Speaker 1: Seven years after the death of visionary co founders Steve Jobs,
Speaker 1: Apple is on its way to a market capitalization of
Speaker 1: one trillion dollars, the first public company ever to do so,
Speaker 1: and much of the tech giant's recent growth can be
Speaker 1: attributed to CEO Tim Cook, who took over from Jobs
Speaker 1: on a temporary basis while he was sick and then
Speaker 1: permanently after his death. Just after delivering the commencement address
Speaker 1: at Duke University earlier this year, Cook sat down with
Speaker 1: Carlisle Group co founder David Ruben's time. They spoke on
Speaker 1: David Rubinstein's Bloomberg television program Peer to Peer Conversations. A
Speaker 1: reception to your God, pure, I thought it was for you,
Speaker 1: Now it's for you. You've now been the CEO of
Speaker 1: Apple since bent July of two thousand eleven. Of the
Speaker 1: earnings are up about so have you ever thought you
Speaker 1: can't do better than this? And maybe you should just say, well,
Speaker 1: I've done a great job and now I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: something else with my life. We viewed the stock price
Speaker 1: and revenues and profits as a result of doing things
Speaker 1: right on the innovation side, on the creativity side, UH
Speaker 1: focusing on the right products, treating customers like their jewels,
Speaker 1: and and focusing on the user experience. I didn't even
Speaker 1: know the numbers that you just quoted. This is not
Speaker 1: something that I that's not even in my orbit, to
Speaker 1: be honest with you. Well, so when you announce your
Speaker 1: quarterly earnings, analysts always say, well, they didn't sell as
Speaker 1: much much of this product is that we thought they would.
Speaker 1: And so what does that bother you? Uh? It did
Speaker 1: it one time, It doesn't anymore. Uh. The we run
Speaker 1: Apple for the long term, and and so it's always
Speaker 1: struck me as bizarre that there's a fixation on how
Speaker 1: many units are sold in a ninety day period, because
Speaker 1: we're making decisions that are multi year kind of kind
Speaker 1: of decisions. And so we try to be very clear
Speaker 1: that we do not run the company for people that
Speaker 1: want to make a quick bock. We we run the
Speaker 1: company for the long term. One of the shareholders who
Speaker 1: recently surfaces having bought seventy five million additional shares is
Speaker 1: Warren Buffett. Um. Are you pleased to have him as
Speaker 1: your shareholder? I'm overjoyed and thrilled because Warren is focused
Speaker 1: on the long term and and so there is we're
Speaker 1: we're in sync. It's the way we run the company,
Speaker 1: it's the way he invests and uh yeah, so I
Speaker 1: could not be happier. Well, have you thought about this?
Speaker 1: Warren still uses an old flip phone, he has no smartphone.
Speaker 1: Have you thought how much more your stock could go
Speaker 1: up if he actually used the product? I'm I'm I
Speaker 1: am working on him and I told him that I'll
Speaker 1: personally cut out on the hall to do tech support
Speaker 1: for so UM. You're now in a building that was
Speaker 1: designed and inspired initially by Steve Jobs Apple Park, Apple Park,
Speaker 1: and um you've moved in recently. Steve had the vision
Speaker 1: that the workplace should facilitate people working together, having these
Speaker 1: common areas, that people could work together and run into
Speaker 1: each other without planning on doing it, and that the
Speaker 1: level of ideas and creativity and innovation that would come
Speaker 1: out of that, uh would would be phenomenal. And we're
Speaker 1: seeing that, And you're convinced standing up working is better
Speaker 1: than sitting down. We have given all of our employees
Speaker 1: standing gaps. If you can stand for a while and
Speaker 1: then sit and and so on and stuff with, this
Speaker 1: is much better from people all lifestyle and were handling.
Speaker 1: We could stand up for a little while standing up,
Speaker 1: thank you. So, so let me ask you about how
Speaker 1: you came to this position. So you grew up in Alabama,
Speaker 1: a very very small rule town between Pensacola and Mobile
Speaker 1: and the golfing. And you grew up where you star athlete,
Speaker 1: where your star scholar? Where you a tech nerd? What
Speaker 1: were you when I would say I was a star anything.
