‘He’s Been CEO for Much Longer Than It Seems’

Excerpt from an interview of Horace Dediu by Eric Jackson:

Q: Is Tim Cook the right CEO for the company at this time?

A: I hold the belief that he’s been CEO for much longer than it seems. Jobs was not a CEO in any traditional sense. He was head of product and culture and all-around micromanager. He left the operational side of the company to Cook who actually built it into a colossus. Think along the lines of the pairing of Howard Hughes and Frank William Gay. What people look for in Cook is the qualities that Jobs had but those qualities and duties are now dispersed among a large team. The question isn’t whether Cook can be the “Chief Magical Officer” but rather whether the functional team that’s around Cook can do the things Jobs used to do.

Exactly. That’s not to say Steve Jobs was not in charge, nor that he is not sorely missed. But Tim Cook has been, effectively, running the company for a long time. There are certain decisions and moments requiring leadership where the burden falls on the CEO. But much of Jobs’s authority — product design, marketing, media negotiations — now falls on the shoulders of executives like Jony Ive, Phil Schiller, and Eddy Cue.

★ Tuesday, 17 September 2013