As the head of one of the most successful companies on the planet, Apple's Tim Cook is scrutinized perhaps more than any other CEO. Now some of that scrutiny has been focused and edited into a new book called Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs.
Written by former Wall Street Journal reporter Yukari Iwatani Kane, the book delves into the world of post-Steve Jobs Apple and how Cook runs the company in the face of impossibly high expectations.
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Kane's former paper published an excerpt of the book on Friday, and the passages reveal a Cook at once calm and composed, yet nevertheless ruthless in his execution on his predecessor's vision.
"To some, Cook was a machine; to others, he was riveting," Kane writes. "He could strike terror in the hearts of his subordinates, but he could also motivate them to toil from dawn to midnight for just a word of praise."
However, Kane also claims that Cook's tenure at Apple has had a bit of a dark side, embodied in what the writer characterizes as a decidedly detached management style.
"[H]e wasn't approachable," Kane writes. "Over the years, colleagues had tried to engage him in personal conversations, with little success. He worked out at a different gym than the one on Apple's campus and didn't fraternize outside of work."
Perhaps the most interesting part of the excerpt is when it contrasts Jobs' management style with Cook's. According to Kane, where Jobs might use a harsh word to motivate his team, Cook rules with icy and, based on the author's description, menacing silence.
Other parts of the excerpt describe Cook as "relentlessly frugal" with "inhuman stamina," almost making the CEO seem more like a robot than the smiling usher of the next great thing from Apple we've come to know in public.
But considering Cook's strict attention to maintaining his privacy, as well as his habit of crafting his public statements with laser precision, this new book could be one of the best looks into the character of the new head of Apple we've had yet. The book is due to hit bookstores on March 18.
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