Speaker 1: I worked hard at school, I had some uh reasonably
Speaker 1: good grades. The benefit I got in my childhood was
Speaker 1: being in a family that was a loving family and
Speaker 1: uh a public school system that was good. Uh and
Speaker 1: you know that's a huge benefit and honestly a benefit
Speaker 1: that uh many many kids don't have these days. You
Speaker 1: went to Auburn and how did you do there? I did?
Speaker 1: I did? Uh? I did pretty good. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: I did pretty good. I really got into engineering in
Speaker 1: a big way, and in uh industrial engineering. And so
Speaker 1: then you went to work for IBM. I did. Yes.
Speaker 1: I started as a like a production engineer out designing
Speaker 1: manufacturing lines. And at that time, robotics were beginning to
Speaker 1: take off, and and so we were we were focused
Speaker 1: on automation. Uh. I wouldn't say we successfully focused on it,
Speaker 1: but I learned a lot, uh from going through that
Speaker 1: as well. So you were there for about twelve years
Speaker 1: and then you joined another company called Compact. Yes, so
Speaker 1: you're a Compact, which at the time I think was
Speaker 1: one of the biggest manufacturers of personal computers. They were,
Speaker 1: they were the number one at the time. So you're
Speaker 1: there for about six months and you get a call
Speaker 1: from Steve Jobs or somebody working for him saying can
Speaker 1: you come and join Apple? Apple was modest compared to Compact.
Speaker 1: Why did you to take the interview and why did
Speaker 1: you join Apple? Yeah, it's it's a good question. Um.
Speaker 1: Steve had had come back to the company, uh and
Speaker 1: was essentially replacing the executive team that was there at
Speaker 1: the time. But I thought, you know, this is an
Speaker 1: opportunity to talk to the guy that started to hold industry.
Speaker 1: And Steve met me on Saturday and it was like,
Speaker 1: just minutes into talking with him, I want to do it,
Speaker 1: which I was totally I've shocked myself, Uh, but I
Speaker 1: there was a there was a sparkle in his eye
Speaker 1: that I had never seen in a CEO before. Uh,
Speaker 1: and there was he he was sort of turning left
Speaker 1: when everyone else was turning ride. It was almost almost
Speaker 1: on everything that he talked about. He was doing something
Speaker 1: extraordinarily different than conventional wisdom. Many people were abandoning the
Speaker 1: consumer market because they were just it was a blood bath.
Speaker 1: Steve was doing the exact opposite. He was doubling down
Speaker 1: on the consumer at the time everybody else the conventional
Speaker 1: wisdom said go put your money in storage and servers.
Speaker 1: And I thought it was brilliant and uh so with
Speaker 1: it talking with him, and and the type of questions
Speaker 1: he asked, we're all so different. Uh, and you know
Speaker 1: I I did literally before the I left. I think
Speaker 1: I hope he offers me a job because I really
Speaker 1: want to do that. Did your friends tell you this
Speaker 1: was not a good idea? They thought it was nuts? Uh,
Speaker 1: they thought it was nuts. Again, conventional wisdom was, you're
Speaker 1: working for the top personal computer maker in the world. Uh,
Speaker 1: why why would you ever leave? You have got a
Speaker 1: great career head and there was It wasn't a decision
Speaker 1: that you could kind of sit down and do the
Speaker 1: engineering kind of analysis saying here the pluses and here
Speaker 1: the minuses, because that analysis would always say stay put.
Speaker 1: It was this uh sort of voice in your head
Speaker 1: that was saying, go west, young man, go west. Despite
Speaker 1: the fact that there was no state income tax in
Speaker 1: Texas and there raised in California, you still said you're
Speaker 1: gonna go west. So, UM, in hindsight, this was the
Speaker 1: best professional decision of your life, I assume, uh, maybe
Speaker 1: the best decision of my life. I'm not sure you
Speaker 1: need to put professional in. So you go there and
Speaker 1: what your job in Apple running worldwide operations, and the
Speaker 1: company at that time was struggling, UH in many different
Speaker 1: areas and operations was no different. Our economies of scale,
Speaker 1: UH didn't lend itself uh to us doing manufacturing in
Speaker 1: different places like we like existed in the company at
Speaker 1: that time, and so we found partners that were expert manufacturing,
Speaker 1: and we maintain the sort of the intellectual knowledge of
Speaker 1: how the process and obviously all of the design of problems.
