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On paper, Tim Cook is an unlikely candidate to be the activist chief executive in the United States. A southern son of a deep red, he is white and working class. He has studied no-nonsense topics such as engineering and business.
His predecessor Steve Jobs seemed a lot more liberal. Son of moderate California, Jobs in his early days had long hair, dressed like a hippie, went out with a rock star and was a vegetarian. He loved Bob Dylan and lived in a community.
Without a doubt, Jobs was brilliant. And he would have been far more likely to turn Apple into one of the largest progressive companies in the country. But here's the rub. Apple under Jobs has always had a reputation for being a liberal company, but its actions were not particularly liberal. It was a Fortune 500 killing machine. It avoided taxes and made no visible donation.
Cook, on the other hand, is his own man – a genius in his own right and seriously underestimated.
Apple under Cook is different
Cook has proven that he is an ethical man and his values are now an integral part of the operation of the company. He pushes Apple and the entire information technology sector by doing ethical transformations.
While the technology giant is accused of breaches of ethics, exploitation by workers and planned obsolescence of products, his positions on issues such Environment and charity contrast with its rivals Silicon Valley and elsewhere.
For example, after the massive fire of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Cook announced that Apple would contribute to the restoration.
But the gift of Our Lady is only a small part of Apple's charitable efforts under Cook. Since he took over the position of CEO of Job in 2011, Apple has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to causes such as disaster relief, education support programs, health and human rights organizations.
Jobs, for the most part, was very firm when it comes to charities and it is unlikely that he would have supported Cook's charitable efforts. Although he had amassed a personal fortune – about $ 7 billion at the time of his death in October 2011, according to Forbes – he did not have a huge reputation for donating to a charitable organization.
He even refused to sign the Giving Pledge, the organization created by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to convince wealthy people to promise to give half of their net worth to charities.
The history of donations Jobs remains a mystery
It is possible that Jobs has made a donation in private, which corresponds to its secret nature. It has long been speculated that he donated to medical causes. And, as part of Jobs, Apple has partnered with Bono's PRODUCT (RED) effort, which dedicates a portion of RED brand sales to the fight against HIV and AIDS in Africa. .
Jobs reportedly said the best thing he could do for a charity was to raise the price of Apple's stock so that shareholders could grow wealthy and give themselves.
When he returned to Apple in 1997 (after being sacked by the board of directors a dozen years ago), Jobs canceled all of the company's charitable programs implemented in his absence.
It was probably a wise move. Apple was a few weeks away from bankruptcy and needed every penny possible. Despite growing profits and revenues of $ 108 billion in the year of his death, Apple's charity programs are never restored until Cook takes the lead.
Do well while doing well
One of the first things Cook did after becoming a CEO was to institute a program in which Apple would donate up to $ 10,000 per employee per year. The company and its employees donated $ 2.6 million in the first two months of the program. Apple also donated $ 50 million to Stanford hospitals, where Jobs had been treated for cancer.
If people must have values, then, by extension, a company must have values.
The company has not released any new figures regarding employee donations. The amount collected since Cook took office remains unknown. But in 2018, after the Trump administration adjusted US tax laws to allow Apple to repatriate nearly $ 250 billion of foreign money, Cook announced that the amount of matching donations would be doubled at a rate from two to one instead of one to one.
Cook took Apple to the next level
Cook was right when he said that the best American companies are the most diverse, and Apple is about to endow itself with a more diverse workforce. Progress may be slow, but it was encouraging to learn that in 2017, half of Apple's new employees in the United States came from under-represented groups in the technology sector.
As Cook has already said, "I do not think that businesses should be limited to commercial activities.For me, business is nothing more than a whole set of people.If people have to have values, a company must by extension have some. "
And while under his leadership, Apple has become the first $ 1 billion global group, Cook has done a lot more by proving the old adage that it is possible to do good while doing good.
Leander Kahney is the editor of Worship of Mac and best-selling author of "Jony Ive: the genius behind the greatest products of Apple" and "In Steve's brain." His last book, "Tim Cook: The genius that brought Apple to the next level" is out now.
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