The old guard slowly being replaced one by one. Who does the Board replace Tim with eventually once he retires? I assume they learned their lesson with John Sculley and will promote from within.
Apple should continue to be run by an engineer, just as are Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, SpaceX and so on. Nothing against marketing folks but they’re usually out of their element in matters of extreme complexity.
Was Tim Cook ever an engineer? He's the CEO everyone criticizes but boy when he leaves, everyone will realize how great he was. In a way he's better than Jobs but people are too busy asking for his head on a platter to see the greatness.
Both Cook and Schiller are both technical and not pure marketing/management. Tim Cook has a BS in industrial engineering from Auburn University and Phil Schiller has a bachelor of science degree in biology from Boston College where after graduation he worked as a programmer for a time.
The old guard slowly being replaced one by one. Who does the Board replace Tim with eventually once he retires? I assume they learned their lesson with John Sculley and will promote from within.
Apple should continue to be run by an engineer, just as are Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, SpaceX and so on. Nothing against marketing folks but they’re usually out of their element in matters of extreme complexity.
Jobs was no engineer. The Woz is an engineer, but he was never involved in running the company after the first year, or so. And remember that Tim had stated several times that “I’m not a product guy”. When Louis Gerstner was put in the CEO spot by IBM, he was asked if he knew much about computers, and his reply was; “No, but I know how to run a company”, and IBM had some of their best years with him in charge.
it could very well be that for a company like Apple, with a large number of brilliant engineers, as well as as several brilliant engineers running those technical areas, that an engineer would be the worst person to run the company.
way back when, my own company that designed and manufactured professional audio products, was an engineering company, the CEO, Robert, was a professor of engineering at Fordham University.
hp, was an engineering company when, for many years, they were a test and measurement company. The first computers were large minicomputers, and then some very expensive desktops meant to be used by—engineers.
but Apple isn’t like that. While these days, they have massive R&D and engineering projects, including, possibly, a car, they aren’t an engineering company. Engineers tend to be slow and steady, not taking significant risks. Is that Apple? Not really. Apple is a company where the engineers are told of an idea of a product, or an experience, and the engineers work hard to make it come true, with extensive oversight that isn’t killing the engineering, but making sure the final result doesn’t seem to be engineered, which, I can tell you, is a problem with engineers left to themselves. What seems to make sense to a lot of engineers doesn’t always make sense to a user. You need someone who isn’t an engineer, but more of a consumer of a product to make sense of it. That was what Steve’s genius was all about. It’s what Tim has tried to follow through on, even though he isn’t that kind of person himself.
Engineers are risk takers. Every man who has walked on the moon is an engineer. The first person on Mars will likely be an engineer. Jeff Bezos has an Electrical Engineering degree, risk taker and very astute business man, and the richest. Michael Bloomberg is also an EE and no slouch himself. Musk is the ultimate visionary and risk taker. Larry and Sergei hired Eric Scmidt, a EE, to run Google, then Pichai, also an engineer. The list is endless. But yeah, let me know when a marketing guy lands rockets to reuse or actually innovates anything. Either Williams or Federighi could run the ship, both engineers, and could have the next Ives run the consumer facing stuff. The real battleground is in AI, AR, VR, nano sensors, battery tech, etc. Technical prowess is paramount.
The old guard slowly being replaced one by one. Who does the Board replace Tim with eventually once he retires? I assume they learned their lesson with John Sculley and will promote from within.
Jeff Williams? He’s been given broad authority over the years, and us in Tim’s old post of COO, so he’s next in line, unless something changes.
Williams seems quite capable.
Jeff Williams (57) and Tim Cook (59) are around the same age though. I don't see Tim Cook wanting to work at Apple when he is 70. Bob Iger retired at 69. If Tim retires in his late 60s, Jeff Williams will also be around retirement age.
"Come on, replace Steve? No. He’s irreplaceable," Cook said recently, according to a person who knows him well. "That’s something people have to get over. I see Steve there with gray hair in his 70s, long after I’m retired."
If he said this, it sounds like he planned to retire in his early-mid 60s but obviously things changed.
I think a successor would have to be at least 10 years younger, maybe more. Federighi is 51 just now. If Tim Cook retired at 69, Federighi would be 61 so he could take over for a few years but I'm not sure anyone in Apple's leadership would be suitable to replace Tim.
A lot will change in 10 years though, there will be an iPhone 20-something, Apple Silicon will be on its 10th revision, they might have run out of mountain names to use for the OS, the industry will have reached the limits of silicon.
Where do you find someone who is as committed to the company as these guys have been while also being excited enough to stand up at WWDC and announce the 22nd iPhone that looks pretty much the same as the previous 7 iPhones? It probably needs someone more aligned with the company values than the products because a product person would get bored of the products and leave.
They have over 100,000 total employees and over 10,000 non-retail employees, I'm sure they'll find a replacement in the company somewhere, similar to how they replaced Jony Ive.
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tim-cook-taking-over-for_n_157964
"Come on, replace Steve? No. He’s irreplaceable," Cook said recently, according to a person who knows him well. "That’s something people have to get over. I see Steve there with gray hair in his 70s, long after I’m retired."
If he said this, it sounds like he planned to retire in his early-mid 60s but obviously things changed.
I think a successor would have to be at least 10 years younger, maybe more. Federighi is 51 just now. If Tim Cook retired at 69, Federighi would be 61 so he could take over for a few years but I'm not sure anyone in Apple's leadership would be suitable to replace Tim.
https://www.apple.com/leadership/
A lot will change in 10 years though, there will be an iPhone 20-something, Apple Silicon will be on its 10th revision, they might have run out of mountain names to use for the OS, the industry will have reached the limits of silicon.
Where do you find someone who is as committed to the company as these guys have been while also being excited enough to stand up at WWDC and announce the 22nd iPhone that looks pretty much the same as the previous 7 iPhones? It probably needs someone more aligned with the company values than the products because a product person would get bored of the products and leave.
They have over 100,000 total employees and over 10,000 non-retail employees, I'm sure they'll find a replacement in the company somewhere, similar to how they replaced Jony Ive.