Excellence as an Expectation  

Earlier this week, Tim Cook spoke at a conference put on by Goldman Sachs. During the Q&A session, Cook was asked about the future of tablets. From Nick Wingfield at the New York Times:

Mr. Cook reiterated earlier predictions he has made about sales of tablets like the iPad eventually eclipsing those of conventional personal computers. He added acerbically that if a meeting were held of developers working on cool PC applications, no one might show up, while it would be tough to accommodate all of the iOS developers working on cool apps in one hotel ballroom.

He said “PC applications”, but I bet he was thinking about all desktop applications, including Mac.

For his final question during the the Q&A session, Cook was asked how his leadership might change Apple, and what aspects of the culture he might try to preserve. He seemed to have some difficulty answering the question, so he stopped and spent a few seconds gathering his thoughts. Then he said, slowly:

Apple is a unique culture and unique company. You can’t replicate it. I’m not going to witness or permit the slow undoing of it. I believe in it so deeply.

Steve grilled in all of us, over many years, that the company should revolve around great products. We should stay extremely focused on a few things, rather than try to do so many that we did nothing well. We should only go into markets where we can make a significant contribution to society, not just sell a lot of products.

These things, along with keeping excellence as an expectation of everything at Apple. These are the things that I focus on because I think those are the things that make Apple a magical place that really smart people want to work in and do, not just their life’s work, but their life’s best work.

And so we’re always focused on the future. We don’t sit and think about how great things were yesterday. I love that trait because i think it’s the thing that drives us all forward. Those are the things I’m holding onto. it’s a privelege to be a part of it.

Also, he called last quarter “decent,” and said that Apple TV is “still a hobby.”. It’s probably not going to be a hobby for long…

Source (including audio): The Verge

 
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