 Apple COO Tim Cook |
Apple COO Tim Cook, the company's acting CEO while Steve Jobs is on medical leave of absence, laid out his company's manifesto for what it does, why it does it, and how it will be done, telling financial analysts that Apple will continue to be great company no matter who is at the helm.
The comments came when analyst Ben Reitzes with Barclays Capital -- the first analyst to ask questions during Apple's quarterly conference call on Wednesday -- asked Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer and Mr. Cook how Steve Jobs was doing, and how Mr. Cook might run the company differently while he was acting CEO.
Mr. Cook's response can only be described as a manifesto intended to explain to investors and analysts alike that the company's management feels Apple Inc. will continue to do well no matter who is CEO, and that's with or without Steve Jobs.
Mr. Cook claimed that the culture at Apple was entrenched with the ideas of innovating and making great products, and he specified some core values of what the company will, and won't, do.
Those comments in full:
There is an extraordinary breadth and depth in our more than 35,000 employees, who are all wicked smart. And that's in all areas of the company from engineering to marketing, operations and sales and all the rest. The values of our company are all extremely well entrenched.
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 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 focus on the few that are meaningful to us. We believe in deep collaboration and cross pollination in order to innovate in a way others cannot.
We don't settle for anything other than excellence in any group in the company, and we have the self-honesty to admit when we're wrong and the courage to change.
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 iterate a point Peter made in his opening comments. I strongly believe that Apple is doing the best work in its history.
For long time Apple observers, much of that may have sounded obvious, but the message was intended to be heard on Wall Street, where such issues as Apple's culture and raison d'être are rarely, if ever, considered, and where Mr. Jobs is seen as the single force responsible for everything Apple has done in the 11 years since he returned to the company.