Speaker 1: When you got there and you're working for UM, UH
Speaker 1: for Steve wasn't better than you thought, worse than you thought,
Speaker 1: more challenging than you thought. I found it to be liberating,
Speaker 1: is the way I would describe it, because it's, uh,
Speaker 1: you could you could kind of talk to Steve about
Speaker 1: something very big and UH, if it resonated with him.
Speaker 1: He would just say okay, and you could do it.
Speaker 1: And so it was like a you know, like a
Speaker 1: total revelation for me that a company could run like
Speaker 1: this because I was used to these layers and bureaucracy
Speaker 1: and studies and you know, studying things sort of the
Speaker 1: paralysis that companies can get into, and uh, Apple was
Speaker 1: totally different than that. And I realized that if I
Speaker 1: couldn't get something done, I could just go to the
Speaker 1: nearest mirror and look at it. And that was the
Speaker 1: reason Steve health was such that he couldn't continue to
Speaker 1: be the CEO. He told the board that, And you
Speaker 1: were announced as the CEO, I think around July of
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven something around there when you became the CEO. UM,
Speaker 1: did you feel you had that Steve would say, here's
Speaker 1: what I was interested in doing, and you fulfill my
Speaker 1: goals or did you feel you had your own view
Speaker 1: on what you should do? And how did you balance
Speaker 1: the two your succeeding a Gendery figure, it's not so
Speaker 1: sequential as that. Uh. We have a really open company
Speaker 1: and so most of us could finish the other person's sentences,
Speaker 1: even when we might disagree with them. And so it
Speaker 1: wasn't a matter of Steve having this secret file or something.
Speaker 1: He was always sharing his ideas all the time and
Speaker 1: so so uh, very different than that. And I thought, honestly,
Speaker 1: my my thought at that time, and I know people
Speaker 1: have told me you're you're, you're just not very smart.
Speaker 1: But my view at that time was he was going
Speaker 1: to be chairman and he would do that forever, and
Speaker 1: that we would figure out the uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: sort of the relationship change there. And that's what I thought,
Speaker 1: and it and you know, unfortunately it did or not
Speaker 1: that one. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.
Speaker 1: You have a product that is the most successful consumer
Speaker 1: product in the history of mankind, which is the iPhone.
Speaker 1: There was a sense that it was a profound product.
Speaker 1: It was a game changer. If you go back and
Speaker 1: watch the keynote that Steve announced it, uh, you can
Speaker 1: feel his passion in it and the way the way
Speaker 1: he described I still remember it like it was yesterday.
Speaker 1: So how many iPhones have now been sold? Uh, well
Speaker 1: over a billion. So there are seven a half billion
Speaker 1: people in the face of the earth, so one out
Speaker 1: of every seven people has one more or less. Well,
Speaker 1: some people probably about more than one along the live
Speaker 1: you know, well, well, you do have new ones coming
Speaker 1: out every so often. So is that if I buy
Speaker 1: a new iPhone, should I expect another one in two years?
Speaker 1: Or um? You should expect that Apple is going to
Speaker 1: keep innovating and uh and you should jump on the
Speaker 1: train now though, okay, because because life is so short?
Speaker 1: All right, okay, well, I kind of I have it here,
Speaker 1: and uh, I have my iPhone here actually, and I
Speaker 1: do use it and I love it. And one time
Speaker 1: when you and I were in China, I couldn't quite
Speaker 1: work something, and I asked you to help me, and
Speaker 1: you said, look, I normally don't do texta people, but
Speaker 1: we're nice and it did work. You came out with
Speaker 1: the Apple Watch not too long ago. Why was it
Speaker 1: called the Apple Watch and not the I Watch? Because
Speaker 1: you have iPhone, iPod, iPad, why not I watch? Did
Speaker 1: you ever think of that? Or you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you must have thought of it. I'm sure it's not
Speaker 1: a novel idea, but I'm just curious. It was something
Speaker 1: that we thought of it, so it wasn't a crazy question.
