Cook to be Apple’s new ‘gravitational force’

Steve Jobs had a theory about what makes some technology businesses succeed while others fail.

“Lots of companies have tons of great engineers and smart people,” Jobs told Business Week in 2004. “But ultimately, there needs to be some gravitational force that pulls it all together. Otherwise, you can get great pieces of technology all floating around the universe.”

Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, will have to fill that role now that he’s taking the reins from Jobs. During his 13 years at Apple, the 50-year-old Cook has mastered an expanding list of operational roles, including manufacturing, distribution, sales and customer service. The thing he has not shown is whether he’s a product visionary.

“The quintessential differentiator between Steve Jobs and everyone else is the sheer tenacity and commitment to perfection - the willingness to move mountains to get the right thing,” said Gadi Amit, founder of NewDealDesign, an industrial design firm in San Francisco.

While Cook was Jobs’s choice for successor, he hasn’t demonstrated whether he can rally the company’s about 50,000 employees as effectively as Jobs, who steered Apple into industries as varied as mobile phones, music downloads and retailing.

“One of the costs of having a heroic leader is that problems get kicked upstairs,” says David Bradford, professor emeritus at Stanford University, who has studied management changes. “When father knows best, that’s a great way to run a business.”

Cook also faces mounting competition, in part because of Apple’s foray into new markets. Google’s Android has emerged as the biggest smartphone operating system, bolstered by HTC, Samsung and Motorola Mobility adopting the software. Google announced plans this month to purchase Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.

Investors, meanwhile, have put pressure on Apple to use its cash - now more than $75 billion, including long-term holdings - for a dividend or stock buyback.

Cook’s operational skills have served as the backbone of Apple’s expansion since he joined the company from Compaq in 1998. His inventory management skills allowed Apple to sell iMac computers in a broad palate of colors instead of just beige. The company keeps up with demand for its iPods, iPhones and iPads, with new products delivered to the customer’s doorstep often in less than 48 hours.

Cook led the company when Jobs was out during his three medical leaves since 2004. Though he’s a counterpoint to Jobs’s more emotional personality, the men are two sides of the same coin, said Mike Janes, who used to run Apple’s online store. Both are demanding leaders with an attention to detail.

“Despite their style differences, their intensity is basically equal,” said Janes, now the chief executive officer of tickets search engine FanSnap.com. “They are both perfectionists.”

Janes recalls long meetings combing through sales data, with Cook powering himself with “energy bars and caffeine.”

“It is because of Tim that I had to get reading glasses - he has a fondness of spreadsheets with the smallest fonts possible to get the most columns of data on one page,” Janes said. “There’s an old saying that you can’t manage what you can’t measure. That’s very much the philosophy that he adheres to, sometimes to the chagrin of his direct reports.”

In a 2009 commencement speech at his alma mater Auburn University, Cook said the best decision he’d ever made was agreeing to join Jobs at Apple in 1998.

“It’s enabled me to engage in truly meaningful work for over 12 years,” he said.

Cook is from Robertsdale, Ala. He calls home every Sunday to talk with his parents, who still live in the area, according to an interview they did in 2009 with local television station WKRG. Other than Apple, his passions including biking and Auburn University sports.

He’s typically found working long hours at the company’s headquarters or traveling around the world to meet with suppliers and manufacturers, Janes said. Cook led the company’s negotiations with Verizon Wireless to bring the iPhone to that carrier in the U.S. this year.

“He’s always on a plane, on the phone or online with somebody on the team or a partner or a customer somewhere in the world,” Janes said.

In fiscal 2010, Cook made $59.1 million, which included $52.3 million in stock awards after running the company while Jobs was out on medical leave.

Cook and Jobs were introduced in 1998 in Palo Alto, Calif. Cook was an executive at Compaq, and a recruiter, Rick Devine, introduced him to Jobs as a candidate to lead an overhaul of Apple’s global manufacturing operation, said Devine, a former partner at Heidrick & Struggles. Devine said he could tell Jobs liked Cook by how enthusiastically he was talking about the future for Apple, which then wasn’t sound financially.

Years after hiring Cook, Devine ran in to Jobs in an elevator at Apple’s headquarters.

“Tim Cook is the best hire I ever made,” Jobs said, according to Devine, who has since founded the Devine Capital Partners recruitment firm.

Jobs told Business Week that after previous operations chief James McCluney left in 1997, he had a hard time finding the right person to fill the role.

“I couldn’t find anyone internally or elsewhere that knew as much as I did - so I did that job for nine months before I found someone I saw eye to eye with, and that was Tim Cook,” Jobs told Business Week in 2000. “After Tim came on board, we basically reinvented the logistics of the PC business.”

In addition to overhauling the company’s supply chain, Cook also has led the company in to new markets. Sales in China reached $3.8 billion last quarter, up sixfold from a year ago.

To maintain its streak of innovations, Cook will have to lean on a corps of executives. Jonathan Ive oversees a staff of product designers that is considered among the best in the world. Scot Forstall leads development of Apple’s mobile software. Bob Mansfield runs hardware engineering, and Peter Oppenheimer is chief financial officer. The executive team, which often meets on Monday mornings to receive sales updates and discuss strategy, has been together for years.

“The team here has an unparalleled breadth and depth of talent and a culture of innovation that Steve has driven in the company,” Cook said in January. “Excellence has become a habit.”

Timothy D. Cook bio

<B>Age:</B> 50

<B>Education:</B> Graduated from Auburn University with an engineering degree and earned a master’s in business administration from Duke University.

<B>Career:</B> Joined Apple Inc. in 1998 as senior vice president of worldwide operations and has been credited with tuning Apple’s manufacturing process to solve chronic product delays and supply problems at the time. He rose through the ranks to become chief operating officer in 2005.

Ran Apple temporarily in 2004 and 2009 when CEO Steve Jobs took a medical leave of absence. Took that role again in January when Jobs went on an indefinite leave. Named CEO on Wednesday after Jobs resigned.

Before Apple, Cook worked briefly as vice president of corporate materials for Compaq Computer, now part of Hewlett-Packard Co. He had previous executive roles at Intelligent Electronics from 1994 to 1997 and International Business Machines Corp. from 1983 to 1994, most recently as director of North American fulfillment.

He is also a director at Nike.