Last week, I discussed the iPhone-related portions of Apple's latest quarterly earnings call. One thing I did not mention was the very first analyst question. It was a question about Steve Jobs's health and whether Apple's COO Tim Cook was the designated heir should Jobs not return. I didn't mention it because Steve Job's health has been over-analyzed on so many other websites that felt no need to pile on here.
But a few days ago, I was listening to Ken Ray's excellent daily podcast Mac OS Ken, and Ken read part of Tim Cook's answer to that first question. Hearing it again, it struck me that Cook wasn't talking about Jobs as much as he was talking about Apple's core values, the same values that led to the creation of (and improvements to) the iPhone.
As I noted last week, you can download the audio of the entire earnings call on iTunes here, but even if you don't listen to the whole thing, you might want to listen to just the short statement by Tim Cook on these Apple values. I've excerpted just that part and you can click here to listen to the 1:42 clip. Or if you don't want to take the time to download that 1.6 MB file (or don't want to make noise in your office when you really should be working!), here is the text of what Tim Cook said:
There is an extraordinary breadth and depth and tenure among the Apple executive team, and these executives lead over 35,000 employees that I would call all wicked smart. And that's in all areas of the company from engineering to marketing to operations and sales and all the rest. And the values of our company are extremely well entrenched. You know, we believe that we're on the face of the earth to make great products and that's not changing. We're constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple not the complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution. We believe in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us. We believe in deep collaboration and cross-polinization of our groups which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot. And frankly, we don't settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and we have the self-honesty to admit when we're wrong and the courage to change. And I think regardless of who is in what job, those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well. And I would just reiterate a point Peter made in his opening comments that I strongly believe that Apple is doing the best work in its history.
This is wonderful mission statement of Apple's values.
I see I wasn't the only one who was struck by what Cook said. Adam Lashinsky of Fortune magazine went so far as to label this statement the Cook Doctrine, remarking that "this shows an executive who has given tons of thought to what it means to lead Apple." As MacRumors.com notes, Lashinsky knows a little bit about Cook, having written a profile of him last November. Others have also remarked on Cook's statement, including Jason Snell of Macworld and Sam Diaz of ZDNet.
Whether you call it a "doctrine" or not, I was impressed by what Cook said. As long as Apple's executives and employees stay true to these values, Apple will be making great products for a long, long time.