Timothy Donald Cook is an American business executive who has been the chief executive officer of Apple Inc. since 2011. Cook previously served as the company’s chief operating officer under its co-founder Steve Jobs. Cook joined Apple in March 1998 as a senior vice president for worldwide operations, and then served as the executive vice president for worldwide sales and operations. He was made the chief executive on August 24, 2011, prior to Jobs’ death in October of that year.
During his tenure as the chief executive, he has advocated for the political reformation of international and domestic surveillance, cybersecurity, American manufacturing, and environmental preservation. Since 2011 when he took over Apple, to 2020, Cook doubled the company’s revenue and profit, and tremendeously increased the company’s market value.
In 2014, Cook became the first chief executive of a Fortune 500 company to publicly come out as gay. Cook also serves on the boards of directors of Nike, Inc. and the National Football Foundation, and is a trustee of Duke University. Outside of Apple, Cook engages in philanthropy, and in March 2015, he said he planned to donate his fortune to charity.
Some of the best quotes from Tim Cook are listed below.
- “A few years ago, users of Internet services began to realize that when an online service is free, you’re not the customer. You’re the product.” – Tim Cook
- “A great product isn’t just a collection of features. It’s how it all works together.” – Tim Cook
- “America is always stronger when we do things together.” – Tim Cook
- “An acorn would never brag about giving shade.” – Tim Cook
- “Anything can change, because the smartphone revolution is still in the early stages.” – Tim Cook
- “Apple doesn’t do hobbies as a general rule.” – Tim Cook
- “Apple has a culture of excellence that is, I think, so unique and so special. I’m not going to witness or permit the change of it.” – Tim Cook
- “Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being.” – Tim Cook
- “Apple is this great American company that could have only happened here.” – Tim Cook
- “As you go forward today, use your minds, hands, and your hearts to build something bigger than yourself.” – Tim Cook
- “At Apple we believe that work should be more than just about improving your own self. It’s about improving the lives of others as well.” – Tim Cook
- “Be different, leave something worthy, and always remember that you can’t take it with you. You are going to have to pass it on.” – Tim Cook
- “Build a better future than the one you thought was certain.” – Tim Cook
- “Builders are comfortable in the belief that their life’s work will one day be bigger than them.” – Tim Cook
- “Certainly, some things that are very good can sometimes be used in a bad way.” – Tim Cook
- “Companies that get confused, that think their goal is revenue or stock price or something. You have to focus on the things that lead to those.” – Tim Cook
- “Creativity is people who care enough to keep thinking about something until they find the simplest way to do it.” – Tim Cook
- “Discrimination, in all its forms, is bad for business.” – Tim Cook
- “Don’t shrink from risk.” – Tim Cook
- “Everybody doesn’t want to have to be a computer scientist to protect themselves. Most people have no desire to do that.” – Tim Cook
- “Excellence has become a habit.” – Tim Cook
- “Fearlessness means taking the first step even if you don’t know where it will take you. It means being driven by a higher purpose rather than by applause.” – Tim Cook
- “For me, the journey was not predictable at all.” – Tim Cook
- “For the most important decisions in your life, trust your intuition, and then work with everything you have, to prove it right.” – Tim Cook
- “From an app point of view, if you looked at innovation on the PC, you’d be hard pressed to find companies innovating. The list is small.” – Tim Cook
- “Graduates, your values matter. They are your north star. And work takes on new meaning when you feel you’re pointed in the right direction. Otherwise, it’s just a job. And life is too short for that.” – Tim Cook
- “Honestly, we’ll compete with everybody. I love competition. As long as people invent their own stuff, I love competition.” – Tim Cook
- “How can I serve humanity? This is life’s biggest and most important question.” – Tim Cook
- “I am a very optimistic guy, and I always think that there is a solution for everything.” – Tim Cook
- “I am driven by great work and seeing people do incredible things and having a part in that.” – Tim Cook
- “I am who I am, and I’m focused on that, and being a great CEO of Apple.” – Tim Cook
