Photo: European Commission - Photographer: Christophe Licoppe / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
When Steve Jobs stepped down in 2011, many people doubted anyone could run Apple. Tim Cook has done it for more than a decade.
Cook grew up in Robertsdale, Alabama, studied industrial engineering at Auburn and earned an MBA at Duke. He worked at IBM and Compaq before Jobs hired him in 1998 to fix Apple’s manufacturing and supply chain.
Under Cook, Apple added the Apple Watch, AirPods and a large services business. In 2018 it became the first U.S. company worth $1 trillion.
Apple has a footprint in Iowa too. It built a data center in Waukee, west of Des Moines, announced in 2017. Cook has been more reserved than Jobs on stage and more visible on causes like privacy.
Kim Sanders writes for Clarion News Online.