Apple CEO Tim Cook was
spotted in Berlin, Germany on Tuesday, spending a portion of his day with the editors of the German tabloid paper
Bild, though the reasons for the visit were not made clear. Cook may be in Germany for a variety of reasons, ranging from meetings with EU bankers to help forge European Apple Pay agreements, to overseeing the last of the
glass panels for the Apple Campus 2, or on his way to Israel to help
open the new Apple R&D center there. While in Germany, he tweeted
a remembrance of what would have been Steve Jobs' 60th birthday.
"Remembering Steve, who would have turned 60 today," Cook wrote. "The only way to do great work is to love what you do," he added, echoing a quote of Jobs'. The co-founder of Apple and twice-CEO of the company, Jobs returned to the fold in 1997 and refocused the executive and engineering teams in what most would consider the most successful comeback in business history.
At the time he took over for his second reign as CEO, the firm was 90 days away from bankruptcy, he later revealed. Today, it is the single most profitable and
most valuable publicly-traded company in the world.
Jobs chose Cook to succeed him as CEO, resigning from the post just two months prior to his death in 2011. At the time, the choice befuddled pundits, even though Cook had a reputation as a world-class operations manager -- because the conventional thinking was that Apple would need another visionary, charismatic leader to carry it forward, and continue the path of innovation that had saved the firm more than a decade earlier.
As with many of Jobs' choices, however, the move turned out to be prescient. Jobs foresaw that Apple would have need of a different management style and direction, having become one of America's largest and most profitable companies, than the focus it had when it was teetering on irrelevance with a small but loyal audience. The executive team Jobs assembled as his health declined across his final few years were all strong visionaries in their own areas, and Jobs' collaborative relationship with Sir Jonathan Ive ensured that the design aspect for which Apple is renowned would continue.
Cook's ability to handle the wolves of Wall Street and the calls of stockholders, while helping to manage the growth of the company, assisted by operations manager Jeff Williams and CFO Luca Maestri, allowed the other executives to work more collaboratively on creating and executing on innovations in software and hardware with a high degree of insulation from the running of the business.
Cook visits Bild offices
Although the reason for Cook's visit to
Bild is unclear, he also took the occasion to visit Augsburg, where he visited the glass factory making the 2,400 innovative
large curved glass panels for Apple's Campus 2 new headquarters, scheduled to open in 2016. The last of the custom-made units rolled off the line while Cook was visiting the facility.
The new
research facility in Israel, which Cook is rumored to be attending the opening of, will employ some 800 to 1,000 workers, including many former members of Anobit, the flash memory firm Apple
bought in late 2010, along with employees formerly of motion-sensing firm Primesense, which Apple
acquired in late 2013.
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