- “I believe that if you took privacy and you said, I’m willing to give up all of my privacy to be secure. So you weighted it as a zero. My own view is that encryption is a much better, much better world. And I’m not the only person that thinks that.” – Tim Cook
- “I despise politics. There is no room for it in a company. My life is going to be way too short to deal with that.” – Tim Cook
- “I don’t own encryption, Apple doesn’t own encryption. Encryption, as you know, is everywhere. In fact, some of encryption is funded by our government.” – Tim Cook
- “I don’t really think anything Microsoft does puts pressure on Apple.” – Tim Cook
- “I don’t think Apple has to own a content business.” – Tim Cook
- “I don’t think that we’re born with a gut (intuition). I think the gut matures and gets better and better over time. The struggle that most people have is learning to listen to it.” – Tim Cook
- “I found that even though I am an engineer and an analytical person at heart. The most important decisions I have made had nothing to do with any of that. They were all based on intuition.” – Tim Cook
- “I found that my life got bigger when I stopped caring what other people think about me.” – Tim Cook
- “I just want to build great products.” – Tim Cook
- “I know that if you got out of bed every morning and set your watch by what other people expect or demand, it will drive you crazy.” – Tim Cook
- “I learned that focus is key. Not just in your running a company, but in your personal life as well.” – Tim Cook
- “I learned that the greatest challenge of life is knowing when to break with conventional wisdom.” – Tim Cook
- “I like to be reminded of where I came from, and putting myself in modest surroundings helps me do that.” – Tim Cook
- “I love museums. But I don’t want to live in one.” – Tim Cook
- “I personally admire Steve Jobs not most for what he did, or what he said, but for what he stood for. The largest lesson I learned from Steve was that the joy in life is in the journey, and I saw him live this every day.” – Tim Cook
- “I remember what it was like to grow up in the South in the 1960s and 1970s. Discrimination isn’t something that’s easy to oppose. It doesn’t always stare you in the face. It moves in the shadows. And sometimes it shrouds itself within the very laws meant to protect us.” – Tim Cook
- “I spend almost all my time on people, strategy, and execution.” – Tim Cook
- “I think two people with strong points of view can appreciate each other even more.” – Tim Cook
- “I think you need to write your own rules.” – Tim Cook
- “I want to be the pebble in the pond that creates the ripple for change.” – Tim Cook
- “I’d rather Apple cannibalize Apple than somebody else cannibalize Apple.” – Tim Cook
- “I’m not targeting government. I’m not saying hey, I’m closing it because I don’t want to give you any data. I’m saying that to protect our customers, we have to encrypt. And a side effect of that is, I don’t have the data.” – Tim Cook
- “I’ve always hated litigation, and I continue to hate it.” – Tim Cook
- “If I know what your messages are, if I can read those, I’ll probably be able to conclude where you’re going, who you’re with, the location the message was sent.” – Tim Cook
- “If I’m expected to keep your messages, and everybody else’s, then there should be a law that says, you need to keep all of these.” – Tim Cook
- “If I’m working with you for several months on things, if I have a relationship with you, and I decide one day I’m going to sue you, I’m a country boy at the end of the day. I’m going to pick up the phone and tell you I’m going to sue you.” – Tim Cook
- “If you step up without fear of failure, if you talk and listen to each other without fear of rejection, if you act with decency and kindness even when no one is looking, even if it seems small or inconsequential, trust me, the rest will fall into place. More importantly, you will able to tackle the big things when they come your way.” – Tim Cook
- “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.” – Tim Cook
- “If you want to take credit, first, learn to take responsibility.” – Tim Cook
- “In a fearful time, call to hope.” – Tim Cook
- “In every age, life has a frustrating way of reminding us that we are not the sole authors of our story. We must share credit with a difficult and selfish collaborator called our circumstances.” – Tim Cook
- “In my view the tablet and the PC are different. You can do things with the tablet if you are not encumbered by the legacy of the PC.” – Tim Cook
- “In the long arc of time, you are only relevant if customers love you.” – Tim Cook
- “In the world of cyber security, the last thing you want is to have a target painted on you.” – Tim Cook
- “Intuition is critical in virtually everything you do. But, without relentless preparation and execution, it is meaningless.” – Tim Cook
