of is there, or do you go out with a really great product. There will always be something better if you wait. And it`s always a difficult decision to decide when you let the train leave the station. But if you always wait until you have everything, you will never ship anything.
CHARLIE ROSE: Perfect is making it good.
TIM COOK: Absolutely. Absolutely.
CHARLIE ROSE: And that`s called judgment.
TIM COOK: That`s called judgment. And it`s gut and intuition and there`s no formula for it.
CHARLIE ROSE: It is said that the iPhone 6 Plus and the iPhone controls only 20 percent of the market it is said. But brings in 90 percent of the profits. I would say that`s a very good return.
TIM COOK: I think it`s the return on innovation.
CHARLIE ROSE: Do you agree with the numbers or you.
TIM COOK: I don`t know if those numbers are.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
TIM COOK: . exactly right or not but clearly we have a higher percentage of profits than we do of units. But our focus is always on making the best. And if you make the best, you will generally have a higher percentage of profits than you do with -- that`s true with the McIntosh, that`s true with the smartphone.
CHARLIE ROSE: How important is the iPhone to Apple.
TIM COOK: It`s very important.
CHARLIE ROSE: It`s more than that.
TIM COOK: It`s very important.
CHARLIE ROSE: Come on. It`s more than that. It`s more than 60 percent of your revenue.
TIM COOK: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, that`s more than very important.
TIM COOK: It`s incredibly important.
CHARLIE ROSE: Exactly, more. I mean it is the engine driving the company. It is the engine driving the company.
TIM COOK: Well those other engine are pretty good.
CHARLIE ROSE: 60 percent of your revenue.
TIM COOK: Yes, it`s hugely important.
CHARLIE ROSE: You know what they say, watch out for saturation. What that you say?
TIM COOK: As I look at it, there`s, you know, over a billion smartphones sold a year. There`s about two billion mobile phones sold a year. And so there`s still a lot more between the billion and the two billion.
Also, smart, the underlying technology that are possible in smart phones, things will get better and better. And so I don`t think the smartphone is near the end of its life cycle. I think it`s closer to the beginning but I think it is the end, I do.
CHARLIE ROSE: Tomorrow night part two of our conversation with Tim Cook about what makes Apple, Apple.
Tomorrow about this program and early episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com.
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