Speaker 1: So no, it wasn't a crazy question at all. And
Speaker 1: how come Apple Watch one out. Well, I kind of
Speaker 1: like the Apple Watch. What do you think, Well, you're
Speaker 1: the CEO, so something. Okay, so how are they doing?
Speaker 1: They're doing fantastic. Cellular is now on the watch. You
Speaker 1: don't have to travel with your iPhone. You can just
Speaker 1: use your watch. One of the my best moments of
Speaker 1: a day is to go through my emails that are
Speaker 1: from users, and I get so many each week from
Speaker 1: people that found out they have a heart problem from
Speaker 1: their watch. It's alerting you if you've been sitting in
Speaker 1: your heart has climbed to a level that doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense relative to the activity that you've been doing. Suppose
Speaker 1: you don't want to know if you have a heart problem, Well,
Speaker 1: we think most people do, because you can then go
Speaker 1: seek help. And seriously, David, so many people have written
Speaker 1: and said, uh, the watch alerted me to a problem.
Speaker 1: I took an action and went to the cardiologist. He
Speaker 1: told me that if I had not gone there, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a lot five. So when you say you
Speaker 1: go through your emails and nobody emails you directly, I
Speaker 1: can't assume you can't. Oh, sure they do. Well, how
Speaker 1: could you respond to all those emails? I can't. But
Speaker 1: but it doesn't mean that I can't read a fair
Speaker 1: number of those myself, because I think it's important, UH
Speaker 1: to sort of keep your hands on the pulse of
Speaker 1: the user. Today, let's talk about some of the values
Speaker 1: that you've been espousing. One is a privacy. We see
Speaker 1: privacy as a fundamental human right and and so to us,
Speaker 1: it's right up there with some of the other civil
Speaker 1: liberties that make Americans what what they are. You know,
Speaker 1: it defines us as Americans. And we we see that
Speaker 1: this UH is becoming a larger and larger issue for people,
Speaker 1: and so our tacked on this is we we UH
Speaker 1: take a minimum amount of data from customers only that
Speaker 1: which we need to to provide a great service, and
Speaker 1: then we worked really hard to protect it with encryption
Speaker 1: and and so forth. Okay, you've also talked about the
Speaker 1: importance of equality. Why is that important to you as
Speaker 1: I look at the world, Um, many of the problems
Speaker 1: of the world come down to the lack of equality.
Speaker 1: It's the it's the fact that it's the kid that's
Speaker 1: born in one zip code who doesn't have a good
Speaker 1: education because they happen to be born in a zip code.
Speaker 1: It's Uh, someone that is maybe an LGBT community, Uh
Speaker 1: that is fired because of that. Uh it's someone that
Speaker 1: has a different religion than the majority, and therefore they're
Speaker 1: ostracized in some way and some very simply. I think
Speaker 1: if one day you could wave a wand and everybody
Speaker 1: in the world would treat each other with dignity and respect,
Speaker 1: there were many many problems that would would go away
Speaker 1: with that. So you exposed your own personal life a bit,
Speaker 1: you know, the privacy that you've said other people should have.
Speaker 1: You kind of gave up some of your privacy. Why
Speaker 1: did you do that? Well, I did it for a
Speaker 1: greater purpose is that Uh it became clear to me
Speaker 1: that there were lots of kids out there that were
Speaker 1: uh not being treated well, including in their own families
Speaker 1: and uh, and that kids need someone to say, oh,
Speaker 1: they did okay in life and they're gay, so it
Speaker 1: must not be a life sentence in some kind of way.
Speaker 1: And when I we're getting these notes, it would tug
Speaker 1: on my heart even more. And it it got to
Speaker 1: the point where I thought, I'm making the wrong call
Speaker 1: by trying to do something that is comfortable for me,
Speaker 1: which is to stay private. Uh. That I needed to
Speaker 1: do something for the greater good and so that that's
Speaker 1: why no never regrets, never good. So now you're obviously
Speaker 1: in the public eye recently you had a meeting with
Speaker 1: President Trump. What was the meeting with President Trump? Like,
Speaker 1: you know, I wouldn't want to say what he said.
