Tim Cook: A Steady Go-To Guide for Apple

The interim CEO, more a pragmatist than a visionary, should lead Apple capably in Jobs' absence

By Arik Hesseldahl

Tim Cook, Apple's interim CEO

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As Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs steps away from the helm for a six-month medical leave, the eyes of investors, customers, and employees are intently focused on his No. 2, Chief Operating Officer Timothy D. Cook.

Cook, who will handle day-to-day operations while Jobs is away, is known as a skilled manager who makes up in operational chops what he lacks in marketing and design savvy. There's little question Jobs will be missed. Yet Cook, who ran Apple in 2004 when Jobs was recuperating from cancer surgery, is widely expected to guide the company with a steady hand.

A veteran of IBM (IBM) and Compaq Computer before it was bought by Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Cook joined Apple (AAPL) in 1998 just as the brightly colored iMac PCs were breathing life back into Apple's sales. Jobs, himself carrying the "interim CEO" title he'd held since 1997, praised Cook's "rare combination of experience." At the time, Cook carried the title of senior vice-president of worldwide operations.

Eleven years later, as COO, Cook is an indispensable member of Apple's corporate bench. Where Steve Jobs is Apple's public face and its final arbiter of product design and positioning, Cook is responsible for day-to-day operations, outside observers and former employees say. "Steve is the visionary," says one former employee who asked not to be named. "Tim is the guy who makes the trains run on time."

"Gets Things Done"

Well-liked by employees, the 48-year-old Cook is in ways the opposite of Jobs. Where Jobs is variously described as volatile, mercurial, and hard to please, Cook is usually described as soft-spoken, calm, and less prone to raise his voice in tense situations. "He's one of those guys who just gets things done," says Tim Bajarin, head of Creative Strategies, a tech consulting firm. "But he's been with Steve long enough that he knows how he thinks. He's been working for years with this steady mantra of, 'What would Steve do?' And then whatever he decides, he puts solid business principles behind it."

That was certainly the case early on when Cook helped reverse the company's financial fortunes. The fiscal year before he arrived, Apple had reported a $1 billion loss on sales of $7 billion, a drop of more than $2.8 billion from the year earlier. One of the company's biggest problems was managing its supply chain and product inventory. With sales dropping, Apple had ordered more components than it needed. It also had a bad habit of keeping more computers on hand than it could sell quickly, typically a month's worth. Cook cut the inventory kept on hand to about a week's worth, slashing costs, while at the same time tightening distribution channel arrangements.