Following the story of Cook offering to give Jobs his liver, Cook is quoted as saying the Isaacson book did the late CEO a ‘disservice’. In very similar words to how Cue described the (unrelated) film about Jobs at SXSW, Cook says ‘The person I read about there is somebody I would never have wanted to work with over all this time’.
Cook also recalls how Jobs would call up his mother on the pretense of finding Cook, but in reality just wanted to talk to his parents about convincing Cook to have more of a social life. ‘Someone who’s viewing life only as a transactional relationship with people…doesn’t do that’.
The excerpt also features Eddy Cue, who says Jobs ‘worked his ass off’ even in the final years, seemingly wanting to be treated as a normal person, not sick. As time went by, Jobs prioritized marketing, design and product introductions as to how he spent his time. Succession planning began in 2004 but was accelerated by Jobs’ declining health.
This also ties in with Apple University, which is a way to teach future company leaders about the decision making process of original Apple. Cook says that Jobs became more open to explaining his thought-process about things he had done.
Jobs also focused on the new spaceship headquarters, according to the book. Cook says Jobs always wanted to imbue ethical values into the company, something which Cook has amplified since his death.
On August 11th, Cook says Jobs called him to decide that he was going to be the next CEO. For context, Jobs died two months later, in October. The direct anecdote from this quote has been recalled before, but the excerpt does a good job of capturing Cook’s mixed feelings.
Cook describes how he thought Jobs would act as chairman for much longer than two months, with in-depth discussions about the arrangements. He says he saw Jobs ‘getting better’.