Speaker 1: What I talked about was I talked about trade and
Speaker 1: the importance of trade and how I felt, uh that
Speaker 1: two countries trading together make the pie larger and that, um,
Speaker 1: it's true, I think, undoubtedly true that not everyone has
Speaker 1: been advantaged from that in in either country. Uh, and
Speaker 1: we've got to work on that. But I felt that
Speaker 1: terroriffs were not the right approach there, and I showed
Speaker 1: him some uh more analytical kinds of things to to
Speaker 1: demonstrate why. We also talked about immigration and uh, the
Speaker 1: importance of fixing the Dreamer issue. Uh. Now you know,
Speaker 1: we're only one court ruling away from a catastrophic case there.
Speaker 1: So do you think you made progress on these issues?
Speaker 1: I hope so. And uh, I hope SO has roughly
Speaker 1: two hundred and sixty billion dollars of cash more or less. Uh,
Speaker 1: what do you tend to do with that cash? We're
Speaker 1: going to create a new site a new campus within
Speaker 1: the United States. We're gonna hire twenty people, uh and
Speaker 1: and so, and we're gonna spend thirty billion in cap
Speaker 1: acts over the next several years. And so we're one
Speaker 1: number one. We're investing and investing a ton in this country.
Speaker 1: We're also going to buy some of our stock because
Speaker 1: we view our stock is a is a is a
Speaker 1: good value. So your did your parents live to see
Speaker 1: your success? My my mother uh passed away three years
Speaker 1: ago and my father is still a love. So your
Speaker 1: mother lives. Your mother lived to see you be the CEO.
Speaker 1: She did, and that she said, well, you're great. I
Speaker 1: always knew you'l be successful. And can you help me
Speaker 1: with my iPhone? Can you help this? Or well, I
Speaker 1: I did uh get both of them on iPad, and
Speaker 1: I finally convinced my father uh to uh start using
Speaker 1: iPhones and so. But uh, they honestly, they've treat me
Speaker 1: like they did twenty years ago and forty years ago,
Speaker 1: sixty years ago. And he calls you with tips about
Speaker 1: what to do or tell you how to do things
Speaker 1: or not if he if I do something he doesn't
Speaker 1: think it's good, he tells me about it. Right, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw you on that show. You aren't very good,
Speaker 1: so I'm hoping you edit this. Well. You're obviously a
Speaker 1: great public figure. You were not before. Have you ever
Speaker 1: thought that maybe you could run for president of the
Speaker 1: United States? Because um, you do? Um you know you've
Speaker 1: seen the president of close. I'm not political, right. I
Speaker 1: I love focusing on the policy stuff, but in the
Speaker 1: dysfunction kind of in in uh in Washington, between the
Speaker 1: legislative branch and and so forth, I think that I
Speaker 1: can make a bigger difference in the world doing what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. And I appreciate the comment, but I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the president is something that you'd love to
Speaker 1: to be president, but not ever run, and and that
Speaker 1: should never happen in our country. And said that kind
Speaker 1: of eliminates me. Of all the CEOs that I know
Speaker 1: that have run major companies, you are the lowest ego,
Speaker 1: kind of most self effacing person that I've seen in
Speaker 1: this kind of position. So um uh have you ever
Speaker 1: noticed that you're different than the other people are CEOs?
Speaker 1: And and how do you maintain this self effacing, kind
Speaker 1: of modest demeanor when you're running the biggest company in
Speaker 1: the world, but when you when you work at Apple,
Speaker 1: uh uh, there's a high expectation on everyone to perform
Speaker 1: and to contribute. And because of that high bar, and
Speaker 1: you never quite get there, including the CEO, including every
Speaker 1: job in there. And so I'd never feel that way
Speaker 1: very long if I ever felt that way. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you for taking the time today, and I'm thank you
Speaker 1: for having me. You're the first person I've interviewed without
Speaker 1: a tie on, and I was in your honor and um,
Speaker 1: because uh, I bet you sleep in a tie empty,
Speaker 1: particularly in the camp. How do you wo