- “It is possible to be aware of God at all times.” – Tim Cook
- “It’s about finding your values and committing to live by them.” – Tim Cook
- “It’s the basic way we treat one another that will solve so many other problems.” – Tim Cook
- “It’s the privilege of a lifetime for me to work with the most innovative people on Earth. Only Apple can deliver this kind of innovation in such a beautiful, integrated, and easy to use way. It’s what we love to do, it’s what we stand for.” – Tim Cook
- “Let your joy be in your journey, not in some distant goal.” – Tim Cook
- “Life is fragile. We’re not guaranteed a tomorrow so give it everything you’ve got.” – Tim Cook
- “Maybe law enforcement would like the ability to turn on the camera on your Mac.” – Tim Cook
- “Most business models have focused on self-interest instead of user experience. Those are the kinds of problems we solve to solve.” – Tim Cook
- “My business is not reading your messages. I don’t have a business doing that. And it’s against my values to do that. I don’t want to read your private stuff.” – Tim Cook
- “Never try to fix other people. God does not need to do a bank shot off your lips.” – Tim Cook
- “No big challenge has ever been solved and no lasting improvement has ever been achieved unless people dare to try something different.” – Tim Cook
- “No one should have a key that turns a billion locks. It shouldn’t exist.” – Tim Cook
- “Nobody wants to buy sour milk.” – Tim Cook
- “Our competition is different: They’re confused. They chased after netbooks. Now they’re trying to make PCs into tablets and tablets into PCs. Who knows what they’ll do next? I can’t answer that question, but I can tell you that we’re focused.” – Tim Cook
- “Our message, to people around the country and around the world, is this: Apple is open. Open to everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love.” – Tim Cook
- “Our new watches are made entirely of double super gold. They are just a piece of gold that you can wear to the left, right, or directly on top of the other gold you own.” – Tim Cook
- “People are running huge enterprises off of hacking and stealing data.” – Tim Cook
- “Price is rarely the most important thing. A cheap product might sell some units. Somebody gets it home and they feel great when they pay the money, but then they get it home and use it and the joy is gone.” – Tim Cook
- “Right to privacy is really important. You pull that brick out and another and pretty soon the house falls.” – Tim Cook
- “Security isn’t just a feature, it’s a base, it’s a fundamental, right.” – Tim Cook
- “Since these early days, I have seen and have experienced many types of discrimination and all of them were rooted in the fear of people that were different than the majority.” – Tim Cook
- “So, I had to figure out for myself what was right and true. It was a search. It was a process. It drew on the moral sense that I’d learned from my parents, and in church, and in my own heart, and led me on my own journey of discovery.” – Tim Cook
- “So let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.” – Tim Cook
- “Stay focused on what really matters.” – Tim Cook
- “Steve Jobs convinced me that if we worked hard and made great products, we too could help change the world.” – Tim Cook
- “Televisions are devices with screens that things appear on.” – Tim Cook
- “The future of television is what our competitors have been doing for years.” – Tim Cook
- “The government should always be the one defending civil liberties.” – Tim Cook
- “The longer the meeting, the less is accomplished.” – Tim Cook
- “The reality is, is that we love competition, at Apple. We think it makes us all better. But we want people to invent their own stuff.” – Tim Cook
- “The reality of today from a cyber security point of view – I think some of the top people predict that the next big war is fought on cyber security.” – Tim Cook
- “The sidelines are not where you want to live your life. The world needs you in the arena!” – Tim Cook
- “The worst thing in the world that can happen to you if you’re an engineer that has given his life to something is for someone to rip it off and put their name to it.” – Tim Cook
- “There are times in all of our lives when a reliance on gut or intuition just seems more appropriate – when a particular course of action just feels right.” – Tim Cook
- “There will be times when your resolve to serve humanity will be tested, be prepared.” – Tim Cook
- “There’s a mountain of information about us. I mean there’s so much. Anyway, I’m not an intelligence person. But I just look at it and it’s a mountain of data.” – Tim Cook
