What kind of job is Tim Cook doing? Is Apple still a safe investment? Could you buy the stock and it will still go up? He’s not Steve Jobs, right?
Tim Cook can’t be Steve Jobs, but he can be the best Tim Cook. From where I stand – and I think it’s the consensus view of anyone who watched his recent performance at the D conference in California or who’s listened to him on the earnings calls – he’s doing a first-rate job of being himself.
Jackson agrees that no successor can ever have all the traits that Steve Jobs had. But, he says Steve’s greatness was such a beacon to the outside world, that it did a helluva job masking just how good the rest of the Apple team is.
Phil Schiller, Jony Ive, Bob Mansfield, Scott Forstall, Peter Oppenheimer, Eddy Cue, Cook, and just about anyone else in a position of power at Apple all have the collective abilities that Steve Jobs had… And more. Jackson says every one of them has the hunger to show the world that the remaining group at Apple is more than capable to take the company to the next level.
Jobs’ ultimate gift to Apple’s employees is the succession plan he leaves behind. Says Jackson, “Tim Cook is a very special leader in that he doesn’t appear to feel the weight of false outside expectations that he has to be something which he can never be. He seems infinitely comfortable in his own skin and in the belief that being the best Tim Cook he can possibly be is good enough.”
Only time will tell, but it seems that Apple is in good hands for the immediate future.