5 years of Tim Cook as Apple CEO: Lonely and bitter

5 years of running Apple has created many successes for Tim Cook but also many bitter lessons that the CEO encountered while running the company.

Tim Cook: Leading Apple is a lonely job.

Apple CEO has just shared rare thoughts about himself and the difficulties he faces as leader of the world's most valuable technology company.

Ask the US President for advice

As one of the most powerful CEOs today, Tim Cook still needs advice from experienced people. They are businessmen, investors, TV hosts, even the US president.

The most famous person to give Tim Cook advice is former US President Bill Clinton (1993-2001). The CEO sought Clinton’s advice before the 2013 US Senate hearing on Apple’s tax payments.

The reason Tim Cook sought out Bill Clinton was because he thought the 42nd president of the United States was "very knowledgeable about politics", while Apple's tax issue was also a form of political involvement.

Tim Cook during a break from testimony before the US Senate in May 2013.

Next up is billionaire investor Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, as Tim Cook considers whether to continue returning cash to shareholders. Apple has been doing this since 2012, but Cook needs to know exactly whether it’s good or bad for Apple.

Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, was also on the list of people who gave advice before Tim Cook's 2013 Senate hearing. In fact, 3 years earlier, Blankfein had testified in the Senate about Goldman's role in the 2008 financial crisis.

The list of people who give Tim Cook advice also includes Laurene Powell Jobs, founder of Emerson Collective and widow of the late CEO Steve Jobs. She knows Apple inside out.

The last person Tim Cook needed advice from was Anderson Cooper, the popular CNN anchor. The incident involved a 2014 Bloomberg Businessweek article revealing Cook was gay.

Cook is also the first openly gay Fortune 500 CEO. In addition to Anderson Cooper, this CEO also consulted many others before proactively announcing his personal information to the press.

The road is not paved with roses

Tim Cook has also learned some hard lessons about product development and hiring. The CEO said it’s rare for a company as big as Apple to talk about its mistakes. But it could help Apple score points with investors and consumers.

Apple Maps, Apple's Embarrassment.

Typical of Apple’s missteps was its mapping service, which was released while still riddled with silly errors that angered the user community, who felt the company had disrespected them. Even today, many Apple fans still rely on Google Maps, which was developed for Android and other platforms, not iOS.

Next was the hiring of John Browett to head Apple's retail division. This was considered a big mistake by Tim Cook, leading to Browett's eventual departure and the CEO suffering a lot of scandal.

John Browett was said to be a poor fit for Apple's culture when he had to manage 50,000 employees at the retail chain. Tim Cook quickly realized this despite being very pleased with his hiring decision.

Being too loyal to the small screen size of the iPhone for a long time is also considered a mistake that caused Apple to lose a lot of mobile market share to competitors.

Before launching the iPhone 6 2 years ago, Apple kept the same 3.5 and 4 inch iPhone design for 6 years. This was criticized by Apple fans as being too conservative.

Meanwhile, Apple's marketing department has also been criticized for having problems with vague, unoriginal product messages. In addition, Apple's PR department has been criticized for being "arrogant", unprofessional, and uncooperative.

CEO is a lonely job

Running the world's most valuable tech company, Tim Cook admits it's a lonely job in many ways. That means Cook doesn't get much press, and he doesn't like to talk much about his work.

However, Tim Cook also affirmed that he is not looking for sympathy because that is the nature of the CEO job. It is always complicated and under a lot of pressure. If you do well, many people praise you, but if you do poorly, you are criticized, and sometimes doing well is still criticized.

Tim Cook in front of Apple headquarters in Cupertino.

Tim Cook shared that over the years his skin has become significantly thicker and immune to changes around him. "Sometimes people compliment you in the morning and then have a completely different attitude in the afternoon. Both extremes can happen during the day, so don't be too surprised," Tim Cook confided.

What future for Apple?

In addition to the iPhone, the current "golden goose", Tim Cook said he will invest heavily in augmented reality (AR), the technology that is currently making waves with the game Pokemon Go.

This is quite surprising, especially at a time when many big companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Samsung... have invested heavily in AR but Apple has not shown any signs of movement.

iPhone is still Apple's "golden goose".

"I think AR is an incredibly exciting technology and it's definitely going to be a core technology for the foreseeable future. We're doing a lot of things around AR," said Tim Cook.

In fact, the "lots of things" that this CEO mentioned was just general because Apple is not in the habit of revealing about the big projects that the company is working on.

In addition, Apple will also invest more money in artificial intelligence. Virtual assistant Siri is one of them. Apple has opened Siri to third parties since June 2016, allowing developers to create their own applications on this platform.

Another topic that has caused quite a bit of curiosity is the Apple car. This has been a rumored project for quite some time now and Apple is certainly putting a lot of effort into it as the auto industry moves towards autonomous vehicles.

It's certainly true that Apple is hiding a lot of other secret products. Tim Cook has said that the company's research and development budget is huge, both for current products and those that have yet to be revealed.

According to news.Zing.vn