- “There’s something very dangerous happening in states across the country. A wave of legislation, introduced in more than two dozen states, would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors.” – Tim Cook
- “Those who meet times of historical challenge with their eyes and hearts open, forever restless and forever striving, are also those who have the greatest impact on the life of others.” – Tim Cook
- “Those who try to achieve success without hard work ultimately deceive themselves-or worse-deceive others.” – Tim Cook
- “To whom much is given, much is expected. I do believe this. It’s embedded in me.” – Tim Cook
- “We (Apple) find that people want to make great portraits. They want to record the moment of their life that is so important, and we want everybody to be able to do that.” – Tim Cook
- “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.” – Tim Cook
- “We do a lot of things for reasons besides profit motive. We want to leave the world better than we found it.” – Tim Cook
- “We have three post-PC devices: the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, the revolutionary device that defined a whole new category it’s outstripping the wildest of predictions.” – Tim Cook
- “We have to make sure, at Apple, that we stay true to focus, laser focus – we know we can only do great things a few times, only on a few products.” – Tim Cook
- “We make the best phone, we don’t make the most phones.” – Tim Cook
- “We pave the sunlit path toward justice together, brick by brick. This is my brick.” – Tim Cook
- “We should not expect the government to solve all problems.” – Tim Cook
- “We’re putting all of our energy into making it right. And we have already had several software updates. We’ve got a huge plan to make it even better. It will get better and better over time. We screwed up. That’s the fact.” – Tim Cook
- “We’re talking about a world where the PC is no longer the center, but just a device where your new devices need to be more portable, more personal.” – Tim Cook
- “We’re very simple people at Apple. We focus on making the world’s best products and enriching people’s lives.” – Tim Cook
- “We’ve (Apple) never been about selling the most. It’s always about selling the best.” – Tim Cook
- “What makes Siri cool is she has a personality.” – Tim Cook
- “What you build and what you create define who you are.” – Tim Cook
- “Whatever line of work you choose, there will always be cynics and critics on the sidelines tearing people down.” – Tim Cook
- “Whatever you do with your life, be a builder.” – Tim Cook
- “When I go into my living room and turn on the TV, I feel like I have gone backwards in time by 20 to 30 years. It’s an area of intense interest. I can’t say more than that.” – Tim Cook
- “When I think of civil liberties, I think of the founding principles of the country. The freedoms that are in the First Amendment. But also, the fundamental right to privacy.” – Tim Cook
- “When you work towards something greater than yourself, you find meaning and purpose.” – Tim Cook
- “When your time comes, and it will, you will never be ready, but you are not supposed to be. Find the hope in the unexpected, find the courage in the challenge, find your vision on the solitary road. Don’t get distracted.” – Tim Cook
- “While our team managed the manufacturing ramp better than ever before, we could have sold many more iPhones with greater supply and we are working hard to fill orders as quickly as possible.” – Tim Cook
- “With hacking getting more and more sophisticated, the hacking community has gone from the hobbyist in the basement to huge sophisticated companies that are essentially doing this, or groups of people or foreign agents inside and outside the United States.” – Tim Cook
- “Without encryption, you and I wouldn’t be able to do our banking online. We wouldn’t be able to buy things online, because your credit cards – they’ve probably been ripped off anyway, but they would be ripped off left and right every day if there wasn’t encryption.” – Tim Cook
- “You are more powerful than you think.” – Tim Cook
- “You can focus on things that are barriers or you can focus on scaling the wall or redefining the problem.” – Tim Cook
- “You can generally believe that if you do things in the same manner, you are not gonna get a much better result than people have gotten for years, decades, or centuries. You have to come up with a different way of viewing the problem.” – Tim Cook
- “You can only do so many things great, and you should cast aside everything else.” – Tim Cook
- “You can’t have a back door that’s only for the good guys.” – Tim Cook
- “Your mentors may leave you prepared but they can’t leave you ready.” – Tim Cook
- “Your values matter. They are your North Star.” – Tim Cook
