Smalltown football fanatic takes the reins of world’s largest tech firm

TIM COOK, the smalltown football fanatic turned chief executive of the world’s largest technology company, long faced the question of whether he had the same remarkable vision as his predecessor Steve Jobs.

The question became even more important on Wednesday when Jobs resigned from Apple and Cook took his place, with Jobs’s recommendation.

Apple’s long-time chief operating officer, Cook was confirmed as chief executive by the company’s board, and Jobs was named as chairman.

Cook must prove that his technology instincts are as sharp as when he joined Apple in 1998 after leaving the once-mighty Compaq, then the world’s top PC maker. At the time Apple was barely afloat.

His gut decision during his first meeting with Jobs not only changed his life but altered the course of technology history.

“My most significant discovery so far in my life was the result of one single decision: my decision to join Apple,” Cook said last year.

“Working at Apple was never in any plan that I outlined for myself, but was without a doubt the best decision that I ever made.”

Now, as leader of one of the world’s most highly recognisable brands, Cook will be called upon to satisfy investors and consumers who know Apple as a technology pioneer.

People who have known and worked with Cook over the past two decades use terms like “brilliant” and “phenomenal” to describe him. He is also called a supply chain genius at a company that values operational efficiency nearly as much as design.

“He’s not in it for the fame or the ego or the money. He’s in it to win,” said Greg Petsch, who was Cook’s boss at Compaq in the late 1990s.

How Cook got his job is part of Apple legend. As recounted in the Wall Street Journal, Jobs, then newly returned to Apple to reinvigorate the company, had turned down several applicants in characteristically brusque fashion, including walking out midway through one interview.

By Cook’s own account, they took to each other instantly, and Cook made his fateful decision. He was told he would be a fool to leave Compaq for an also-ran on the verge of bankruptcy. But his mind was made up.

“I listened to my intuition, not the left side of my brain,” Cook said. His impact on Apple was swift. The company, which had reported a $1 billion loss in fiscal 1997, swung to a profit the following year.

Apple simplified its product lines, cut the number of distributors and resellers, and outsourced some manufacturing, among other changes.

This had the effect of reducing bloated inventory to a fifth of levels in the previous year.

Jobs and Cook have balanced each other ever since. Where Jobs is famous for his explosive temper, firing employees on the spot, Cook is described as down-to-earth and soft-spoken.

Where Jobs is known for his New Age interest in vegetarianism and spirituality, Cook, who is from Alabama, loves football and is a fitness fanatic.

And where Jobs enjoyed rockstar-like fame early in his career as a pioneer of the computer era, the intensely private Cook toiled for years in obscurity.

“I am where I am in life because my parents sacrificed more than they should have, because of teachers, professors, friends and mentors who cared more than they had to, and because of Steve Jobs and Apple,” Cook said last year.

Where life at Apple without Jobs will take him will soon be known.